The Ultimate Guide to Local SEO for Small essesBusinesses
In today’s market where there is cut throat competition, local SEO for small businesses can be a complete game changer. No matter how good your product or service is, if it’s not known to the local public then you won’t be able to generate revenue or recognition. Like traditional advertisement that requires a huge sum of money and time, local SEO does the same task more strategically and without spending any of your hard earned money.
Local SEO can help you easily compete with the big brands out there in the market. In short, local SEO effectively fills up the gap between your business and your local customers who are searching online about the particular service that you offer.
Why Local SEO Matters For Small Businesses ?
Local SEO offers numerous benefits for small businesses. First one is cost effective marketing. By optimizing local SEO, small businesses can effectively compete with big brands that offer similar products or services as yours.
Next, through Local SEO, small startups can amp up their local visibility. Additionally you get to increase in person traffic as well. Moving further when the service you provide is appreciated, then the client leaves a review through which you indirectly get to increase your business’s credibility. So overall there are ample benefits of implementing local SEO.
Local SEO Strategies For Small Businesses
✓ Claim Your Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile is a perfect resource through which you can optimize local SEO. So make sure you complete your profile. In which there is clear information about basic things like the name of your business, opening hours, accurate address and contacting details. On it you can add high quality pictures. These pictures should speak about your product and service. To keep your hold on the visitors, regularly post about your discounts, offers, news and events. Moving further to boost up your rankings, ask the clients for a review. No matter whether the review is in your favor or is against, respond to each of them by thanking or by addressing the issue if any.
✓ NAP Consistency Is Crucial
First of all you need to know what NAP is. So basically NAP depicts three things first is name then address and last one is Phone Number. For local businesses, it’s crucial to maintain NAP consistency across all platforms. As incorrect or different information everywhere not only confuses the searcher but also the search engine. This might seem a little mistake but can have a big impact. It can lower your rankings as well as trustworthiness and therefore it leads to missed opportunities to grow.
✓ Conduct Local Keyword Research
Next task is to carry on research. So you need to find out the keywords that the locals are using for a specific service or product that you offer. There are many tools for the same. One such is Google keyword planner. Take help from it to conduct your research. Moreover longer keywords that are location oriented can further amp up the game.
✓ Optimize Your Website For Local SEO
Optimization of your website for local searches is extremely crucial. For this consider adding location in the Title tag as well as in Meta description. Thereafter, if your business caters to various locations then instead of merging them into one page, create different pages for every location. Most beneficial is optimizing your website for mobile use. There is no doubt that most of the local searches are done via mobile phones. So if your website isn’t mobile friendly then you’ll not be able to generate traffic. To make your website mobile friendly, first fasten up the loading speed. Minimize the size of pictures. The text should be easily readable. Provide easy to access contacting information as well.
✓ Build Local Backlinks
Backlinks that you create locally can help you naturally level up local traffic to your website. To build these links you can consider partnering up with local businesses. Collaborate with them on certain events or promotions. Additionally, by conducting local events yourself can help you gain more exposure. Take help of news blogs and other local creators who can pitch about your services or product.
✓ Optimize For Voice Search
We all are always in a hurry. All thanks to the fast moving lives that we live. So nobody searches traditionally by typing up. Rather we all use various voice assistants for the same. So it turns out to be quite important for small businesses to optimize for voice search. To do so, create content that is in a conversational tone. Next provide answers to common questions that your potential customers can ask for. Moreover focus on long tail keywords as they are more likely to match in voice search.
✓ Benefit Yourself From Social Media
Although social media platforms do not directly boost your SEO rankings, it still plays an important part in driving local engagement. So what you can do is, you can post about your products or services on a regular basis. Tell viewers about your work. Your customer centric approach and how you tend to serve locals. Use hashtags to reach a wider audience. Collaborate with other influencers either through barter collaboration or through paid promotion.
✓ Monitor and Analyze Performance
Finally, don’t forget to analyse your local SEO performance. For doing so try using various tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Business Insights. All these tools help you in monitoring how users are finding your business. After proper analysis, find out the weaknesses and then try making the necessary changes.
Final Thoughts
Local SEO is not a one time task. Rather it is an ongoing procedure that asks for consistency, and regular updates. But it’s definitely worthy if you need to drive local traffic to your website and foot traffic to your physical stores. When you consistently follow all of the above Local SEO strategies, you’ll see a major difference not only in your online identity but it also boosts the physical authority of your business. So take your small business to new heights by leveraging on Local SEO strategies.