Local search is powerful for any small business. In fact, if your business isn’t properly optimised for local search, you are probably missing out on up to 80% of potential customers that are looking for local information and businesses. But, what exactly is local SEO? Well, it’s the process of improving search engine visibility for local businesses, thus allowing you to improve organic traffic from searches that are performed by potential customers in nearby areas. Improving your local SEO is therefore integral in finding local success and a lot of otherwise hidden opportunities. This guide will take you through everything you need to know about local SEO and how you can use it to optimise your business.
- Optimise Google My Business
Google My Business is the best tool to help your business meet Google’s needs for listing your business on local searches. This is because Google supports and shares its own content a lot more generously than businesses listed using other methods. In order to do this, all you need to do is create and verify a Google My Business page, use it to post Google posts on your account and encourage customers to share reviews online. This will also ensure that you are on the Google Local Map. You can encourage more local SEO traffic by responding to reviews and adding your local area in the response. Remember to still be authentic in your responses. Once you have created a Google My Business page, you can share it on your social media to help connect your social media to your searches.
- Ensure that all your information is consistent online
You have to make it as easy as possible for the search engines to find and list your business, no matter where on the internet you are. To do this, you should ensure that you have a consistent name, address and contact information displayed online. This information should be crawlable HTML text on your site so that Google will be able to read it and display it better when people in your local area search for a product or service that your business provides. Remember that images are not crawlable, so avoid adding these details to only image formats. The most common location for this information is in the footer or header of your site, or on a ‘Contact us’ page. Make sure that all this information is also available on any other online directories or citations listing your company.
- Perform a local SEO audit
Once you have got the fundamental information down, you might think that most of the work is done. However, SEO is an ongoing process that you have to consistently maintain. Instead of stopping at this basic level, you should perform a comprehensive local SEO audit. This can help you see where your website stands, and what you need to work on in order to achieve your goals. This can include performing a Google My Business audit, a Google Search Console Audit, an on-page SEO audit, a citation audit, a competitor analysis, and a website audit.
- Optimise your website
You can optimise your website for Local SEO in a number of ways. The standards are ensuring that your website’s internal linking structure is ideal and that your URL, title tags, headers, meta descriptions and content is up to par. Content in particular is a great way of optimising your website, as you can write content using local search terms. You can also consider adding customer success stories and case studies, as this will also allow you to add geo-targeted content. You should also add location pages to your website.
- Get inbound links
Inbound or external links are a way of boosting local SEO, as every site linking to your website tells Google that you are a site of relevance and authority. By getting links that are published on other local websites, you can increase your local SEO. You can do this using sponsorships or partnerships or on guest blog posting sites. You can even participate in local community events. This will help you receive more digital PR.
How a Local SEO Consultant can help your business
If you are looking for ways of improving your local SEO rankings, one of the best ways to do so is by hiring local SEO services. While you can perform some of the more basic SEO requirements, when it comes to getting your business to the top ranks of the search results, you are going to need a little bit more support. A local SEO agency can help you rank high on the search engine rankings.
SEO Consultant is a local SEO Consultant who provides results-based local SEO in Singapore. SEO Consultant can help your business in all aspects of digital marketing, in order to properly prepare your business for our digital future. With global SEO standards, we are able to enhance your local SEO to generate more traffic to your website, while also netting more conversions.
Contact SEO Consultant now if you are interested in getting to the first page of the search results.