As a small-business owner or manager, you can probably see the value of showing up on the first page of Google when someone searches for your services. You might even have stumbled upon the benefits and importance of local search-engine optimization (SEO) if you currently have a website. Despite the real value that local SEO […]
As a small-business owner or manager, you can probably see the value of showing up on the first page of Google when someone searches for your services. You might even have stumbled upon the benefits and importance of local search-engine optimization (SEO) if you currently have a website. Despite the real value that local SEO provides, it’s still a bit of a mystery to most small-business owners.
What is local SEO? What do you, as a business owner, need to know about it? Local search competition continues to grow on platforms like Google. About 70 percent of links that search-users click on are organic results, which means they are not paid search ads. In addition, 70 percent of search-users ignore search ads that businesses buy.
Businesses that can use SEO to get near the top of the search-engine results page can show their available services to interested consumers. This means, at the very least, being on the first page of the search results is imperative, as 75 percent of users aren’t clicking past the first page of search results.
So who really needs SEO? Organic traffic produces 25 percent higher conversion rates (clicks to your website) than traffic driven by equivalent paid-search traffic. Any businesses — from dentists and lawyers to local retail stores — that are interested in growing and generating traffic are a perfect fit for local SEO utilization. As more consumers search online for your products and services, the importance of implementing local SEO in your business plan continues to grow.
Below are some tips and suggestions business owners and marketers can implement to place their business ahead of their competitors online.
Tip #1: Consistent name, address and phone number (NAP)
A number of factors contribute to local SEO success, and citations (or listings) are a major component. Having a consistent name, address, and phone number (NAP) across all your business’ citations is necessary and avoids any mixed signals sent to Google. Creating and managing citations can be a timely process. Tools like Moz Local, however, make it a bit easier to make sure your citations are consistent across the web. The tool even creates listings on sites like Superpages.
Businesses should also get more specific with their listings by targeting industry-specific resources. For example, if you’re a lawyer, sites like Avvo.com allow you to create a listing and will reference your business or services in the search results for a consumer searching for specific law-related needs.
Tip #2: Ask for positive reviews
Your customers are the best brand ambassadors and because of this, having positive reviews on various outlets is hugely important. Not only is the positivity of those reviews important for branding, but the number of positive reviews is also essential to a business’s success with local SEO. More specifically, reviews on Google Places/Business listings and other resources, such as Yelp, are essential, because negative reviews can be detrimental. Encourage customers and clients to provide great feedback for your business anywhere your company is listed.
Tip #3: Keywords
User experience and the visual appearance of a website are important as consumers want to engage with sites that are easy to use and trustworthy. This, however, is not the only factor that drives traffic to websites — it’s also the content/wording. This year, take a look at your competitors and dig into what kind of keywords they are using in the content throughout their site. Be sure to identify the words and phrases best suited to help Google know exactly what you do, for example, “orthodontist in Syracuse” or “getting braces in Syracuse.” By digging into what your competitors are doing, you can learn about the types of phrases consumers are using to search for businesses.
In addition to looking into competitors, use free tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to help build your strategy. It’s important to identify the keywords that are going to bring the right kind of traffic and build your content around those. Google’s Keyword Planner allows you to download a list of keywords and then filter through the unwanted keywords. Ranking for a few keywords that bring you traffic and conversions is much better than ranking for several that don’t do anything for you.
Implementing this kind of practice quarterly is certainly recommended. Looking at your competitors and doing keyword research keeps your finger on the pulse of your competition and even puts you ahead.
Tip #4: Social media and blogging
Google loves updated original content. Consistently posting new content on your blog is a great way to showcase your expertise in your industry, build relationships, and provide new content for Google to index. When creating original content, be focused, informative, and relevant to your specific industry. The best content helps people solve a problem or answer questions. Not only does blogging benefit you in these ways, but it also gives you something to talk about and share with your social communities.
Creating content isn’t easy. However, it’s important to take the time and research what your customers are seeking. Implementing a blog on your website, and setting up a content calendar that forces a content manager to post multiple times per week, helps ease some of the stress.
Tip #5: Use videos to improve ranking
Much like creating written blog content, your videos are another way to showcase your expertise and create shareable content with your community. It’s important to use videos to solve problems and provide new information. These types of videos can be as simple as filming a whiteboard session or getting an expert in your industry to sit for an interview. While planning for these videos, be sure to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask: what problems and questions might my audience have?
Once you’ve finished your video, and once you have multiple videos to showcase, group your video assets together and create a video resource center that is user friendly. It is important that these videos be readily available to users. Embedding a stream of video players on a single page will not benefit you. Instead, having a separate landing page for each video is ideal. The reason for this is so search engines can locate and index each specific video individually.
Local SEO is ongoing and must be viewed as a long-term strategy. However, the return on investment that can come from organic search can be immensely beneficial for your business. Whether your company has the resources and talent to handle SEO in-house, or you seek help from a marketing agency that understands how to navigate Google’s algorithm, SEO will help to grow your business in our search-driven world.
Chris Madden is director of online visibility at Good Monster, a digital marketing agency. Contact him at chris@thegoodmonster.com