One of the most difficult tasks in blogging or content marketing is achieving extraordinary local SEO. And be patient, as extraordinary local SEO results take time.
Local SEO is focused on providing results that are relevant to a searcher based on their current location. If I search for ‘best steak restaurant’ on my desktop right now, Google will provide me with results that are nearest to me.
Similar results are delivered if I search on my smartphone.
Local SEO has grown significantly over the last few years, particularly given the rise of smartphone usage and better connectivity while out and about.
Although it has a lot of similarities with organic SEO, it’s ultimately very different.
It has been that over 40% of mobile queries have local intent. According to Fresh Egg in 2013, four out of five people use smartphones to look up local information.
Two in three people take direct action as a result, and one in three people went on to make a purchase.
Google has also recently indicated that one in three US mobile queries is now ‘local’. They also noted 87% of people use their phone when on the go.
Google also found that 95% of mobile users look up local information on their phones and the primary functions are calling or visiting a business.
For Google and other search engines to serve users with the most relevant information, using the vast amount of data they have on us, local based results will become more and more prevalent.
Local SEO … the website is your online shop window
Putting in all the effort that is required for SEO might seem like a hassle. However, as you are putting so much time in local networking, redecorating your shop’s windows and more.
You have to keep in mind that for someone that finds your shop online, it matters what that shop looks like.
Your website is an online replacement for window shopping. If your actual shop is decorated for the season, I would also suggest taking a closer look at how you can translate that to your website.
Make sure people feel welcome, and are enticed to buy your products or services online.
Or at least feel the urge to come by your local business to see what you can do for them.
Set Up Google my business
To start, you need to claim your listing. After that, you can use the following tips to make your My Business account a success.
Keep in mind that everything you add must be in line with the information you provide on your site.
Inaccurate information kills your listings and could kill your rankings:
It’s critical to remember that this is not a set it and forget it type of thing. Things change your business changes.
Keep everything active, monitor reviews and stay on top of things. It’s frustrating if your listing doesn’t perform as well as you’d like, but keep putting in the hours, and it will work.
US businesses can check their listings with this tool by Synup: Google My Business Guidelines Checker.
Local SEO factors.
My Business is Google’s one-stop-shop to manage how your business will look and perform in the search engine.
It is an essential tool to find out and adjust how your site shows in Maps, the Knowledge Graph, Google+ and organic search results.
According to the 2017 edition of Moz’ Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, Google My Business continues to be the biggest driver of local SEO success, with quality links coming in at a close second.
You can manage your business listing by adding NAP details, opening hours, photos et cetera.
In addition to that, it is possible to manage the reviews your customers leave behind. As you know, reviews should be a key factor in your local SEO efforts.
Getting started with My Business is easy; you have to make an account and claim your business.
After filling in your details, you will get a real-life postcard from Google on the address you’ve specified. This card is the only proof you’re the owner of the business listed at the address.
Once verified, you can fill in all the necessary details and check how your listing is doing. You can even get regular insights to see how many impressions, clicks, and subscribers your listing got over a period.
It’s a great way of getting a feel for how your business is perceived by Google and customers alike.
Keep in mind that My Business is not the catch-all tool for your local SEO. It has to work in tandem with your on- and off-site SEO efforts.
You won’t climb the charts if your profile is inaccurate, but you also won’t reach the top without a well-optimized site and localized content. These things go hand in hand.
What you can rank for
Google My Business uses many factors to determine rankings for businesses. We’ll highlight the three most important ones:
Relevance
Distance
Prominence
Relevance
Relevance determines how well your business fits the search intent of the customer.
Is your focus identical to what the customer needs or are you a bit opaque about what your business does?
Vagueness doesn’t rank. Be as clear as you can be. Keep your focus.
Distance
Distance is a well-known factor for ranking local businesses. You can’t rank in a local search for (dentist New Jersey) when you have located your company in Manhattan.
The exact way Google determines which businesses to show in a local search is unknown, and it can be pretty hard to rank in a given area.
The other factors play a significant role as well. It helps not just to say you are located in a particular area, but also to show it by creating local-oriented content around your business on your site.
Google uses what’s known about the location of the searcher to present the most relevant local businesses.
Prominence
Prominence is all about the activity around your listing; this could be the number of reviews, events, local content et cetera.
It also helps if you can get loads of quality links to your site. It is somewhat hard to determine what prominence means exactly, but one thing is sure: no one likes dead profiles.
You have to keep it updated with new photos and manage your reviews. As said before, this works in tandem with your site, so make sure both listings align and that you publish local content.
Local SEO factors … Move on to Google Maps
It is important for your website to appear in Google Maps because you want people to be able to find your contact details.
Perhaps people already know your business, but don’t know the phone number. If you set up your website right, this location data can easily be found through search engines.
More importantly, people often do not know your business yet and are searching globally for terms like “pizza,” “lawyer” or “broker in New York.”
Google often shows a Google Map or a 7-pack for this kind of searches, so it’s of great importance that your business is listed there!
The first thing you have to do to get your website in Google Maps is to have a physical location for your business. That sounds silly, but this is one of the major requirements to get you listed in search engines.
It’s hard to rank on “divorce lawyer Boston” if your business isn’t physically located in Boston (even if you provide services there). After you have a physical location of your business, you can sign up for your business in the search engines: Google, Bing and now even Apple.
The third thing you have to think of is your SEO strategy!
Just like regular SEO, Local SEO exists both on the page and off-page SEO. For on-page SEO it’s important, you mention the address of your business on your website in Schema.org format.
And not only on your contact page, but it’s also recommended to place it in the header or footer of your website, so it’s visible on every page.
Besides the address itself, the title tag is something you need to look at. According to the Local Search Ranking Factors naming the City and State, besides your keyword, in your page title is the most important thing to do.
A good format would be “<your service> <city> <state>,” for example, “Shiny Teeth dentist Portland Oregon.” It’s pretty straightforward but clear and strong!
But don’t take this format for granted. Play with it and, even better, by testing it!
For off-page SEO, links from other sites are of course important, but also the so-called citations.
Citations are just mentions of your business, which don’t even have to contain a link to your website. For example, you can get citations from people who review your business (like Hotfrog, Yelp, Tripadvisor, etc.).
Small business blogging
The easiest way to keep your customers (and others) in the loop about your products and offerings, is by adding a blog to your website.
That blog will fuel your social media and newsletter, so it’s a much more extensive tool than ‘just an addition’ to your site.
Facebook and other social media listings
If there is one thing I can tell you from my experience in this, it is that local small businesses communicate a lot via social media.
Use that Twitter account actively, set up your Facebook page and maintain it. Add your business to Google Business and make sure your opening hours are filled out if you have any.
Every Google search for your company or closely related searches might show these immediately, before any organic search results.
The same goes for sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor. They have their marketers working 24/7. In the end, it doesn’t matter if people find your business through websites like Yelp or Google, right?
Employ local directories
Next to your Google My Business listing, Google uses the local Yelp and other local directories to determine just how important and local you are. Where we usually recommend against putting your link on a page with a gazillion unrelated links, the common ground for a local listings page is, indeed, the location.
And these links do help your local rankings.
So get your web team to work, find the most important local directory pages and get your details up there.
I’m specifically writing details and not just links. Citations work in confirming the address to both Google and visitors.
If a local, relevant website lists addresses, get yours up there as well. And while you are at it, get some positive reviews on sites like Yelp as well, obviously!
Need some help in finding ways to grow your customers? Such as creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers? Or perhaps finding ways to work with other businesses?
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of collaborative innovation. And put it to good use in adapting to changes in your business environment.
It’s up to you to keep improving your learning and experience with innovation and creativity efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
Check out these additional articles on business and its performance from our library:
If it feels like you’re starting to lag behind your competition because of the internet, then it’s probably true. More people are beginning to spend their free time online. If you don’t have a way to reach them there, then your competition will get their attention first. You must focus on digital marketing for small businesses.
Digital
marketing ad spends increased by 17.6% globally in 2019.
You can’t get away from digital marketing for small businesses anymore.
The question
is, how do you get started? Below are seven digital marketing ideas that will
help your business stand out online.
1. Build Your
Website Right
In many cases,
your website is a potential customer’s first impression of your business. If
you don’t take the time to give them a good experience, you run the risk of
them not giving your business a chance.
Because of
this, you need to invest in a good web design that works well for both mobile
and desktop users. To do this, you’ll need to use a responsive design. This
means your website layout will change to fit the screen size of your website
visitors.
You’ll also
need to work on your website loading time. With 16% of the
United States population using mobile phones exclusively to go online,
you need to make sure your site can load when fast internet connections aren’t
available.
2. Get Social
Almost everyone
has a social media profile these days. Many of these people spend a large
amount of their day browsing their social networks to see what’s going on. If
you want to get in front of your potential customers, then you need to be where
they spend there time.
Make sure you
spend some time to build your social media pages for your business. You can use
these pages to talk with customers and provide them content. If you do good and
provide sharable information, then your fans will share your content and spread
it to their friends and family.
3. Work on SEO
Getting a
website online is only the first step. All that work is pointless if you can’t
get traffic. Getting people searching from Google is one of the best ways.
To do this, you
will need to invest in SEO for your website. This process is broken down into
two parts: on-site and off-site SEO.
On-site SEO is
the process of improving your website pages to better inform Google about what
your site is about. You can do this by creating content around keywords and
setting up the meta-information for your site.
Off-site SEO is
all about getting links for your websites. Google thinks of links as votes for
your site. The more high quality links you have, the better Google values the
information you have.
4. Build an
Email List
You can only
rely so much on getting in front of customers on their own time. There’s no
guarantee that they’ll ever see what you’re promoting. This is where building
an email list comes into play.
It’s hard to
find anyone today that doesn’t use email. This makes email marketing one of the
most effective ways to get in front of your customers.
When you have
an email list, you have instant access to your customers to promote deals and
provide content.
5. Use
Retargeting Pixels
You probably
don’t have much money as a small business. This makes it hard to compete with
other paid advertising methods. Using retargeting pixels is a more
cost-effective way to do this.
A retargeting
pixel is a small piece of programming code that you place on your website.
Advertising platforms like Google and Facebook will provide you with the code
to use. It keeps track of the people who visit your site.
Once you have a
list of people who visit, you can create ad campaigns that specifically target
these people. These advertisements are cheaper and more effective than regular
ads. You’re targetting people who have already shown interest in your products,
so you’re more likely to make the sale your second time around.
6. Invest in a
Blog
It’s hard to
stand out in a competitive industry. You have a lot of people trying to get
attention, so you need a way to provide more value than your competitors. One
way to do this is to provide informative blog content on your website.
Your blog can
help you stand out as an authority in your industry. Write posts targetting
common questions, and you’ll start showing up in Google for those questions.
This is a great way to pre-sale your services to customers.
7. Make Use of
Google My Business
If your blog
content is sharable, you can also benefit from going viral. When this happens,
your content will be shared all across social media. This can get you in front
of a lot of people that wouldn’t have found your business otherwise.
If you have a
local store, then you want to appear on the map when someone searches for local
businesses. If you don’t have a Google My Business listing claimed, then
achieving this is hard to do.
To verify your
business, Google will send you a postcard to your physical address. Once you
give Google the code on your card, you’ll be able to optimize your business
page. Make sure you update your phone number, contact information, social media
profiles, website address, and operating hours for your page.
Once you finish
doing this, Google will have a better idea about what your business offers.
You’ll be able to start optimizing your local SEO to start ranking for local
search terms.
If you need
more ideas, check out these tips for
marketing your company online.
Digital
Marketing for Small Businesses Works
If you think
you can get away from ignoring digital marketing for small businesses today,
you’re in for a surprise. Older marketing methods are continuing to get harder
to do, while digital marketing is getting easier. Once you use the tips above
to get started, you’ll be able to get a leg up on your competition that is
still stuck with their old ways.
If you’re
looking for more marketing tips, we’ve got you covered. Head back to our blog
to read our latest tips.
The digital world is dynamic and competitive! Every brand wants to attain a considerable chunk of online visibility, maximum brand recall, and online profits. The number of companies and brands that are stepping into the online business domain are increasing daily. SEO and Google My Business are essential tools that will help you to gain online brand awareness and other profits.
Do you want
to get popular with the product/service offerings in your area or locality? Do
you wish to have an increased demand? If yes, you can opt-in for local SEO,
which helps to promote a business in a specific area. Similar to SEO, the local
SEO landscape is constantly changing. However, one of the prominent tools that
you can use here is Google My Business.
About Google My Business
Google My Business (GMB) got launched way back in 2014 and attached immense importance to consumers and merchants. Every SEO agency or professional will suggest people to opt-in for a complete and correct Google My Business profile.
Today, Google My Business is developing into a useful platform for secure and fast transactions. It also creates a platform, where there’s an engagement taking place between customers and business owners. To know more about this, you can get in touch with SEO Sydney Joel House.
Google is
continually rolling updates, aiming to better the search pattern and add more
to SEO. Google had shared all about GMB momentum information. Google also
allows about 3 billion proper connections between the users and merchants
monthly. The search engine giant has expressed that it has over 3 million
bookings every month, and there are 95 million individuals who are taking part
in the local guides program.
The new promotional and branding tools
Today you can opt-in for the best promotional tools. Google provides several Google My Business features, which has been designed to generate an increased amount of local business and also for utilizing the GMB profile in the best way. Till date, Google hasn’t suggested the exact amount of people who are using GMB and have confirmed that they have verified profiles in Google My Business.
Recently, in 2018, a BrandMuscle report suggests that almost close to 61% of business firms successfully claimed their GMB listings. And considering this correct data, around 39% haven’t been able to claim the GMB listings.
Google My
Business today is coming with brand new features and other tools. The important
ones are:
Logo addition – It will help the business to showcase their logo on the top right side of their profile.
A dynamic module for photos – It is a visible slide show/carousel module that got introduced to help people to add their best captions.
Cover photo – Today, several online businesses can choose the images which their users can see as they claim their business profile
Promotional assets – Google today is all set to come up with a brand-new site to develop and order posters, stickers, and multiple promotional assets.
The welcome offers – You can send this to those projects or customers following a set pattern of shows and events.
The small URL’s and the local favorites
This brand-new feature in GMB can help the business effectively and promote their product or service you wish to share. Today, the short names/URLs and the “local favorite” badges are useful, and it can get searched in Google and Maps as well.
Google affirms that about 5% of the local business of a chosen category can get awarded using “Local Favourite” badge. Google still is slightly abstract and unclear about how one that qualifies. It is essential to update the professional profiles and also reach out to the customers at large. Furthermore, the badging, as well as the famous local status, can provide a fashion boost. Everything depends on budget availability, and it highlights the consumer trend.
Do you want to make the most of GMB verification?
Generally,
the short forms come in two types, for instance, the short name or the pages/short
name. To successfully use this, businesses need to create a “desired profile”
that will help them shape their business better. When a customer searches the
URL, it will reach a merchant GMB profile. As days pass by, people can opt-in
for Google Maps and add more to their profile as well.
Google always explains that short names resulted from merchant feedback. The organizations today wish to have an easy and simple business URL for effective business promotion. Google can view a local business by placing the URL on the promotional categories.
No one knows how it gets used in online advertising, but most probably that would need yet another potential application. However, no one has the idea of whether there will be organic reporting on the traffic for resolving the URLs.
Why should you get interested in this?
Google My Business has come a long way. It has developed in many ways to have access to the precise data in Google search outcomes and also something more potent and complex. For Google, GMB functions as a social engagement tool that allows you to make transactions.
Back in April, Google interviewed a couple of agency partner and small business customers for updating GMB services. It got a mixed view from SEO, and the situation might become even more dangerous.
Make Google My Business videos
It is not
possible to keep on adding videos in GMB without any thought. You can add in
videos, and the videos should be:
The image quality is a knowing one
Keep the space 100 MB
Exciting videos can bring in an exciting mix to the profile. It can help you to stand out amongst other businesses in your distinctive category. It results in increased brand recall and business/product awareness and promotion. However, it is essential to have elaborate photos that you can leverage completely. Google My Business is here to expand! It is here to help brands get local prominence.
Make sure you seek the guidance of your SEO agency and leverage Google My Business. That way, you can prevent yourself from making any mistakes, which ca
