Do you know every 3rd local customer prefers to search online to find nearby restaurants, Grocery Shops Or Saloon etc? If you run some local business and don’t have any website or online shop portal of yours then you’re missing out 60% of customers. Nowadays, It’s very important to have a website or landing page (Where you have mentioned your contact info like Address, Mobile Numbers, Google Map) even for local business to rank higher in search engines.
In This Guide, I will let you know step by step guide on how to rank Local SEO higher in search engine pages and get reviews and build links to directories etc.
Sit Back, Take the notes and start building your own local empire!
But Wait, What Does Local SEO means? Why is it Needed for my local business?
SEO Stands for search engine optimization where you list your business online and optimizes your process in such a way to get more customer to your business. Search Engine giants like Google, Bing uses various algorithms, Matrices to list business related to your niche and keyword in such a way it’s trustworthy plus consumer friendly. Nowadays its mandatory to list your business online in the tech-dependent world.
Ok, So how is it different from Normal SEO?
Personally, It’s quite hard to perform local SEO because of its competitive value. Normal SEO isn’t limited to a particular area or city as it targets internet audience as a whole. Whereas Local SEO need to analyze the competition first, Your Business’s local ranking factors and some of the local directory list building which isn’t done normally when it comes to normal SEO.
Hope you’ve Understood what, why local SEO is crucial for your business.
Local SEO’s Ranking Factors
According to Moz, Above Infographic indicates various Local SEO factors involving various signals form Business, Social, And Personalization to keep in mind to rank higher in your local queries.
- Business Signals:- Covers Searcher-Business distance, Your business category, Keywords (Like food in London) in your business title, etc.
- Link Signals:- All Links created which includes anchor text of the link (Related to your keyword), Local link building, Higher Domain Authority links.
- On-Page Signals:- Includes NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) to be included according to Schema.org optimized way and various other on-page optimization.
- Citation Signals:- Covers 13% of ranking factors involving citation volume data, NAP consistency and listing in local link directories.
- Review Signals:- For local business reviews are key to get success in a long period. Therefore, this covers 13% of the ranking factors involving google reviews on your Google business listing, Yelp reviews, and others.
- Behavioral Signals:- Covers 10% involves PPC, click-thru rate to your lead pages, bounce rates, time spend on your site which leaves an impact on behavioral signals.
- Personalization:- Covers 10% includes every factor that are customer friendly, fast page loading speeds, mobile-friendly websites, responsive designs, ease of browse.
- Social Signals:- last but not least involves social engagements, more likes, share and comments related to your business offers.
So these are factors that depend upon your success in local SEO.
Above factors set your priority straight and help you to recognize the week point of your online strategy.
Guide To Rank Local SEO
Now after considering factors to rank local business, now let’s build To-Do-List for your online marketing strategy.
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Finding Keyword
Suppose, You offer “Pest Control” services in your area, say, London, Therefore you need to find keywords what people are searching for i.e. Pest Services In London, Pest Services London etc.
As you can see in the above pic, There is keyword what people are searching i.e. Pest Control London, pest control north London etc. Tools which I have used is – semrush. It’s my go-to tools which I use to find long tail keywords.
Checkout Keyword Density Checker to check your keyword’s density.
Finding Right keyword help you to rank higher in search engines and the possibility of cash-in every customer that comes in your way.
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Optimize Your Landing Page
After finding your local keyword, now it’s time to optimize your landing page to get more leads from the customer. If you’re doing PPC campaign with Google Adwords then you must have gone through “quality score” checkup which shows your ad quality plus landing page quality which includes various factors like Speed, Mobile Friendly, Content-rich which does give users/customers more information.
Content Is Key!
Well, That’s right!
Google loves long content rich pages with more than 2000 words and they rank pretty fast on other pages which do give its authenticity to give the searcher more information about the query they have been searching for!
Therefore, Firstly, You put up loads of texts, images, infographics or videos on your landing page describing your product or services which should look authentic and accurate to the user.
Secondly, Optimize your text by following the tips below;
- Put your target keyword in <h2> in your landing page content.
- Use your keyword at various levels to increase keyword density of your page.
- Use more passive content and illustrations with live examples.
- Everyone love graphics isn’t it? Well, add infographics, Relevant images or videos to engage your user.
- Add Clickable Phone number in your landing page or contact us or opt-in forms to get leads instantly.
- Link your internal content in that post e.g. references like contact page, more information page, about your company page etc.
- Use Quotation, <h2> and <h3> and some outbound links (To other pages like Wikipedia, google etc) to increase your page visibility and optimization.
- Put deadline counter to your Coupon/offers to attract visitors to contact you as soon as possible.
- Content should be of at least 2000 words to rank higher in search engines.
- Add your business’s google map in your contact page to ease your user to use google map directions.
Quite A workload isn’t it? Well, you can always contact us to do it for you!
Therefore, Now your second step of on-page optimization is completed and let’s move forward.
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Power Of Google My Business
Do You know? Every 3rd Local shops have listed their business in Google My Business!
Also, Its claimed that GMB has increased their profits up to 300 to 500% spotting their business online.
How to Setup Google Business Profile in 2023: Unlock the Power and Increase Your Visibility
Google My Business has become essential in order to get your business visible online and get your business above your competitors.
Go to Google My Business > Start Now > Login using your Associated Google Account
And follow the steps accordingly!
Afterward, To verify your details, Google may send you mail for verification process which does take up to 20 days.
Don’t feel demotivated!
Meanwhile, Enter your other details like working hours, days, Add 750 words descriptions (Longer the better) and more in your GMB interface.
After you get your GMB mail letter and then enter verification code included in it to your listing interface and Google will activate it with immediate effect.
Congrats! Your business is listed on google.
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Submit Your Links to Business Link Directories
Well, Every country has some popular classified ads sites where you can submit your business services information and left your phone number or website for customers to contact you. For example, Yelp, Quickr, OLX, Yellowpages, Craigslist etc.
There are hundreds of these genre websites where you can list your business for free and get customers instantly which won’t cost you a dime!
Exciting isn’t it?
Well, It is but it does come with its limitations like Highly competitive value, Spamming, No-follow links (Which isn’t bad actually, It does work), Time consuming etc. But it does have it’s positive value too like cost efficiency, free High DA/PA links, high amount of customers etc.
You can search for your local directory list by searching following in Google;
“Submit Link” + “php link directory”
As you can see in above screenshot with brand value and a higher Alexa rank which will give you one-way link juice for your local business success!
You can also search with following keywords
“Submit site”
“submit link”
“submit free link”
“suggest site”
“suggest link”
“free gaming directory”
“free directory”
“free web directory”
“free link directory”
“Powered by: php Link Directory”
“powered by PHPLD”
“Powered by WSN Links”
“powered by PHP Weby”
“Powered by cpLinks”
“Powered by cpDynaLinks”
“powered by BosDirectory”
“Powered by Link manager LinkMan”
“Powered by Gossamer Links”
“Powered by K-Links”
“Powered by In-Link”
“Powered by eSyndiCat Directory Software”
“Powered by: qlWebDS Pro”
“Powered by Directory software by LBS”
“powered by phpMyDirectory.com”
“Powered by HubDir PHP directory script”
Above are some keywords which make it easy for you to use and get hundreds or even thousands of one way easy links which you don’t need skills to do, just sign up and you’re DONE!
Submitting To Hundreds of site is hard isn’t it?
Well, Contact us and we will do it for you, We have thousands of niche specific accounts which will help to get an instant boost with little cost!
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Get Social Signals
Well, as of now we have created a landing page, found keywords, did some link building and setup google my business account. What’s left?
SOCIAL SIGNALS!
What is it?
According to moz, You must have good social media profiles preferably google plus, twitter,facebook,Instagram, Linkedin and Youtube to get benefits of real customers/users engagement and gain their trust social wide which is referred to as social signals. All those shares,likes,following, comments and feedbacks or reviews to your social pages does signal google about your authenticity and quality which will help your business to excel higher.
What I do is;
- Sign up to leading platforms like facebook, twitter, Instagram
- Setup pages with a lot of info and contact number or website on covers or profile pictures.
- Describe my business in the description box and left contact URL Or phone number there.
- Run paid Campaign on all these leading social giants and get some likes or followers.
- Then give free goodies in return of positive testimonials which I will screenshot it and showcase in my site’s testimonials or “what my customers say” section. It does leave a positive impact on a new user who is browsing your site for the first time.
- Create a slideshow with voiceover and create a youtube video with your target keyword. Then leave target url in description field with loads of information.
So follow, above steps and you will be good to go and get positive social signals for your business.
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Request your customer to left a review
Last but not the least, Who doesn’t love appreciation right? Well, everyone does!
An even new user who’s browsing for your targeted services wants to see what your customers have to say about you! Therefore, they usually check google or facebook reviews to find the best possible services in your area.
Therefore, If you request your customer every time you deliver what you promised and if they are happy enough to leave a good feedback then request them to do it on google or facebook,
Gone are those days where you give your customer a pen and feedback form to get reviews (Even though it is still effective for internal quality check/survey by your Marketing head).
What I do is;
- I always put the customer’s need and demand first.
- Deliver as I’ve promised and asked them to leave facebook or google review whichever is do-able.
- If I have done some mistake or my work is not above average then for a positive feedback, I usually give them a discount and fixed things and get good review form them.
- Or, Give them some coupon or discount for next order if they leave positive feedback on your google MB.
These are some tricks which I do use for my local business to get some good positive reviews from them and get my reputation cut above my competition.
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Patience is a virtue.
If you want immediate sale results then I will suggest you opt for google ad words PPC campaign and get loads of customer on your keywords.
Local SEO or even general SEO takes its time and you will see results step by step and day by day. You just cannot expect it to rise next da because there are millions of like you have online business and working their heads off building links, getting traffic, various other methods to rank higher in search engine.
So it may take 2-3 months to see effects on google.
Therefore, I will suggest you to build 5-10 links per week, update your content once in a week, stay active on your social media accounts and share stories and pictures related to your products, make one video per week to youtube to quick start your first local SEO Campaign.
You will get what you deserved sooner or later! So hangin’ there.
Therefore, This is my guide to LOCAL search engine optimization. Rank your local business higher in search engines and get immense amount of customers.
If you like it then do share your appreciation in the comment box below.
If you want custom services or want to hire someones then do contact us and we will do it for you!
