Every one of us struggles with an unavoidable and very common obstacle i.e., competitors. For small businesses, the biggest struggle is getting more customers, especially during the business’s early stages. They struggle really hard to get recognized in the digital work. Local SEO can be the best solution to this problem. It is essential for the business that operates on a regional level. It helps small businesses to appear on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) in a specific location. This strategy relies on marketing your product, services, and brand to the local leads and customers.
Local SEO optimization means more website traffic, conversations, and more leads. This strategy helps you compete more effectively against the larger brands that have more resources to spend. Focusing on the local SEO strategy, you can neutralize the benefit of more prominent brands that optimize for broader keywords and focus on brand recognition instead of bringing in more traffic. Without local SEO, your online business will lose out on a significant amount of traffic.
If you are one of the local business owners, you might be looking for ways to avail of the local SEO benefits. Here are the top ways to improve your local SEO strategy right now. Continue reading to make the most out of it.
Create Google My Business Account
The most effective way to rank higher on Google Maps is to optimize your Google listing or Google Business Profile. It will also help you to gain visibility in the Google Search Results. However, to get access to your Google Profile for the optimization, you need a Google My Business account associated with that profile. After providing the required information in your Google My Business account dashboard, the entire information with be added to your Business Profile, which will appear in the Google Search Local results, Google Maps, and the Google Search Knowledge Panel.
Make sure you ensure these points to optimize your business profile on Google:
- Create a Google My Business account and make sure to verify business ownership
- Must provide up-to-date and accurate information
- Add your logo, operating hours, payment methods, service or product you sell, and plenty of images.
- Ask your customers to reviews your business.
- Respond sincerely to the customer reviews
- Publish posts to announce special offers, events, and products to your business profile while using Google My Business dashboard.
Check and Remove Any Duplicate Google Profile
There is a possibility that you may not remember creating a Google My Business account in the past. Still, you will be surprised to know that many people do not realize they or someone from their company might have started creating an account before.
Google hates duplicate content in the search results. It makes sure that it is providing the most authentic and accurate search experience for its users. If the user sees the same information twice, it is the waste of resources. It is against Google’s terms and conditions to create duplicate listings.
To get local SEO benefits, make sure that to check and remove any duplicate Google profile. You can contact Google to get the duplicate profile removed so that it does not affect your ranking.
Get Reviews From Happy Customers
Getting your happy customers to write reviews on your business profile not only optimizes your Google My Business presence but also encourages other local customers to buy your product. Most of people believe online reviews more than personal recommendations. Having positive reviews on your site will help you get recognition and, eventually, more leads. Here are some tips to encourage more customers to leave reviews and feedbacks:
- Ask the customer for a review in person after the close of the sale
- You can send a text or an email asking the customer to write a review. Make sure to screen the customers with an internet survey to make sure you are approaching the right customers
- Always respond to the reviews professionally, thanking the customers and addressing complaints in not-so-favorable reviews
Ensure Your NAP Info Is Consistent
One of the significant factors to improve local SEO is to ensure the consistency of your NAP information. NAP is your business Name, Address, and Phone Number. Google will have more trust in you if this information is consistent. You need to make sure that this information is consistent between Google My Business profile and your website. Besides, Google compares the NAP info with other sites across the internet. You need to ensure that the information is consistent everywhere.
Optimize the Voice Search
The voice search is growing rapidly. People are more towards using the voice search. Therefore, in Local SEO, it is essential to optimize how people ask when they speak into devices instead of how they type. Customers use long-tail keywords while doing voice searched contrary to regular search. Due to this, you need to adjust your content’s SEO to fit the more conversational tone.
Furthermore, it is essential to consider the user’s intention when optimizing for the voice searched. They are more often performed when a user is looking for a piece of information. If a potential customer uses a voice search to know what your business’s hours are, you should provide this information readily.
Get Benefits from Online Business Directories
Online business directories are websites like Yelp, YellowPages, Angie’s Site, HighFive Listings etc. Getting yourself registered on these old and new business listing sites of USA, you can gain visibility, and it also helps to improve your local SEO. Make sure to include the following information while creating a listing:
- Authentic and accurate business name, address and phone number which is consistent across all business directories
- A backlink to your website
- A thorough description of your business
These business directories can benefit you in several ways. Providing the information and creating a listing will help you boost your local SEO. The traffic on these directories can be an opportunity for you to generate leads.
