2021 Local SEO Guide for Small Businesses

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If you are a small business owner and you are looking to attract more local customers and generate qualified traffic to your website, then this is exactly what you have been searching for.

We put together a Local SEO Guide dedicated to small businesses.

Additionally, you will also need more consistency throughout the year to survive in this increasingly competitive marketplace.

This small business owners Complete SEO Guide is aimed to help you better position your business to compete in the local market.

LOCAL SEO GUIDE FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

1. Properly optimize your Business’ Website

Your website is the most important and valuable online asset. Hence, it needs to be properly optimized to ensure it ranks high within search results. How to optimize your website

  • Create a domain name that reflects the nature of your business and its location
  • Incorporate your NAP in all individual pages on your website
  • Add keywords on page titles that identify with your business and its location
  • Highlight your offerings

2. Establish an apt link strategy for SEO

Links from your company’s website to other interrelated websites and vice versa play a major role in your business’ SEO visibility. These links help to establish authenticity and reliability of your business. You can achieve this by;
  • Sharing your website’s like to your social media pages such as Facebook and Twitter
  • Host or sponsor charity events or offer discounts, and then encourage the beneficiaries to link to your website when creating content about these activities
  • Include links to your site whenever you send our email newsletters or are updating your customers

3. Claim all your listings

Search engines are busy crawling the internet looking for information to use in their ranking algorithms. Hence, you need to make sure your business is listed on the larger business directories and that all the information provided is accurate. Discrepancies in your business name, phone number and address may negatively impact your local ranking. For instance, if the search engines realize mismatched information, they will skip your listing and look for other listings with more accurate details to place ahead of yours.

4. Encourage customer reviews

Since you cannot give your customers incentives to leave a review or tell them to leave reviews, you can still encourage them to. A great way to have your clients leaving reviews is by sending them follow up emails containing links to your local listing profiles and letting them know that you would like to hear about their experiences.

5. Local Optimization with NAP (business name, address and phone number) focus

You should strive to optimize your page with target keywords that describe your products or services while also referencing your location. For instance, if you are a veterinarian in Maryland, then your pages titles and site copy should have several variations of local search terms like Maryland veterinary or veterinary services in Maryland, and so forth. Also, reference key landmarks in your area that are within proximity to your business to boost your local SEO.

6. Focus on other search engines

Most small businesses put all their focus and effort on ranking on Google search engines. This is probably because it tends to have the fastest and potentially the best returns when compared to other search engines. However, when aiming for local markets, it is highly recommended that you also focus your efforts on other local search engines like Bing (Local) Maps.

7. Register the domain name with the business

Word has it that Google uses the address that a company is registered under to rank for local search results. Hence, businesses may want to register their domain names with their current business addresses. Also, make sure to mark the location of your business in the map “centroid” as it is another indicator of relevance.

8. Get listed in directories

Make sure you are listed on all of the free local directories in order to get more local traffic. This includes Google Places or Bing Local. These locations are one of the first places users will visit when trying to find a local business. Take the time to audit and update these listings for consistency of information.

9. Engage with your customers on social media regularly

Social media pages play a major role in local business visibility in search results. Hence, make sure you are proactive on social media by engaging your customers to grow your following. Some great ideas for engagement include promotions, giveaways, highlighting stories of relevance to your customers and giving them regular updates on new products.

10. Create Local Content

It is becoming increasingly important for sites to create content that offers users value. You can do this by creating content that tries to address various customer concerns and providing solutions. This will impact on your local search ranking.
The internet is now more competitive than ever, and executing an SEO strategy is no longer an option. It is a necessity for every business. With consistency, these small businesses local SEO Guide will help improve your presence and visibility in search engines.