Tips for Local Business SEO? Why local? Why not show everyone in the world that you’ve started your business? We’ve talked about how the internet has allowed businesses a new way to introduce themselves across the globe.

But you don’t necessarily need to get the entire world’s attention. Sometimes all a business needs to is be noticed by their neighbors.

Let’s learn about some of the ways a Local Business can improve their SEO to gather more customers!

Introduce your Business to Google My Business

It goes without saying the internet and Google are almost synonymous. If you haven’t already claimed your business on Google, let us show you how to create your MyBusiness account today!

Google MyBusiness is one of the most important listings you can have on the net. If you want to cover the rest of your tracks, make sure to also create a Bing Place and Apple Map listing.

Make sure you keep active on these listing sites and post images of your business. Images and Blogs will let customers know what your business looks like and that it is still active. Not to mention if you write interesting content that is useful to your customers – they may be more likely to share your business!

Get your Local NAP Citations Correct

For local businesses, this is one of the most important factors outside of having your business listed on Google.

NAP Stands for “Name”, “Address”, “Phone Number”.

These are the three items you would hope are correct when a customer is trying to find your business.

If someone searched up ‘[Your Business] address/phone number/hours”, Google will actually look for the hours and place them above the search results.

Imagine if you were open, but Google said you were closed – or even worse, the customer heads to your business thinking you were open but you weren’t!

Also, your customers may not use Google to find what they are looking for. There are many social media sites that someone may search to find you.

Accurate listings help customers find you on:

• Search Engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo)
• Other Local listing sites (Chamber of Commerce, Yellow Pages, Yelp)
• Industry-specific sites (Trip Advisor, Healthgrades)

Making sure your information is accurate in as many places as possible helps guarantee your local business will be found.

So I have to check EVERY listing site for accuracy?

Moz has the top used listing sites for local businesses by city and category. This can help you start out your journey to getting your business up and out there on the internet!

• Check out what listings are missing your Business!
• MOZ Citations by Category
• MOZ Citations by City

Optimize your Page SEO

Here is a list of what’s important to getting your local business up and running:

1. Make your website Mobile friendly – Google Ranks these sites over desktop-only sites.
2. Make sure your SEO keywords are optimized for your business.
3. Structure your content in a way similar to how blogs should be written. (Keywords in headers, URLs, meta description).
4. Include your NAP information on your site.
5. Have Reviews and Testimonials.

Testimonials and Reviews are very important for Local Business SEO

Reviews and Testimonials are like word of mouth between two people on the street. Your business is more likely to be trustworthy when being searched if there are many reviews for your business.

People are more likely to visit a business with many reviews, compared to one with little to none. Make sure to encourage your customers to review your business on Google and other listing sites like Yelp! Let them help you bring more customers to you.

After everything you’ve done, make sure to keep active online on your social media and listing accounts. Hopefully, these tips for local business SEO will help you and your business. Post images and reply to your customer reviews and questions regularly to show you your business is here to stay!

Image by photosforyou from Pixabay

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

Featured Image by Michael Gaida from Pixabay