You have a website for your business, but you do not seem to be getting traffic from the search engines. This is a problem that many businesses face and its possible that you have not setup your Google My Business properly.
If you are one of these businesses, you need to know how to optimize GMB for local SEO. Local SEO is best for businesses because it targets users that are in your area who are looking for a business like yours. Here are a few tips that will help your overall Local SEO campaign.
#1 – Have Your Address In The Footer
When learning how to optimize local SEO, you need to understand the importance of your business address. This is a vital piece of information that tells visitors and the search engines that you are in the area. It also impacts the credibility of your business which will affect your local search rankings.
As your physical address is so important, you need to have it on every page of your website. The best place for this will be the footer of each page. When you put your address in the footer, it will automatically appear on every new page that you create.
The address in the footer should not only be the physical address of your business. You also need to have your name and a phone number. This information known as NAP data should be identical across the internet, down to the abbreviations used for street names.
#2- Have Separate Pages For Different Locations
If you have branch offices that service different areas, you do not need a new website for each. However, you will need to create a separate landing page on your website for each location. This will ensure that visitors know you are in their area and help you rank on the search engine results. A separate landing page will have a better chance of ranking than one landing page with all of your locations.
Each of the pages should be a mini-homepage with the correct optimization for the location. This means content that is related to that location only. It is important to remember that the search engines will rank pages and not domains.
#3- Understand Citations
In general SEO, you need to look at backlinks which are links to your website from other websites. When it comes to local SEO, you are looking for citations. Citation pages are websites such as Yelp and Houzz where people can compare different businesses in their area.
Citation pages are used by the search engines to verify that you are who you say through the use of NAP data. They also provide a channel for visitors to get to your business. In order to make the most of these pages, you will need to use the same NAP data from your website on them.
There are hundreds of citation pages that you can use and the more you are on the better. General pages like Yelp are a good place to start, but you should also consider some industry-specific ones and local directories. These niche directories will often boost your rankings.
#4- Get Reviews
Getting reviews is another part of local SEO that is done off your website, but will boost your website ranking. Reviews are one of the ranking signals for local SEO and you need to get as many good reviews and ratings as possible. If you are unsure about how to get these reviews, there are a few methods that you can try.
Before you push for reviews, you will need to have an account which a service that allows reviews. One of the best is Google My Business which will provide you with a spot on Google Maps and boost your Google rankings. To open an account, you need a Google account.
Once you have your account, you can ask some of your current and happy customers to leave you a review. You can also add a request for a review into the end of your sales funnel. When you send an invoice, include a link to your GMB account and ask the customer to leave a quick review.
Local SEO is important for all businesses and you need to know how to optimize local search marketing. The key is to find a local SEO expert like Costa Technologies who can help you optimize your site and GMB listing for top Local SEO results.