
While it’s important to reach people in all areas of the country or even the world, it’s more important to reach the people with the most direct access to your business: the local community. Standard SEO is great, but it can only do so much on a smaller, local scale. There are, however, specific methods that you can use to target locals with SEO, called (you guessed it) Local SEO. The tactics are similar, but it’s done to target locals and generate direct and immediate success. Here are the best ways to boost your local SEO.
Google My Business
One of the best and most successful local SEO tactics is to build out your Google My Business page, now known as Google Business Profile. How are people supposed to find you if your business isn’t on the internet? Doing normal SEO for your website will help people see it, but without a Google My Business page, people won’t be able to see your hours or address, or directions to your storefront or office. Your Google my Business will drastically help your business succeed locally if it’s done right.
In order to ensure that your Google My Business profile will be a help rather than a hindrance, it needs to be as accurate as possible. This means that if you update your website, move locations, or change your hours, you should immediately update that information on GMB. You may also want to upload images of your storefront or office, and your logo so people can associate these with your business. It’s been found that
Consistency Across Platforms
While Google is the top search engine, it isn’t the only place that people will see your business. Yelp is also a super popular platform for people to check reviews and services. Because of this, not only do you want that information to be accurate, but you want it to be consistent, even identical, to your Google My Business and your website. This ensures that there will be no confusion by looking at one page versus the other. A great tool for putting the same content across multiple platforms is Moz, where you can input the information and have it automatically sent to every platform you use for local SEO.
Local Keyword Research
General keyword research is incredibly important, but it’s far more important for local SEO to target local keywords. These are keywords like “barbershop near me”, “HVAC mechanic Phoenix”, or “best Mexican restaurant in Denver”. Any keyword that involves your town, city, or state, or says “near me” or “in my area” you’ll want to push for in your keyword research. This will put you even more on the map for local search results as it will put you right at home. Bear in mind that not every keyword you’ll want falls within these categories, and you’ll want to do some research on more standard keywords, but these are a great jumping-off point for local SEO.
Check your NAP Citations
Your NAP citation is one of the most important aspects of local SEO. Your NAP citation will feature your name, address, and phone number, and it’s going to be involved in every local SEO effort you take. If your NAP citation isn’t accurate, then you’re giving your customers incorrect information and leading them away from your business rather than towards it. Your NAP goes in your Google My Business, Yelp, and any directories or lists you try to put yourself on. If nothing else, you must make sure that your NAP citation is correct, as it’s the backbone for virtually everything that you do locally.
Track Your Local Rankings
Being able to track how you rank locally is extremely beneficial. Google has the capability to change your rank based on how far the user is from your location. This can be as small of a distance as the street they’re on. The closer the user gets to your business, the higher you’ll rank on their local results, and potentially show up in the featured snippet of results. Being able to track where on a map you can rank higher is helpful, and tools such as Local Falcon can help you do that with ease.
Manage Your Reviews
Reviews are one of the top ways to improve your local SEO. That is, by having good reviews. If people post a review about how much they loved their experience with your business. You want your overall rating to be as high as possible as this does have an impact on your ranking. Be sure to respond to good reviews thanking them for their review and saying that you’re glad they had a good experience with your business. However, sometimes people will leave bad reviews, it’s something that happens frequently and is pretty much inevitable. It’s up to you, however, to respond to those bad reviews as calmly and respectfully as possible. Apologize that the customer had a bad experience, offer a solution of some sort, whether it’s to call and work some deal out or something else, and then promise and ensure that your team will do everything in their power to make sure that their next experience with you is the best it can be. People seeing a kind, understanding, and helpful response will make them more inclined to visit your site. It might also persuade the reviewer to rethink their stance on your business.
There are a lot of ways to improve your global SEO, but local SEO is an easy method that has a great degree of success. Knowing how to use it properly will help you build a great local ranking and show more local people your website and business. Local SEO is one of the most important steps to digital and physical success.
Contact us to learn more about how our team at Ascent Digital can help your business.