In recent years, local business have been making use of the internet to find additional customers using local search marketing. Below, I will discuss ten solid tips to ensure any local business has the opportunity to outrank their competitors.
Investigate Local Directories
It's important to do proper research in order to optimize your local search results, just like other types of SEO. Look up your business on a search engine yourself. Knowing where your business appears on directories is crucial, so this is the first step. When searching, don't limit your queries to just your business name though; try different combinations of your phone number, and address also. Have a separate spreadsheet ready, and detail the information and copy the links so you can keep track.
Third party data providers and local directories inform the search engines. This external data on your business is compiled, processed, and compared to the index kept by the big search engines. It's important, therefore, to ensure the signals from every local directory and data provider are correct and consistent. In addition to third party data, search engines use the citations in their index as a ranking factor. Citations are mentions of the name, address, and phone number (NAP) of a business across the web.
Google Places
A Google Places listing is important, be sure to make one. Be thorough, this is imperative! Make sure to keep all of your contact information correct, fill out your hours and description, and above all, make sure you have one or more categories selected. A crucial element in this process are categories; as many categories as possible must be carefully chosen that match perfectly the business that you are promoting. The business in question should have the correct categories selected, if it's a French restaurant, select both "restaurant" and "French restaurant". This should then be accentuated by promoting the best of your business with exquisite photography of the products, (5 minimum) and of course an amazing cover photo.
Create Geo-specific Pages
Create location pages on site for multiple locations. If you have multiple locations, consider creating individual optimized pages on your website for each location. If you want to draw traffic in front a specific region then you need to ensure that you're using keywords that are specific to your targeting market as well as the regions you operate. It makes sense to use landing pages that correlate to the areas your business is operating in.
When you target local audiences on your pages instead of globally you increase the chance of boosting your listing for local SERPs. Narrowing down your keywords and phrases to only local results will be beneficial because your site will end up ranking higher for your area, and the pages that are not relevant will be much lower, enabling you to be more easily found by customers.
Ask Customers to Complete Reviews
A crucial part of business strategy is to get customer reviews, these make a huge difference. Customers who have had a pleasant experience with your products or services can help you immensely by leaving a review on your website, and that helps you rank higher in search engines. Make it clear that reviews are really important to you and that you are intently interested in that customer's opinion.
Investigate Local Directories
It's important to do proper research in order to optimize your local search results, just like other types of SEO. Look up your business on a search engine yourself. Knowing where your business appears on directories is crucial, so this is the first step. When searching, don't limit your queries to just your business name though; try different combinations of your phone number, and address also. Have a separate spreadsheet ready, and detail the information and copy the links so you can keep track.
Third party data providers and local directories inform the search engines. This external data on your business is compiled, processed, and compared to the index kept by the big search engines. It's important, therefore, to ensure the signals from every local directory and data provider are correct and consistent. In addition to third party data, search engines use the citations in their index as a ranking factor. Citations are mentions of the name, address, and phone number (NAP) of a business across the web.
Google Places
A Google Places listing is important, be sure to make one. Be thorough, this is imperative! Make sure to keep all of your contact information correct, fill out your hours and description, and above all, make sure you have one or more categories selected. A crucial element in this process are categories; as many categories as possible must be carefully chosen that match perfectly the business that you are promoting. The business in question should have the correct categories selected, if it's a French restaurant, select both "restaurant" and "French restaurant". This should then be accentuated by promoting the best of your business with exquisite photography of the products, (5 minimum) and of course an amazing cover photo.
Create Geo-specific Pages
Create location pages on site for multiple locations. If you have multiple locations, consider creating individual optimized pages on your website for each location. If you want to draw traffic in front a specific region then you need to ensure that you're using keywords that are specific to your targeting market as well as the regions you operate. It makes sense to use landing pages that correlate to the areas your business is operating in.
When you target local audiences on your pages instead of globally you increase the chance of boosting your listing for local SERPs. Narrowing down your keywords and phrases to only local results will be beneficial because your site will end up ranking higher for your area, and the pages that are not relevant will be much lower, enabling you to be more easily found by customers.
Ask Customers to Complete Reviews
A crucial part of business strategy is to get customer reviews, these make a huge difference. Customers who have had a pleasant experience with your products or services can help you immensely by leaving a review on your website, and that helps you rank higher in search engines. Make it clear that reviews are really important to you and that you are intently interested in that customer's opinion.
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