The Seven Best Resources for Local SEO

As of November 2018, 60% of Americans used their phones or computers when searching for a local business. As this number continues to rise, it’s more important than ever to make sure your business has a strong web presence through digital marketing. To make it in today’s business world, when any potential clients make a local search, it is imperative to be at the top of the local listings.

Advertisers call this process search engine optimization (SEO). You may think that SEO tools are a daunting process to incorporate all ranking factors—something that only techies can do with their computer wizardry.

What if we told you that anyone can do SEO optimization and incorporate all local search ranking factors? Yes, even local business owners who don’t have any expertise on the internet. We’re about to show you seven ways to improve your business’ search rating and bring more customers through your doors.

Local SEO is more than Google

Google is the undisputed king of the internet and is involved in all ranking factors. In fact, 88% of Americans use Google for their internet searches, especially for a local search. That’s a huge number and it’s why nobody ever says “let me Yahoo that.”

For this reason, a lot of the advice we’re giving is centered around improving your Google rankings, which can be achieved with a local SEO strategy. That said, most of these guidelines apply to other search engines as well.

The best thing to do is to optimize your business listings for Google, then follow up with other search engines like Bing and Yahoo. By optimizing for 88% of searches, you’ll be setting yourself up to reach the highest number of customers.

Claim your business

The most important thing you can do to improve your local search ranking on the internet and on social media is to claim your business on search engines. This kind of marketing takes just a few minutes and will put you ahead of 56% of local businesses that haven’t even claimed their Google My Business (GMB) page.

What does this mean?

When you Google a business like “Electricians in San Diego,” you’ll notice that most of the businesses have their address, phone number and website listed. If you click on multiple results, you’ll notice that some of them have links that say “Suggest an Edit” and “Own this Business?”

If you click the link that says “Own this Business,” Google will need to verify your identity. Exactly how they do this has changed over the years, but it currently involves sending a postcard to your business’ physical address. The postcard contains a code, which you’ll have to enter into Google to complete the process.

Not claiming your business, will cause it to appear lower in search rankings, and will force you to rely on members of the public to keep your information up to date. Claiming your business allows you to keep your phone number, address and website up to date, as well a list your hours.

Do your keyword research

In SEO speak, keywords are the words that people use to look for a particular service. For example, if I’m an electrician in San Diego, how might people search for me? It’s not rocket science, just simple marketing.

They’d probably use terms like “electricians in San Diego,” “San Diego electrician” or “electrical work in San Diego.” So, how do you find out what keywords are popular for local businesses like yours?

Services like Moz and Ahrefs cost just a few dollars a month and will show you exactly what keywords people are using to find businesses that are similar to yours. By using these words in your site, you’ll increase the likelihood that these users will actually find you.

Provide useful information

Another way to improve your search ranking is to get people to stay on your site once they get there. In the early days of the internet, people would SEO optimize their websites by including blocks of text that are full of keywords. You’ve probably seen some of these sites. They look something like this:

Electricians San Diego, San Diego Electricians, Electrical workers San Diego, San Diego emergency Electrical repair, Electrical installers in San Diego, and so on for hundreds of similar keywords.

Needless to say, there’s nothing useful about this kind of keyword cramming. Since a search engine’s entire purpose is to provide useful information, they’ve started keeping track of how long people stay on a site once they’ve clicked on it. The theory is that people will stay longer if they actually find something of value.

For this reason, it’s a good idea to put a blog on your website or at least a few articles that are relevant to your business. Use relevant keywords in these articles, but make sure they sound natural. The overall goal here is to keep people from hitting their browser’s back button for as long as possible.

Make sure your mobile site works

With more and more people using their smartphones for internet searches, it’s no surprise that people appreciate a good mobile site. In fact, 61% of people who use their phones for searches won’t visit a business that doesn’t have a working mobile site.

Is this fair? No, it’s not. Unless you’re a web designer, building a mobile site probably isn’t part of your expertise. It certainly has nothing to do with how good your business.

But life isn’t fair, and we live in the age of the internet where people’s attention spans are shorter than ever. If you want to drive users to your business, you have to make it easy for them to learn about you. A good mobile site is essential for this.

Multiple landing pages for multiple locations

If your business has several locations throughout a region, creating multiple landing pages can help improve your local SEO ratings for each location. For example, if you own an electrical business with locations throughout the San Diego area, you might have several landing pages that look like this:

• Bestelectrician.com/San Diego
• Bestelectrician.com/La_Jolla
• Bestelectrician.com/La_Mesa

You can optimize each of these pages with keywords for those local areas, which will boost your search rankings.

Hire a professional

If all of this sounds too daunting, there are businesses that specialize in Local SEO optimization like our agency Above The Fold.  If you’re interested in what our team has to offer, contact us today to receive a free consultation.