For small and brand-new businesses, local SEO is one of the best effective inbound marketing strategies you can employ. You won’t be able to compete with larger established companies just yet for general search terms, but you do have the ability to dominate local ranks. Most importantly, most of your customers will be local to start, so it makes sense to target them anyway.
Here are six local SEO tips to help you boost your rank and start generating more traffic:
1. Verify Yourself on Local Directories
One of the key determinations in your search ranking is how many pages point back to your website and how many times you are cited on local directories. It’s therefore important to take a look at online directories and make sure that your company name, address, website, and contact information is correct and consistent.
2. Tweak Your Website
Beyond using relevant keywords, there are other important ways you can optimize your business’ website for local SEO. One way is by choosing the right domain name, which should include keywords if possible. For example, if you’re running a cleaning service in New Jersey instead of julias.com, you should look to use juliascleaningnj.com. Furthermore, make sure that all of your business’ information - name, phone number, address, is listed on every single page – the best way to do this is with a global footer that contains this information.
3. Generate Backlinks
One of the most important factors in local search rankings are link signals. The gist is that if other websites, especially authoritative ones, are linking back to your company’s website, then you will be ranked higher. A good way to legitimately generate backlinks is by offering to write guest blog posts or articles, or encourage other journalists and bloggers to review or mention your website and include a direct link. This means finding sites that would be interested in linking to your article, reaching out to them by email and asking them to link while pointing out the value of them doing so.
4. Encourage Reviews
Content generated by users outside of your company also have a noticeable impact on your search rank. If people are talking about you, it stands to reason that you’re a relevant, worthy business.
Encourage your customers to leave reviews on the review sites important to your industry, such as Yelp. If you don’t have many reviews right now, consider offering customers a small incentive (such as a small discount) to leave honest reviews.
5. Leverage Local Content
The content on your website should highlight who you are and what you do, but if you want to rank locally, you should also highlight your surrounding area. Some good examples are discussing exactly where people can find you and noting some nearby landmarks, or mentioning local schools and sports teams.
6. Don’t Forget Social Media
Social media plays an increasingly bigger role in SEO every year. If you have verified social media accounts that are active and have lots of followers, you can boost your website’s rankings. Not only that, but your social media accounts, like a Facebook page, may even start appearing towards the top of the ranks.
Following these simple local SEO tips will help your business jump in local search ranks, generating more traffic than ever before. If you’re looking for some additional help with your inbound marketing strategies, no matter what they are, make sure to reach out to us here at Laveh Inbound Marketing!
