Top 10 Local SEO Tips for Your Local Businesses

Top 10 Local SEO Tips for Your Local Business

How to Increase local traffic and potential customers to your site.

We are going to focus on the top 10 local SEO tips essential for businesses online.

1. 1. Keywords – Still remain extremely important for Local SEO. Find out what your potential customers are searching Google for and make sure your content is written and optimized for those specific keyword phrases.  Tools to assist you in researching your keywords are Keyword Finder or Google Keyword Planner.
   2. Engaging Content – Combine your Content Marketing and SEO efforts. What questions are your customers asking?  Make sure you are creating content that will answer those questions. If you are having a tough time coming up with ideas for great content, try Buzzsumo, and just enter a subject. Buzzsumo will show you the content that has been shared the most via social media in the last year.  Are you having trouble writing content? Hire a content writer to create SEO-optimized content on a regular basis for Blog Posts, web pages, etc.
   3. Business Location Pages – If you list all of your business locations on a single page of your website, it isn’t optimal for SEO.  Create separate pages for every location and make sure each page is optimized. This includes Geo-targeted location title tags, descriptions, and content.                                                                                 
   4. Local Business Listings – It is IMPERATIVE that you claim & complete your business profiles on Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Local, or other local business listings in full.  If you aren’t sure about which business listings you have already been listed on, you can check by using MOZ Local.
   5. NAP Inconsistencies – NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number.  Citations are mentions of your NAP online.  You need to make sure the NAP is an exact match.  Citation consistency is one of the most important local search ranking factors. Make sure that the information on Google My Business matches the address on your website exactly and all of your other business listings.  Some of the common mistakes are multiple phone numbers, name changes, address changes, suites listed or not listed, etc.
   6. Customer Reviews – Customer Reviews are one of the most profitable ways to grow and improve local business.  Have you been influenced recently by a review online? Focus on reviews on Google My Business or Facebook and increase good reviews by linking to your review profile. If you are having trouble generating the link to your Google My Business Reviews, try this tool from Grade.us.  Use the generated link on your website or email it to previous clients.
   7. Avoid Over Optimization – Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Don’t overoptimize and use keywords everywhere in your sentences or blog posts.  When you optimize, use keywords in a few strategic places, but make sure it has a normal rhythm or flow and makes sense to your readers. 
   8. Mobile Search – Is your website mobile friendly? Look up your website on your mobile phone to see your website the way your potential customers will.  It should be easy to navigate. Google is going to start ranking websites via Mobile first.  They have already begun testing on a small scale.
   9. Social Media – Make sure your business has a presence on social media and that the profiles are optimized for local SEO. Different Social media platforms are good for different businesses. Consider Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest.  If you have a blog there is also Reddit, Bebo, StumbleUpon, Wikipedia, or Slide Share.
   10. Images / Videos – Most prospects enjoy looking at videos or images and they are helpful for SEO. Make sure to include the images and videos on your website pages, local business listings, and your various social media platforms to engage your visitors. Don’t forget to optimize your videos and photos with your local keywords.

Have more Local SEO Tips you want to share? Leave a comment below and share this post with your friends, followers, or connections. Thank you!

Allan Todd

Allan Todd is CEO of Pagecafe Digital Marketing. In 2022, Allan teamed up with Infront Webworks to provide digital marketing, website design, content marketing, SEO and strategy and solutions to local businesses. Allan lives in Colorado Springs.