Business Growth with Local SEO
Local search is powerful for small businesses: four out of five consumers use search to find local information, which means if your business isn’t optimised for local search, you could be missing out on 80% of your potential customers. In short, local SEO is critical if you want your business to stay relevant.
Local SEO helps businesses promote their products and services to local prospects and customers. To gather information for local search, search engines rely on signals such as local content, social profile pages, links, and citations to provide the most relevant local results to the user.
To thrive in local search, you need to do three things: optimise your Google My Business account, improve your on-page SEO by updating your website, and excel in the Search Engines. While it might sound overwhelming, it’s entirely feasible to succeed in all three with some patience and perseverance.
So how do we achieve this?
Optimise for Google My Business
Google My Business has become the creme de la creme of local search since Google understandably feels most comfortable sharing content it can support and verify. Google My Business is their tool to help your business meet Google’s needs. If Google can verify your business as authentic, it will potentially reward your business with a coveted sidebar space in Google local search.
Website Updates
Now that we’ve discussed optimizing your business for Google My Business, let’s take a look at five simple website updates to improve your local SEO.
1. Review your Internal Linking Structure
Although external links pointing to your site are ideal, adjusting your internal linking structure will also help boost your SEO rankings. Why does internal linking matter? It does the following:
Supports website navigation
> Assists with information architecture and website hierarchy
> Distributes page authority and ranking power among pages
> If you want to improve your internal linking structure but aren’t sure where to start, check out Kissmetrics’
2. Optimise URL, Title Tags, Headers, Meta Description, and Content
When it comes to content, every new blog post is a new indexed page for your site, a new page on which to target a geographic search phrase, and a new opportunity to get found in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Every time you write a piece of content, you need to optimise the content for search engines by using high-volume keywords in the URL, title, header, meta description, and body. If you’re having trouble coming up with geo-targeted content, consider highlighting customer success stories and case studies.
3. Add Location Pages to your Website
If you have more than one brick and mortar location, create location pages. Location pages provide readers with your NAP, store hours, unique store descriptions, parking/transit information, promotions, testimonials from happy customers, and more. It’s also important you avoid duplicating content across multiple location pages. For single location businesses, create a locally descriptive About Us page. You’ll get big time bonus points if you add a Google Map to your website on your respective location page(s).
4. Create Local Content
Google continues to get smarter, which means content creators are now able to truly write for users, not search engines. But while writing about general topics will attract a wide crowd, sometimes it’s more important to hone your focus and write about local or industry news to attract a local audience. Be the local authority for your industry by promoting local industry gatherings, news, employees, and other educational content on your blog. Think of top-of-the-funnel content that goes beyond what your business sells.
For example, if you’re a local security company and you’re trying to attract businesses that are new to the area, create a helpful resource to get these businesses well-acquainted with your city. A map of local service providers or a calendar of city-wide events could both provide value for your persona and contain highly relevant on-page local signals.
5. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
Local search and mobile search go hand in hand (nine out of ten smartphone users conduct local searches on their devices!). Some of the most common ways people will use your site in a mobile environment is to look up reviews, find directions to your location, and search for contact information. Make it easy for your prospects and customers by making your site mobile-friendly.
If you are interested in pushing your business to local customers – Fueling Business Growth with Local SEO – then call Direct Submit today on 0845 2722350. Here at Direct Submit, our team of SEO experts will create a bespoke results-driven strategy to improve your SEO and help to boost your conversions. Ultimately, our SEO services are designed to drive qualified website traffic and leads to your business.
