Website owners know how much work it takes in order to get your website, or at least some of its pages, properly ranked in search engines. On top of creating a website that manages the technical aspects properly, that has good content optimized for SEO, and that gets linked to from other quality websites, you also need to always stay on top of your game.
For all these reasons, it’s good to sometimes focus on specific aspects of your SEO. It can be very narrow topics, such as images or video SEO optimization, but in the case of this article, we will take a look at tips for better local SEO. If you own a restaurant or fitness website, take notes!
1. Target Local Keywords
This may sound like obvious advice if you are familiar with SEO, but it’s a must-do, and many business out there aren’t doing it. Take your business name, your products or services, the problems you are solving, and create pages where you mix the relevant keywords with your city, village, neighborhood, or country name. The location you choose should be related to your business reach. For example, if you are an Australian SEO business, you could use keywords like seo australia.
2. Get More Reviews
When a client is satisfied with your work, encourage him or her to leave a review for your business. On top of creating a positive testimonial for your brand, it helps with SEO in multiple ways, as it’s content that can be on various platforms. Try to send links of the platforms that are of interest for you, such as Google Maps, Tripadvisor, or TrustPilot. If you are receiving not so positive reviews, make sure to reply to the reviews and show that you care.
3. Create Local Content
Want to have a website your local customers care about? Try writing something relevant to them. In many cases, writing local content will bring more local people, as it should. If you are not inspired by the local events, try to create a regional event to have something to write about, or simply write about your industry in a local context.
4. Manage Your Google My Business Page
Plenty of businesses are on Google My Business and don’t even know about it. Some just created the page, but they actually forget about it afterwards. It’s possible to publish news and sales on your Google My Business page, take advantage of this, as it will help you to be listed higher in the future.
5. List Your Business In Directories
Some good old fashion online advice. List your business in a broad range of directories that are relevant to your local environment. Some of these are here: Yelp, Foursquare, AngiesList, Bing Place, Hot Frog, Best of the Web. However, make sure to research local directories to find the most relevant ones for your region.
6. Find Some Local Partners
Last but not least, as it’s a core business practice that will help way beyond SEO, try to find yourself some business partners locally. These partners can help you to progress if you have a good collaboration, you can organize events together or simply swap links. In any case, it helps not to be alone.