If you run a small business, make no mistake: local search is imperative for your success. You might have lofty dreams of attracting the world to your website, but it’s those local visitors who will make the difference.
This is because 80% of people will try and find local information with search engines. In this day and age, nearly every consumer will use the Internet as a tool for researching or discovering businesses. So if your company isn’t optimized for the local market, you might well be leaving 80% of your potential target audience behind.
When it comes to boosting visibility for local search, this begins with your website. A few tweaks here and the implementation of certain practices there, and your site will soon start attracting that all-important local audience.
Investigate Your Competitors
It is very important to take a look at your competitors to find out what social media strategy they use. For this purpose, you can use Spokeo reverse number lookup or email lookup. Y
ou can usually find contact info such as phone numbers or email addresses on the websites of your competitors. Then use such data to run a phone number search or email search with Spokeo. You could find out all the social media profiles of your competition and investigate them. Be interested in some advertisements, content, backlinks on these profiles.
This research can help you to create your own strategy and avoid some common mistakes.
Include all of your business details
It’s a simple starting point, but it can be surprising the amount of businesses that opt against including all of their details. After all, can’t all of that be included on Google My Business and social media pages?
However, your website should be the hub for all of your business information. This includes your contact details, location, opening times, and so on. Make sure all of this is on your site and in a clear place for everyone to find. The website footer often works well in that regard, although a separate ‘Contact Us’ page should also be utilized.
Use landing pages
A local SEO landing page is a great way of boosting website traffic numbers. Simply inserting local SEO keywords here and there works to an extent. Yet when you have an entire landing page dedicated to a certain subject, there’s a greater chance customers will end up on your website. As an example, you could utilize a landing page to describe a specific service you offer. This page can be supported with a detailed breakdown of the service, pictures and videos which better illustrate how it works, and customer reviews which attest to its quality. Not only do you get the SEO benefits, but you also increase the possibility of a visitor turning into a customer.
Start producing regular blog content
In addition to landing pages, you should also incorporate a blog as part of your website. Not only is this a great way of letting customers know about the latest updates with your business, but it can also boost the visibility of your site.
For instance, if you post your thoughts about relevant local events and news stories, this blog content will show up in search results. In addition, you could become an authority in your industry, someone that people look towards for their opinion on current matters.
Be mobile-friendly
Mobile is more important than ever in the world of business. People prefer browsing the Internet on their mobile devices over desktops. Plus Google now analyzes how a website performs on mobile before taking a look at its desktop counterpart.As a result, your website needs to be mobile-friendly and optimized for this platform. Your website design should be fine-tuned for mobile, including having clean pages and navigation which is easy to get around.
