7 Tips for Enhancing your Local SEO
By Google’s own admission, they make between 500-600 changes to the algorithm annually, so being aware of all of them and how they affect your site can be a full time job. If you’re frustrated attempting to keep up with all the changes that transpire within the Google Local search space, then take heart, you’re not alone!
Just in the last year there was the Pigeon update, aimed primarily at local, MobileGeddon, and the demise of Carousel. These major events together with the dozens of minor shifts make it time to look at what we need to do to keep current.
In order to keep things simple here, we’ve distilled our list of best Local SEO practices to a mere 7. Implement these as soon as you can for best results!
7 Best Practices for Local SEO
Don’t stop link building – But do it naturally! Be certain that you’re creating awesome content that is getting shared as widely as possible, and see the links flow in. These are the best types of links you can acquire.
Be sure to GEO-target your pages – The Pigeon update was all about preferring local content over global when possible. Make it possible on your pages with local geo-modifiers.
Citations still matter – These days it’s about getting quality citations, and cleaning them up so as not to have duplicate entries and inconsistent data.
Customer reviews help immensely! – With more than 90% of consumers reading online customer reviews before purchasing, these are more important than ever. A great form of social proof, you need to solicit these from happy customers and reward them if you have to.
Use Google My Business – Google’s local business tool suite is an remarkable tool that you need to be fully invested in. There are so many ways this helps your business, but one of the main ones is the ability to easily manage reviews.
Create and optimize local images – Use unique local images and make sure they are geo-tagged appropriately. This can help you in several ways, including Google Images, the 7 pack, Your Google My Business page and more.
Take advantage of social sharing – Make sure you have social media icons present on all your pages and content so as to provide your audience with the opportunity to share your content far and wide!