It has been estimated that over 95% of all internet experiences are begun with a search engine search. Moreover if your site does not make it onto the first page of the search results, it may never be seen by your potential customers. This means your strategy for search engine optimization (SEO) is so important. If yours is a local business, such as a restaurant, you need to make sure your local SEO strategy is up to the task of driving local customers to your site.
- You need to check to see how your business is categorized. Is your business listed as a local business? If you own a brick and mortar business in a city, you need to make sure your online identity reflects the local nature of your business. Not every business is considered to be a local one. If you have a storefront or restaurant, or your services are only offered in one area (think of landscaping companies), yours is a local business. You need to create a local SEO campaign and reflects this. If you run an online company that does just a little work in a certain area, you do not qualify to be called an local business.
- Your local SEO strategy needs to compliment the rest of your marketing. This point is important enough to mention over and over. All of your marketing materials need to work together. Your social media marketing campaign needs to have the same messaging that is used for your traditional marketing materials. Your local SEO campaign needs to be completely consistent with all of that. This will help reinforce and support your branding efforts. Effective branding is supported completely by all of your marketing efforts.
- List your business everywhere you can. Make sure your Google business listing has your address and phone number. If your town or city has a tourism bureau, make sure they have your information. If there are local directories for goods and services, get your business to be listed there. You cannot have too many people get to know who you are and what you do. From time to time, you need to check these to make sure they have your business’s correct information.
- Do not forget to use your keywords in your social media posts. If you use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media networks, use the keywords you use on your website in your posts. Many people often overlook this when they are working out their local SEO strategy. You should use your keywords in your press releases, pay per click advertising and everything you put online. All of these things are searchable. Your posts will also get better traction in the areas where you want to get it when you think about your local SEO campaign when you are composing your posts for your social media campaign.
- Content is still king. You need to make sure the content on your website is both helpful but also updated on a regular basis. No local SEO campaign is complete without the addition of new, fresh and compelling content that is full of your keywords. If you are not updating your page on a regular basis with new content, your site will both become stale and will drift downwards on the search engine results page. This is the opposite of what you want. The thing about your website is that it cannot be considered to be a static thing. It is a living, breathing and changing creation. Update often and you will get more visitors and users on the site.
- Local SEO is all about location, location, location. This is the saying people often associate with real estate but in a lot of ways, your local SEO strategy should reflect your desire to capture your real estate on the internet. Your main keywords in your domain name, site title, description, blog categories (if applicable), page titles, tagline and content on your page. This is very important to developing and implementing a successful SEO strategy.
Investing time, money and effort in your local SEO marketing plan will get your site more traffic and improve your bottom line.
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