As global competition is rising rapidly, the race to get your product out front of competitors is becoming more difficult. While established players in the industry have room to flex with big marketing budgets, startups have limited space, especially in this tough economic climate where venture capital money has dried up. Because of this, startups need a more targeted approach to get the most value for their marketing dollar. This is where local SEO comes in.
Local SEO refers to targeting a specific geographic area and getting traffic to your website from it. For those who don’t know what they should do first when it comes to local SEO, here are some suggestions.
Use Google My Business
Google My Business is an essential tool for any business owner or entrepreneur who wants their products or services to become visible to customers online. The platform has access to millions of users around the world each day and can help you reach a more targeted audience more easily than running a broad campaign on other platforms. You can also use data analytics from the google my business platform to inform your decisions in other marketing avenues.
To get started with Google My Business, simply create an account and claim the listing. List down important business information such as phone number, address, hours of operations, as well as your operational hours on special days such as a holiday. You must update your business information regularly so that customers can have access to accurate and up-to-date information when they search for a particular business type in their vicinity online. Also, include any images or photos about your business, as this helps add credibility to your business.
Optimize the Website
Local SEO is an ongoing process, not just a one-time effort. It takes time, energy, and resources to achieve that degree of success. However, if you’re willing to invest the time into it, you will get results. Search engines like google have designed their algorithms with geography as a key factor.
The success of local SEO is directly correlated with the optimization of your website. The higher it is optimized, the greater the chances of it standing out among all the other businesses in your area. Keywords are of prime importance and need to be relevant to your location. Invest time in finding out the keywords people in your targeted geographic area are using when they search for businesses.
These keywords will help you obtain a higher rank in local searches and capture more traffic from these searches. Try to target long-tail keywords as they have a lower amount of competition. If you are a small business owner or a startup with limited resources, and all this seems overwhelming, then it’s important to hire affordable local SEO services that can help you avoid costly mistakes.
Get Localized Backlinks
Another great way to improve your local SEO is by getting backlinks from local sites that have high domain authority. They need to be relevant to your industry and the area you are targeting. For example, if you are selling organic grass-fed meat to a town in Nebraska, then a blog run by a locally recognized and respected bodybuilder in the area can help. A good local SEO solutions provider will be able to match you with good reputable sites.
Use Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a terrific tool that helps you to identify and fix any issues that could be affecting your site’s traffic. The platform helps you monitor Google search activity and get valuable information such as the impressions your site is getting every day, identifying highest-CTR queries, and identifying lowest-ranking pages so that you can remove them. An affordable local SEO services company knows how these tools work inside out and can guide you in the best way possible.
Use Google Analytics
If you have a local business, then Google Analytics is a valuable tool to help you learn more about your target audience. Using it, you can analyze the interests and demographics of the visitors as well as track visitor bounce rates. You can also use it to identify the keywords that are important to your target audience.
Guest article written by: Joseph Dyson is a highly experienced SEO expert working for a reputable local SEO solutions provider in San Diego, Search Berg. Through their affordable local SEO services, he helps companies get more conversions from their area of operations.