Local SEO can get a new business off the ground and take existing businesses to new heights. But, you need to know how to exploit these tools to your benefit.
With niche marketing, it can be difficult to feel like you’re gaining a foothold with your audience. You need to know exactly who you’re looking for and how to appeal to them for your marketing efforts to make a difference. One of the ways to do this is with local SEO. In this post, we’re going to look at some local SEO tools and how you can use them to boost your search rankings.
Google My Business
By filling out your Google My Business profile, you’re essentially stating to the search engine that you’ve arrived. As an SEO tool, it’s free and easy to use. It helps you track the ways in which your customers are finding you by looking at the number of views, clicks, and searches you get from different channels.
This allows you to optimize the areas that aren’t working as well to create a more balanced approach to SEO. All you have to do is fill out your profile as thoroughly and accurately as you can, then Google does the rest. Along with your business profile, Google looks at your website, backlinks, ratings, and reviews to rank you on SERPs.
Creating Local Content
What you put on your website and how it works has a massive impact on local SEO. One way to help with this is by creating local content on your company or personal blog. Whether you’re running a local auto body shop or a local dentist’s office, it’s important to include locally themed content on your blog to establish yourself as the preeminent business, both in your industry and in your city.
Of course, auto SEO and dental SEO are quite different, so you’ll still need to show expertise in your field as well. However, taking care to mention your location – not just on your blog, but on social media and any other platforms you create content on – will help.
Customer Reviews
Your local SEO isn’t only dependent on what you do, it’s crucial that your customers leave positive ratings and reviews for your business. Not only are most of your prospective customers going to look at these before they decide to go to your business, but Google will use these, as well as your responses to them, to boost traffic to your website.
Citations and Links
Unstructured citations are references by third-party websites to your company’s contact information, usually in link form. Link building is important because the more that Google finds your business cited on other relevant sites in your niche or general location, the farther they’ll boost your page up search rankings.
As with customer reviews, you need to do this work both online and in person. Building relationships with other local businesses and having them mention you in their content will help to build more and more citations and links.
Paid Local SEO Tools Work As Well
In addition to these local SEO practices that are proven to produce results, you can involve paid local SEO tools to help you analyze SEO data and make informed choices to boost your local SEO. That said, we’ve shown here that there’s a lot you can do for free before you need to think about paying for local SEO help. It’s always good to learn how to use SEO to your benefit first, then involve digital marketing agencies to take you over the top. If you enjoyed this post, come back again for more business, tech, and lifestyle advice.