A physical location company probably needs local SEO. This type of SEO is still a mystery to many small business owners. It shouldn’t. Integrating the concept into any marketing or web design strategy is easy. This guide will teach you how to make local SEO work for your business.
Table of Contents
- Types of Businesses That Need Local SEO
- Local SEO vs. Traditional SEO
- Local Profiles on Google
- Be Consistent with Every Listing
- Using On-Site Optimization Techniques
- The Most Important Factors to Boost Local SEO Rank
- Central Location Matters
- Essential Tips to Boost Local SEO Today
What types of businesses need local SEO?
Local SEO is available to any business, but it works best for companies with physical addresses. Local SEO is an excellent idea if your primary source of business comes from local customers or clients. Local companies, such as restaurants, retailers, doctors’ offices, dental offices, attorneys, and others, can benefit from a localized marketing strategy. If you want your website to attract foot traffic, use local SEO.
Local SEO vs. Local SEO vs. Traditional SEO
Traditional or national search engine optimization will target keywords with a broad scope. These keywords need a regional focus. If you are the marketing team for Wal-Mart, your keywords may be aimed at all markets and will focus on “cheap tire,” “tire discounts,” or “tire deals.” However, if your company is a local auto-tire business, your keywords should focus on the location, such as “cheap wheels Orlando” or ‘tire discounts Orlando, FL.’
Local profiles on Google
Create profiles on Google for any business that wants local traffic. Why’s that? Google is the most popular tool for researching products and services. When you type “new tires Orlando” into the search bar, a list of businesses with Google Places profiles will appear at the top.
Google Places, Google Plus, and Google Maps must have the business’s complete address and contact information. Profiles must include as much information about the business as possible, including a detailed description, photos, contact information, store hours, and reviews.
Create profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites. You should control the information on these sites when someone searches for your store name or product information.
Be Consistent in Every Listing
You should ensure that it is the same on all pages containing your name, address, and phone number. The same photo and additional images consistent with your other profiles should be used. You should not abbreviate an address but not another.
Using On-Site Optimization Techniques
Local on-site SEO is a four-step process. Name, address, and phone number should be displayed on each page of your website, whether at the top or bottom. Your title tags, meta description, and site content should also include the city and state name. The schema local markup will help users and search engines identify your location. You can also use KML, or keyhole Markup Language file, to improve your on-site SEO.
Local SEO Ranking Factors: The Most Important Things to Consider
It is important to have reviews, positive feedback, and many profiles. Reviews should appear on all pages that allow for reviews. However, Google Places is the most popular and contributes most to the local business ranking. When a customer has a positive experience, businesses often ask them to leave a review or add some hints. You should not pay for reviews. However, some companies have successfully offered gifts to customers who leave reviews.
Central Location is Important
Even though all of these factors will boost your ranking, if your business is in the city center, you may not be at the top. Google’s “centroid bias” means that when someone searches “tires Orlando FL,” it will only show results near the city center.
Local SEO: Basic Tips for Today
Here are the steps that a business owner should take immediately to enhance local SEO.
1. Claim your local listing on Google Places.
Finish the listing only when the profile is 100% complete. You will need images, videos, descriptions, and links to finish your listing. You should only use keywords or location names if it is essential. If you are the owner of “Cheap Orlando Tires, Inc.”, then that’s fine, but you shouldn’t use “Cheap Tires Plus Orlando, FL” if your company is called “Tires Plus Orlando.”
2. Spread the word about Yext.
Yext allows you to share your local business information on other platforms in the same way as Google Places. Each becomes “citations,” which are valuable for local SEO.
3. Create other social profiles that are important.
Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are important for local SEO. But if you have a more visually oriented business, it may be worth setting up a Pinterest profile. Or if there’s a website listing all the local tire shops, your company should also be listed there.
4. Build Local SEO on-Site
You can include local SEO keywords in your website content, such as “Tires In Orlando” or “Orlando Tires.” Links, title tags, and anchor text should include city and state keywords. Meta descriptions, meta keywords, and in-text keywords can also be used. Link building is essential to increasing traffic. It would help if you linked to pages with PageRank 3 and above related to your articles and blogs. Also, you can connect to a specific page within your website with a keyword.
You can use the following HTML code to create URLs to link to your keywords.
url” title=”Tires in Orlando”>Cheap tires
You can now quickly build your website’s reputation and be found online by people searching for products and services in your area.
