How to Improve Your Local SEO in 7 Easy Steps
If you have a local business nothing is more important when it comes to online marketing than to have your business appear in the local search results. To accomplish this, you need to be sure to do enough local SEO to ensure a solid presence and listing.
Here is a laundry list of 7 ways for you to make your local SEO better, and have that pay off in better search results and more visitors!
7 Easy ways to improve your local SEO
Be sure and use local keywords – You will have a tough time ranking for local search terms if you aren’t aware what they are for your business and niche. Good keyword research is a matter of delving deeply into the keywords the market is searching with, the words your competition is using, and selecting words that lead to outcomes you desire. This can take some time and thought, but it is better done at the start than having to retool later.
Have consistent business information – You’ll want to be sure your critical business info, known as NAP (name address and phone numbers) in addition to any other important information is the same over all your web and social sites.
Utilize any local directories – Do a search for your business and you’ll probably find some directory listings you have not created yourself. This is common, but what’s key is that you make sure to claim these listings as your own, and make sure your data is correct. These are used by large numbers of searchers, and it’s important to get right.
Use Google+ Local pages – Make the most of the Google+ local page, and you’ll discover this is a terrific way to engage with people, post content, and respond to reviews and questions in a social way.
Get genuine reviews – If you haven’t realized this already, reviews are one of the most important pieces of your local rankings, as they are vital for providing social proof, along with needed citations. Never generate these yourself!
Get a mobile version of your site – The world is going mobile, and since half of all web searches are done on mobile and 95 percent of mobile users have sought out a local business on their smartphone, creating a mobile version of your site is flat-out necessary.
Don’t forget your social profiles! – Don’t make the mistake of believing no one seeks you on your social media. These listings, however anemic, still show up highly in the search results for your business, and should not be ignored.