Small Businesses Compete with These Tactics
By De-de Mulligan
As a small business leader, myself, sometimes I wonder if it makes any sense to invest time in local search tactics. After all, can the best optimization plan lead to more website traffic, more leads, and more local pull?
The short answer is, heck, yes!
The long answer is it requires a plan, a chunk of time, and the willingness to keep up to date on changes Google, Bing, and Yahoo may make whenever they feel the need to do so.
Here are 5 Interesting Stats
- 85% of customers believe online reviews as much as personal recommendations, per BrightLocal.
- 75% of all mobile searches that exhibit local intent produce in-store visits within 24 hours of that search as stated by Acquisio.
- The average bounce rate for sites that load in at 10 seconds is 65 percent.
- According to ReviewTrackers, 35% of all searches are local-focused.
- Businesses with photos on their Google My Business account receive 42% more requests for driving directions than those who do not have pictures on their account.
Specific Ways to Improve Local SEO
Create, claim, and optimize your Google My Business account.
Remember Google+, Google Places, and Google Maps? Well, the fine people at Google decided to consolidate the best of these three apps into one place: GMB.
There are many reasons you want to pay attention to this channel. For starters, Google authenticates (yes, it takes one-two weeks to complete), that your business is a legit brick and mortar location.
To optimize your account, here’s what you need to do:
- Claim and verify your listing
- Provide accurate information
- Include your:
- Logo
- Operational hours
- Acceptable payment methods
- Product and service offerings
- Parking information
- Events you plan
- News
- Offers
- Post regularly here – just like other social channels
Get Google reviews.
Reviews help build your brand trustworthiness. The number of reviews, how often new ones are posted, how many are positive, and how many mentions your keywords, all impact local search.
Here are ways to encourage assessments:
- When you close a sale, ask for a review
- Send a post-purchase email with the link to the review site
Create content around local stories.
Nothing helps cement the fact that you are in a specific community than a blog post, news story, or video that highlights an event you are supporting. Be sure to attend, host, and sponsor these types of events to drive home your location. If you have time, become a volunteer and agree to be a blog contributor in exchange for a byline that includes your website link.
Make sure your website is mobile optimized.
It must be mobile to play with local SEO. Period.
Once mobile responsive, do the following:
- Make sure your website loads within 2-3 seconds
- Use larger fonts
- Use images sparingly
- Please don’t include a Google Map, as it has been shown to slow websites down
Make sure other online channels have the correct information, a thorough description of your business, and point to your website.
- Yelp
- Foursquare
- MapQuest
- Yellow Pages/Superpages
- Citysearch
- Bing Places for Business
- Yahoo Local
Write guest blog posts on sites with high domain authority and make sure the post has a link back to your website.
Closing
Google states it determines the ranking of local listings based on these three factors:
- Prominence: Where are you active? Social media, blogging, news outlets? Getting active on social channels encourages users to engage and link with your content, as well as, mention your brand on their social channels.
- Distance: How far away are you from the user?
- Relevance: How relevant is the local listing match compared to what the user is searching for – remember, Google is king because they now understand user intent.
Local search is more critical than ever based on mobile and voice search. It also occupies more real estate, especially with paid searches on specific long-tail search options.
Mulligan Management Group Can Help You Master Local SEO
Need help with SEO – especially ranking locally? Give us a call or text me at 330-472-7673 to see how we can help you!