Local SEO Strategies For Small Businesses

Going local, the only competition you have to worry about will be other businesses in the same region you’re working in. A good way to top your competitors is to have a strong local SEO. If you’re unsure where to start, this might be a good place to start.

1. with Business Directories

Google My Business can be a key tool to a strong, competitive SEO strategy for your small business. When you make your account, make sure to put a description of your business, as it can influence SEO.

Make sure to use it effectively, add vital information regarding your business such as business hours, and photos to help potential customers find your business, along with a call to action.

Yelp is another strong contender and should be considered by businesses that want to improve their local SEO. With Yelp!, you should link back to your business website, correct information, and include accurate citations.

In addition, it might also be beneficial to you to incorporate outlets that aren’t as popular–for the ability to add more citations, at the very least.

2. Customer Reviews

Customer reviews, positive ones specifically, aid you immensely in SEO. To gain as many as possible, making them easily accessible is imperative.

In regards to local SEO, it might be possible to ask for reviews through a physical medium.

Do remember that business directories have differing review protocols

3. Mobility

Concerning local SEO, mobile accessibility is a key component of your local SEO strategy. However, now more than ever, it's incredibly easy to make your website mobile-friendly. Use a good WordPress theme or using a third-party plugin to make an optimized mobile site without too many complications.

Functionality is important, but loading speeds and page speeds are important as well. Slow websites can be costly. Making improvements to how your mobile site performs can net you better rankings in the SERP.

4. Identify Local Keywords

Finding keywords for local SEO can be difficult to decipher. However, starting with both broad and long-tail keywords can ease the challenge of knowing what keywords to use. When you find a decent list of nonlocalized keywords, utilize any existing customer data to determine what areas you should use your marketing strategies on.

5. Selective Local Content

Having local content, and a consistent source of local content can help your SEO ranking immensely by possibly bringing more organic traffic to your site. With local SEO, you should focus on content that will be related and accurate for customers in the area you’re serving, so you can cut out competition, gain better ranking, and connect with more potential customers where you are.

6. Optimize Web Page SEO

Optimizing local SEO requires different strategies than those for bigger businesses. Incorporating input and testimonials from your customers, a citation, as well as an interactive Google Map on your site are good starting steps for you to use in your strategy.

The strongest tactic for you to utilize is having a separate landing page for the region you are targeting, and making sure to have unique content for every landing page.

7. Consistency in Citations

Citations have been mentioned several times, consisting of a Name, Address, and Phone Number for your business. Information like this is extremely useful for your audience, and even more useful for the search engine–it is one of the leading ranking factors for local SEO. These citations can be useful in establishing yourself to be credible.

However, you must monitor and make sure that the citations are consistent every time; if there are any differences between them, the impact they have can taper slightly.

8. Local Backlinks

Improving the credibility of your website and Google ranking needs local backlines–where the more links one has directed to your website, the more credible the search engines perceive your site.

To gain backlinks, especially high-quality websites, start by researching popular domains within your area. Once this information is obtained, you need to choose a backlink-building strategy and work from there.

9. Structured Data

Data markup helps search engines find key information regarding your business displayed in the meta description. Here you want to specify key business details: such as a business address, customer reviews, and contact information. When information is made accessible to search engines, you get possible improved ranking factors.

Relevance, distance, and prominence are the three factors Google states in how local listings appear in the search engine. Prominence, in this context, is used as an indicator of the popularity of your business. Social media and engaging with your potential customer base, in this instance, will be a necessary component of your local SEO strategy.

Conclusion

Using these strategies can help you beat the rat race of other local competing businesses and improve your ranking in local search engines.