Over the last few years, local SEO has grown significantly, particularly since the increased use of smartphones and internet connectivity. You’d be wondering how to achieve the results you want for your business? Needless to tell you marketing is so important for your business however successful it may already be. As an entrepreneur, you’re always on the lookout for new customers in addition to the permanent ones. With the right marketing approach, you can build brand awareness to increase your sales and engage your customers.
Coming to terms with SEO:
To begin with let’s first understand what local Search Engine Optimization is. As you would know already SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the art of ranking good in search engines. If you own a store, you would definitely want your business to appear on Google at the top every time a search is performed. Local SEO is a very effective way to promote your business online. With local SEO you can market your products or services you’re specialising in customers who are looking for these at exactly the same time. So you see the purpose of this whole process is to get your name and business along with your website visible to those who are located nearby. Ultimately it’s much different from organic SEO. While you may go global in some time, if you’ve got a smaller business or a start-up, consider local business marketing to promote yourself to those who are at close proximity to you because they are more likely to make use of what you’re selling. Local Search Engine Optimization is the new rage these days which even you may have heard of. Consider including local SEO services as essential part of your strategy.
Scroll below to find some best practices for local SEO.
- Verify the Google My Business Listing:
Google My Business is a free and simple tool that connects your business with your customers. So claim your Google My business page if you haven’t done already. Enter the code that Google will send to your address for verification purposes and this may even take up to two weeks. Ensure that your name, address, and phone or NAP details are correct. Add your hours of operation and customer reviews so Google can display your local business information in the search.
- Consistency in contact information in your online profiles:
Creating consistent online presence is the key to your social media accounts. It’s vital for your business. You don’t want customers to follow your brand on Facebook and then on Instagram and form an impression that they are following a completely different brand. Make sure the NAP details are consistent throughout your online profiles.
- Add a Google map to your website:
Cutting and pasting the address can annoy customers and often they’ll drop the whole idea of locating you. An embedded Google map will be a great addition to your website. This is how you can pull up your business website on smartphones. Google Maps is a handy mapping tool that can increase the functionality of your website. Make sure the map you embed doesn’t just points to your address but also displays your real Google Plus local listing.
- Geotagging for search engines to recognise your location:
Depending on the nature of your business, it may or may not be location specific. You can use various online tools to generate these tags. It works as a regional identifier by defining the longitude and latitude. A location-tagged network creates more brand awareness.
- Add rich snippets related to your business:
Rich snippets work well in favor of rich search results. Schema markup is one the latest evolutions in SEO. It’s a new and powerful sort of evolution but only some make the best use of this form of SEO. If you’ve properly grasped the concept and method of schema markup then you can easily boost your website in the Search Engine Result Pages or SERPs.
- Page content and meta tags for local keywords:
Meta descriptions summarize a page’s content. Optimizing it in the best possible ways is an important aspect of on-page SEO. Page content is something that is despite being important often overlooked. It is again needless to say that qualitative content is really crucial to accommodate local keywords beautifully.
