Getting Noticed – 5 Local SEO Tips to Help Boost Your Small Business Presence
Having trouble getting noticed online? Here are 5 local SEO tips to help you starting getting eyes on your business quickly.
The number of small businesses is rapidly growing. Wherever you might be and whatever industry your own company might belong to, chances are that you are facing some fierce competition on your domestic ground. If numbers are any indicator, and they certainly are, the growth of small businesses is indicative of each market’s health, but it also poses a slew of issues for existing companies to compete. In the US alone, there are close to 32 million SMBs, which means that 99.9% of the entire US market is actually made of small businesses.
Other countries in the world, like Australia, are not far behind, either. If anything, other nations have an equally impressive percentage of small businesses that are flourishing. With 99.8% of all Australian businesses considered small or medium, 98% of them employ fewer than 20 people.
For both of these markets, positioning your own small business locally can pose quite a challenge. This is where strong, strategic local SEO can make all the difference.
Keep track of your business directories
Information consistency tells Google that your business is trustworthy and verifiable, so naturally, if you take good care of your listings, you’ll be much more likely to rank higher in your market. As one of the most effective SEO strategies for local ranking, managing your business directories is an ongoing pursuit that will help you provide accurate details to your customers at all times.
Local customer reviews matter
What you say about your business means a ton, but what your customers have to say bears even more relevance for Google and other search engines. For example, if your Melbourne clients rave about your brand online, they will also be much more likely to organically incorporate keywords in their reviews, both for your site and for third-party platforms.
Ask for customer reviews regularly and make sure to enable rating on third-party platforms. Remind your customers to say something about their experience, and you can sometimes incentivize them, too.
Local content optimization
Local SEO also means recognizing specific strategies that will help your business reach more people who will benefit from interacting with your website and your brand. In a way, integrating local keywords and phrases, location-specific content, and covering relevant local events will all help position your brand better.
Choosing tactics for an effective Sydney SEO strategy will often differ from the methods you’d use for a different location in Australia or elsewhere. With that in mind, make sure that you regularly implement relevant local keywords, links, work with local influencers and bloggers, but also strive to monitor your keyword and backlink portfolio. This is not a set-it-and-forget-it strategy, but an ongoing effort to rank better.
Ensure optimal site performance
As creative as you get with your content output, there’s no way around technicalities and performance issues. Google and all other search engines know that customers don’t want to waste time on slow-loading websites, with poorly optimized pages, and sites without proper mobile optimization.
While you’re doing your best to produce quality, keyword-optimized content for your local audience, it’s essential that they can access it without delays, safely, and comfortably. Check your site’s performance regularly, update your plugins, and test for bugs to eliminate any issues in time. Top-ranked sites are typically the ones that perform without a hitch!
Focus on social for added credibility
On one hand, expert marketers will tell you that it’s extremely difficult to connect the dots between your social signals and your ranking potential. However, your social media footprint is certainly one of the most effective ways to give your website more relevance, credibility, and local authority.
For example, if you run a Brisbane cake shop, you want to make sure that you are active on social media, precisely on the channels where your target customers spend their time. Sharing your content there will get more website visits for your brand, as people will be more eager to engage via social outlets.
They can then bring more new visitors to your blog, as well as your sales landing pages. These signals can greatly contribute to your local ranking potential, as search engines recognize when a brand attracts plenty of attention.
No matter if you’re trying to launch a brand-new apparel brand in Sydney or land more customers for your New York café, local SEO remains a vital component of your digital marketing strategy. It will help you boost your online reputation, and even more so, it will allow you to reach more people that will benefit from your brand. Push your local SEO strategy forward with these tips, and your business will prosper in 2021 and beyond.
