SEO Foundations for Small Business Owners by Eli Davis - HTML preview

PLEASE NOTE: This is an HTML preview only and some elements such as links or page numbers may be incorrect.
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.

Local SEO Tips

img44.png

As you might’ve guessed, simply registering at Google My Business is not enough if you have to compete with other local companies. Read further to learn about the steps that you can take to improve your local search rankings.

img45.png Build Citations

Citations are mentions of your business in various listings on local websites. In essence, these mentions tell Google that people actually know about your company and your products. The items that you’d want to have included into such mentions include your brand, phone number, and website.

To find resources that publish listings of this type, go to the Search Highway website or simply google it.

img46.png Include Locality-Related Information

An additional way of telling Google that your business is tied to a particular location is to mention that location on its website. The places where you can mention your town, city, or state include your <title> tags, <h1> headings, content, and <alt> tags. Again, we strongly recommend that you abstain from keyword stuffing: just a couple of relevant localit mentions will do just fine

img47.png Use Schema

Remember we’ve talked about Schema and structured data? Providing the information to schema.org will give search engines the information they need to build local search results. This means that ignoring schema is a surefire way of missing out on the opportunities associated with local SEO.

img48.png Get People to Write Reviews for Your Business

When it comes to local SEO, the more reviews you can get the better. Besides, this kind of social proof is great for your overall online marketing. Naturally, Google reviews are the major source of ranking power that you get, but this doesn’t mean that you can ignore other sources. Have a look at this report from Search Engine Watch to get additional tips on building an awesome company profile by attracting customer reviews