Local SEO, is perhaps one of the best opportunities for small businesses to grow online. Hubspot has found that 4 in 5 people use search to discover local information while SEO Roundtable noted that 46% of all searches in Google have “local intent”, meaning that you simply can’t afford not to invest in local SEO. These actionable tips will help improve your local SEO today, and get the customers your business deserves.
Optimize for Google My Business
This is where you can see the biggest impact on your local SEO. Create a Google My Business (GMB) listing and be as thorough as possible. Ensure every possible data point is filled out and is consistent (have a consistent phone number and address anywhere your business may be found). GMB acts as an online Yellow Pages for your business and is a very important ranking factor for Google.
Be sure to keep your GMB up to date with new information, reviews and even social media posts. For many, your GMB listing will be the first time a prospective customer will discover your business, so it’s crucial that you make a good first impression.
Great Local Content
Creating great content is always important for SEO, but you need to take that a step further when dealing with local SEO. Here you need to focus on building local authority and establish your business as a thought leader of the community. This means you need to focus on targeting local keywords and covering local issues with your content.
Using tools like Google Trends is a great way to uncover what topics are currently trending in your region so that you can act fast and create some fantastic content that will help establish your local authority.
Focus on Reviews
Reviews can make or break a local business. They act as a digital version of word-of-mouth that naturally helps prospective customers understand your business’s qualities and value. But they are also a hugely important ranking factor for Google to help understand how to rank your business. That’s why it’s so important to both acquire more reviews as well as manage the reviews you do get.
A great way to encourage reviews is with a follow up email to customers after they have purchased with a gentle encouragement to leave a review and include instructions on how to leave a review on Google.
If you ever get a negative review, don’t ignore it! Tackle it head on by responding to it asking how you can improve or what measures you’ve taken to ensure the issue is resolved.
Build Local Links
Link Building has long been the foundation of SEO and remains one of the most important ranking factors. For local SEO, you want to adjust this strategy to focus on local links. A good start is creating great local content as we mentioned before. You can also reach out to local newspapers or media with business news that may be of interest to the local community.
You can also do a search for local area directories, but only consider the sites you find on the first 3 pages of the SERPs. Many of them will probably be a free listing option, so take advantage of that. Local associations, accreditations and business groups are also a good way to show the search engines that you are credible and active in the local community. Make a list of these groups and check out their websites’ for a members listing page, then email and find out how you can also be listed here with a link to your website.
Another idea is to talk to your business suppliers and applicable business customers who have websites. Many of these contacts may have a “Partners” page or “Suppliers” page on their website where they could mention and add a link to your site. These links are great for local SEO link sourcing and relationship building, because you are working to nurture real relationships and build your local authority online. However, try to make sure that your links are placed with some contextual relevance and not barely visible in the footer area.
Improve Your Internal Link Structure
Besides building your external link opportunities to boost your SEO, you also want to improve your internal link structure. Your internal links help support your website navigation, as well as assisting with information architecture and website hierarchy. Internal links also help distribute page authority and ranking power among your website pages.
In Google’s own words:
“Some pages are known because Google has already crawled them before. Other pages are discovered when Google follows a link from a known page to a new page.”
So, using optimised internal links is a great way of allowing Google to regularly discover relevant content on your website, as well as demonstrating the contextual relationship between the two pages. Internal links are arguably one of the most neglected link building strategies in SEO marketing, so don’t underestimate the impact of developing an optimised internal link structure to boost your SEO in general and specifically in your local area.
Summary
If you aren’t optimising for local SEO, then your business is missing out on a huge number of potential customers. By implementing these tips, your business opens itself up to a huge amount of local traffic.
SEO Plans are a highly respected authority on local SEO Gold Coast digital marketing and link building. To learn how they can help grow your business, check out SEO Plans today!
Source: https://seoagencygoldcoast(dot)populiser(dot)com/
About the Creator
Disarmament
They say there's no atheism in the foxhole. While I wasn't currently neck-deep in a river of soft sediment, I was still praying to whoever would listen. Why am I doing this again? I would ponder while staring at the device that in no less than a minute could be my undoing. I scanned each and every variable panel and commonplace button as I watched the bright red L.E.D ticker countdown. No wires to cut, no code to put in, there was only one way to stop this infernal machine, and that incurred perfect timing.
By James U. Rizzia day ago in Fiction
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