5 things to remember about local search engine optimisation
Ensuring you bear in mind local searches is as vital as it ever has been within SEO these days, and it’s worth spending a bit of time remembering how to make the most out of local search options and ensure you are reaching the maximum amount of people in your immediate vicinity. This blog post will deal with 5 separate issues to bear in mind when optimising for local search results.
Contact Information
This might sound obvious, but there’s very little point in appearing in Google for results in your local area if you don’t have contact information, or at the very least an address, on your results. This goes for maintaining consistent information as well – if you have changed address or phone number make sure people aren’t trying to contact the wrong place when looking for your business. Make every effort to ensure you get found.
Encourage Reviews
This is a good idea for small local businesses – make sure you encourage reviews on Google and if you get good reviews, push them, direct people to them and shout about them on your website, social media and any other relevant advertising. Not only does this help in the search results, and appear favourably to Google, it adds credibility and a human element which is extremely beneficial when it comes to converting potential customers.
Visual and User Generated Content
If your business is well known in the local area, and there are people talking about it, on social media or otherwise, ensure you take steps to leverage this and use it to your advantage. You could perhaps create some content out of it – set up a hashtag search on Twitter or Instagram and compile all the photos or tweets mentioning your business, for example. There are some excellently versatile, and easy, content approaches to be had here and it could help boost your local presence even further.
On-Page Optimisation
It’s vital to make sure that on-page optimisation is up to scratch when it comes to local search marketing. Simple things like making sure there is adequate mention on a place name in the copy, and that all title tags and header tags adhere to local optimisation guidelines, can make a big different to ensuring your business is able to get found in the search results.
The Right Kind of Content
It’s all very well having a plethora of content on your site – and update it frequently – but you need to make sure it’s relevant for the people in your local area you’re trying to target. This goes back to the point about user generated content – see what’s going on and what people are saying in your local area and create content around that. It’s a great way to target local keywords, too.
Local SEO is as important as ever, as Google becomes more and more personalised and tailors each individual experience to suit the user. For more information about this – or how we can help assist you in your search optimisation and local marketing, get in touch now.
