Local SEO Strategies that will get you ahead of the competition

The competition in local SEO is fierce and it’s a lot more complicated than just getting your website to rank on the first page of Google. If you’re a small business owner, it can seem like there’s no real way to compete with the big guys. In this post, we’ll cover some tips for small businesses looking to boost their local SEO by making sure they’re taking advantage of things that other larger companies skip over. (hint: local leads convert better than national leads).

With a simple tweak, small businesses can boost their local SEO in no time. Local SEO is critical for your business to succeed. The idea behind local SEO is that customers search for businesses in the area or around town, not on a larger scale like national brand names. As a small business owner, you need to be sure that people can find you online when they’re close by. Running a successful local SEO campaign can help increase your visibility and drive more traffic from Google and other search engines.

7 simple strategies for fast results

Here are 7 quick things you can do today to significantly improve your local presence online:
1. Ensure your name, address and phone number (NAP) are consistent across the internet and it is exactly the same. If your located on First Street, use that only not sometime First Street and other times 1st ST. Search Engines use BOTs and they are not always able to tell that is the same address.
2. Claim your Google My Business, Bing Places and Yelp Accounts. Keep them up to date with press information and content. Again make sure all the information is consistent and detailed.
3. Take advantage of directory and listing sites. These sites are used as citations, the more times your information appears to a BOT, the more relevant you become. List your business in as many directory sites as you want.
4. Use location tagging in your social posts. Adding locations help you be “discovered”
5. Use hashtags. Studies have shown that the best results from hashtags come from using 7-11 and a variety of kinds. You should be using popular hashtags, moderately popular hashtags, industry/niche hashtags, branded hashtags and location hashtags.
6. Keep in mind that local SEO is based on three thing proximity, where Google believes a user is in relationship to a business address at the time they search. Prominence, How important Google thinks a business is in relationship to its nearby competitors and Relevance, how closely related a result is to the words a searcher uses in their search engine query.
7. Research your competitors, find out the marketing they are doing, how they rank on search engines, and what keywords they are using. You can do this by using a tool like SpyFu or Ubersuggest.

It is clear that local SEO is set to play an important role in the future of business. Businesses will need to compete with local companies in their marketplace by implementing better SEO strategies and tactics. Neither large nor small business can ignore the value of local SEO or they risk being left behind. Local SEO services will continue to grow, providing businesses with a way to compete with larger entities and still have a piece of the search engine pie. When local SEO services are planned, strategized and executed correctly, your business will be the one in front of your consumers instead of playing catch-up for years.

We gave you 7 quick tips that you can implement today to start boosting your local SEO efforts. While this will make a difference, we can’t stress enough how much research and planning go into local SEO as well as how extensive it is. It’s not just about what you post online, it’s also about understanding who your audience is, where they’re from and where they’re searching for your business. Focus on the quality of your tags, titles and descriptions above all else. It is better to have less information about a niche in the area than to drown them with too much information which will ultimately be useless.

If you would some help setting your business for local SEO domination reach out, we do it everyday for businesses just like yours.

If you would rather go it alone, here is some more in-depth information about local SEO, check out our local SEO deck.

So, what are you waiting for? Stop reading this and go get started!

If you would like to start Organic Marketing for your business and you don’t have time or would rather someone else manage it. Reach out we do this everyday for businesses just like yours and they love us for it