When it comes to making the ‘perfect’ website for your business, there are many things to remember: security, blog posts, the latest trends in website design, website format and good graphics.
One of the most important things when it comes to growing your customer base, rising in the search engine rankings, and rising above your competition is your digital marketing strategy.
Digital marketing strategy?
SEO solutions?
Feeling overwhelmed?
Don’t panic.
You can start today by putting into practice the best and most effective local SEO strategies listed below.
1. TOP OF THE LIST IS TESTIMONIALS
What will place your business above that of your competitors?
Almost 90% of online shoppers say that they value the customer testimonials section of a website as much, if not more so than word-of-mouth reviews from friends and family.
You can start by asking your most loyal clients to leave you a review on Yelp, Google My Business, or simply to contribute a testimonial for your website.
Don’t be afraid to ask if they are willing to provide their contact information to potential clients, since many may want to verify that the outstanding review is genuine.
Once you have a few testimonials, make sure that you respond to every one of them, even the bad ones. This will demonstrate that you value customer feedback.
2. BUT YOUR KEYWORDS MATTER, TOO
Testimonials are an important part of the top local SEO solutions. However, no one is going to be able to read them if they never make it onto your site in the first place!
This is where location-based keywords come into play. We know that it can be tempting to position your company as a big fish in an even bigger pond when it comes to your target market and overall service area.
However, generalizations will often get you nowhere.
First of all, you’ll be competing with much larger chains/competitors for those popular keywords. This means that by using them in your content, you could be doing your competitors a favour. Additionally, generalized keywords won’t put you out in front of your local market, the people most likely to actually use your products/services.
When you’re creating location-based keywords, look for options that reference your state, city, neighbourhood, county, and even your street. For example, instead of “Japanese restaurant†try “best local sushi Beverly Hills†or “top window repair companies Trenton NJ.â€
3. GOOGLE IT
The number one influencing factor on your local digital marketing strategy will be Google.
As a result, you need to claim your Google My Business listing.
A Google My Business page means that potential customers will not have to go through pages and pages on your website to find out what the important information about your business, such as opening hours, closing hours, location, accepted forms of payment, etc.
A Google My Business page also helps you to reach the top ranking of search engine results in the local market.
Adding a Google map to the contact page of your website will improve your ranking on Google and enable people to instantly plug that map into the navigation systems on their mobile devices. Following the Google map, they will be guided easily and quickly to your business.
At WordPress.com you can find an easy to follow tutorial on how to add a Google Map to your website.
4. FOCUS ON THE DETAILS
You need to look at the small details when searching for the right local SEO solutions for your business.
To make it easier for Google and any other search engines to find out the location of your business, you need to consider putting the location of your business in: the website’s current URL address, the meta tags, the images file names and the titles/headers within the content of your
website.
More local presence in your website content = more traffic your way from your target market.
5. LINK BUILD WITH OTHER LOCAL BUSINESSES
Don’t underestimate the value of working in conjunction with the other local businesses in your area!
Talk to other businesses in your area about linking to each other’s websites and product pages on blog posts and other content. This will boost your search engine ranking.
Be creative; you could do a joint post on social media platforms, sponsor a local event together or put guest posts on your blog from these businesses.
IMPLEMENT THESE LOCAL SEO SOLUTIONS NOW
We would love to get some feedback from you on how you have implemented these local SEO solutions into your websites and how much your website’s conversions have increased.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or queries.
Keep an eye on our blog for other interesting posts about mastering all things SEO and help with blogging.