Local SEO Guide
Before the internet, potential customers needed to know where to find your business and what you sell. This could be achieved through local advertisements or referrals. Nowadays Google has basically taken over that task with Local SEO.
In this blog post, you will learn how to increase your local findability and welcome more visitors to your store. Let’s jump in to the Local SEO Guide
Getting your website up-to-date with Local SEO has several advantages:
- The local “findability” is increased. More and more people are looking for a nearby business by smartphone. Be it a mechanic, a gym, or the new restaurant everyone’s talking about. Taking advantage of these local search queries can bring a large number of interested customers to the store.
- They stand out from the competition. Especially if your store is located in a busy shopping center and the competition is directly opposite, you need every advantage you can get to win new customers.
- Online and offline shopping often work together. Customers who visit you offline have great potential to become online customers as well since they connect real people with the store. A huge advantage that you have as a store owner compared to large companies.
Furthermore, the local competition is SEO-technically much weaker than in general search terms.
Surely you can imagine that it will be easier to find the search term for your local auto mechanic if only results from nearby are presented.
So, for example, you do not have to compete against all the auto mechanics nearby, but only against your local competitors.
So here's a checklist that you can work through to get past your local competition.
Google My Business
If you're not yet signed up for Google My Business and have a local business, this is one of the best ways to get free customers.
Simply login, completely fill out the profile and wait for confirmation.
Local SEO: Local blog posts
Google loves content, and that's something you should take advantage of. Regularly reporting on local events increases the local relevance of your website, which in turn can increase your ranking.
Not only can you report on local events, you can also introduce or test new products, post reviews, or write about your store. The stronger your competition, the more you should blog.
Videos and Pictures
In addition to the previous tip, you can also work with other media. Pictures and videos are great for content and can be posted on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at the same time with a tool like Buffer or Hootsuite.
Company name + location
If possible, add the company name and location of the store to the page title on your website. So instead of just using Auto Mechanic, you should put Auto Mechanic [your city] as a page title.his little bit of optimization can already make for a small ranking boost.
Meta Tags
Use meta tags to show search engines what your website is about. That's why you should not only mention the important keywords (mechanic, mechanic near me, etc.) in your meta tags, but also the location of your business.
Customer Reviews
In most cases, a business with the largest number of positive reviews will be in the first organic position.
It's not without reason that Google sends you an e-mail with every My Business login. Encourage customers shopping in your store to rate you on Google and look forward to increased discoverability
Do not worry too much if a customer does not give you a 5 star rating. In the event that a bad rating is written, you should respond to your negative review politely and resolve the issue. In the worse case, you should consider reputation management.
Directories
One of the older Local SEO techniques: directories. Even though these links no longer have the strength they had a few years back, they still add a ranking advantage.
Not necessarily because of the links, but because of the mention of your address in a place other than your own website. This creates credibility in the eyes of Google and shows that your business is a real place.
Name, address, telephone
On your website, for example in the footer, should
- the name of your store,
- the address of your store,
- the phone number of your store
to be found. This contact data should always be exactly the same data.
For example, if you've entered your location on Google My Business as Mechanic [your address], you'll always have to do so in order to take the "rank-juice" with you!
Whether on your website, in directories, or elsewhere.
Conclusion
As you can see, it is not that hard to be found locally. All you have to do is optimize your local seo.
- Use photos and videos (blog / social media),
- work with local bloggers and companies (build links),
- mention the location in the metadata, page titles, and Google My Business
- enter their business into relevant directories,
- be sure to keep your name, address, and phone number the same on the Internet,
- Collect customer reviews on Google.
Stick to these 7 points, you can soon be happy about new customers who have found you online!
