5 Local SEO Ideas on a Small Budget

85% of consumers today use the Internet to find local businesses! For local customers to come across your business, you must have increased visibility among the target audience. And only a proper SEO strategy can make this happen. If you’re a start-up or small business finding it difficult to grasp the best SEO practices, this article is for you. Here I have listed five local SEO strategies that will give you a smooth start.

Choose Target Keywords

Look for key terms your target audience is searching for online, and create a lot of good content based on that. Think like your prospective customers when selecting keywords. Instead of concentrating on extremely competitive keywords, go for phrases that have a real-world touch while also having some connection with your geographic location. Remember, keyword stuffing and stemming are no longer in use, and following such practices will do only harm. Choosing a set of ideal keywords and creating relevant content accordingly will attract more genuine visitors to your website, and eventually improve your SERP rankings.

Optimizing Your Website

You can see from SERPs that the websites with good user experience have their top positions in Google rankings. So for your website to be on the top of the search results, it needs to follow the basic SEO practices, has the pages optimized, and follow Google-compliant guidelines to the fullest. The guidelines include having optimized title tags and Meta descriptions, image tags, a well-organized site structure, internal links, and backlinks.

Create Great Content

Google’s use of artificial intelligence in search is more into ignoring results that aren’t useful for users. So the only way to get into SERPs is by creating great content. Keep your audience in mind when creating content for your website; your content should be something that provides value to the users. It shall be anything from answers to their queries, useful data, tips, videos, etc. Increase the relevancy of your content by using your target keywords and make sure your content is informative, unique, and of good quality.

Local Citations

Having a strong local presence is essential for any business, and citations play a more significant role in improving that. Citations are online references to a company’s NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number) that also has a link to the business’ website. According to experts, Google uses these local citations for evaluating the local authority of any business. The larger the number of citations a company has, the higher its probability of achieving top rankings in local search results will be. Not just the count, it’s also essential that they are good citations. With that said, the two things a business owner should take into consideration are the accuracy of the citations and the quality of directories where the citations are on. Read on to find more about local citation building.

Backlinks

Link building is and will always be an essential part of SEO. Try building backlinks from websites that target your geographic location, as they target a more relevant audience that is more likely to become your potential customers. Your effort into building local backlinks should be more about building your brand credibility and search engine rankings. Try local blogs and social influencers, as they are a great way to get local backlinks.