It’s been awhile and I should not have left you all without rant for so long! I know, you missed me, but dry your eyes- I’m back. Let’s talk about local SEO. I was speaking with a local business owner who had no clue that the internet could make him money and bring customers in his door. I guess that’s why his son is designing the website. I found myself speaking to both of them as I waiting for some fresh bread and realizing that many local businesses are so concerned with have a great website but fail to realize it can be the best thing since sliced bread but if nobody can find it then it just as good as paper weight on your desk. So this week I’ll discuss some basic loc
Make your contact details easily visible:
It’s very important to make sure your local customers can find a way to contact you easily. How else will they be able to buy something from you? Also, by mentioning in your contact or location info that you are (for example) the “Southside Baker”. Chances are you will rank for Bakers in your area of “Southside”. Remember to highlight this naturally throughout your website’s content, so the search engines can see that your pages are associated with a certain area.
Let your community know who you are
Get active in your local area! Support a local charity, get other businesses involved in a block party, have a side walk sale, drive around town with something with your logo and website. Heck, go to other local businesses and make them aware of your presence. Maybe you can share customers! When participating in community campaigns, you’re more likely to get local press coverage and when you get press coverage you place that on your website to further cement your relevance to your area.
Get on Google Places
Getting listed on Google Places is free for businesses and lets people searching both Google and Google Maps see more information about your business. You can list your address, number, and website, and users can leave reviews of your services (so it goes without saying you need to be a company that leaves customers satisfied to get the most out of this).
Get Involved in Your (Online) Community
It is always a great idea to get listed in any local online directories or to participate in local forums. If you participate in them its just another avenue/medium for customers to find you! Also you know visitors who are looking at these local directories and forums are just…locals and are more likely to buy from you or at least come into your place of business than other web viewers.
Go Social
All the cool kids are doing it! Why isn’t your business? I’m talking about going social- getting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. You can reach so many people, easily, fast and best of all typically free! Free marketing for a small/local business owner is the 2nd greatest thing other than watching someone buy something from you.
Be Friendly and Be You
The most important thing with the revival of local business is to be you and be friendly. The internet is great, but as fast as your rise to be that great local shop or that niche boutique, you can easily crash and burn with negative reviews online. So be kind, friendly and make people want to come back and give you business as well as tell their friends to spend their money with you as well.
These are just a few personal tips from a long list of great local SEO tips. If you have some best practices that you use feel free to post them in the comments section. Until next time!
Related posts:
