Local SEO is the strategy of Search Engine Optimization that helps a business that serves local businesses. Such businesses serve specific neighborhoods, towns, or the people who live nearby. Eg. a salon, a dentist, or a local shop usually has customers from nearby places within the range of a few meters or Kilometres. Generally, whenever the customer needs a specific product or a service they search for their query. A good Local SEO Strategy can help to show your business on search engines. Following a good Local SEO Checklist for local small business websites can help you bring your business to the top search engine result page.
Let us check the Important Checklist for local SEO which any business can follow to get a hold of local businesses.
Top 10 Local SEO Checklist to follow :
Following a proper Local SEO Checklist can help the business owner in many ways. Following the checklist makes the procedure more organized and helps increase visibility with better ranking and improved credibility. The list of 10 points to focus on for Local SEO is given below :
1. Properly Optimize the Google My Business Profile.
Your Google My Business Profile is a free tool that creates an online listing of your business. It provides more exposure to your business profile through Google searches and Maps. Moreover, It is important to keep your GMB Profile updated to attract and engage clients. There is a GMB SEO checklist that you can follow to push your business. As the trustability of Google is high the business has gone through a rigorous process to authenticate its business. It provides the credibility to the business. The online reviews section plays a vital role in creating an image for your business. The positive reviews help others to create trust. Here is the basic Google My Business Optimization checklist anyone can follow:
- Create and verify Google My Business Listing through authentic documents.
- Optimize the information with proper keywords.
- Add videos, and photos of your products, services, and location.
- Create a GMB website that will act as another citation.
- Link GMB listing to the Google ads account or Google Merchant.
- Monitor the reviews and try to get more positive reviews.
Although there are more points to consider this is the basic GMB optimization checklist.
2. Target on Local Keywords
To improve your local ranking for search focus on the local keywords that are specific to your location of business. For example, your salon is located in Sacramento, California. And your customer is around your area and searching for hair services. By incorporating keywords such as “best hair salon near me” you can improve your local search rankings and attract your potential clients. You can use free tools provided by Google to search for the keywords related to your business. Moreover, you can check the competitors and the keywords they are working on to get the idea. Furthermore, you can create location-specific pages while mentioning the landmarks and the neighborhood area around your business location.
3. Promote Your Business on Social Media Page.
You can leverage social media to promote the business through popular channels like Instagram. Facebook and Twitter. They have a huge power to boost your business’s social impression. It provides Free mass publicity for your services and products. You can upload videos, photos, posts, and updates to these platforms so that there is easy promotion of new products and services. Besides this, you can use hashtags and local tags to penetrate the local markets. In addition to this, there are more factors in the Local Business SEO Checklist that you can follow to improve the numbers of your business.
4. Get a Backlink From a Local Brands
Search for the local brands or businesses who are related to your business that can provide the backlinks to your Business. You can partner with them for the links. Considering the example a local cosmetic store, a photo shoot studio, etc can help to refer to your salon and promote your service. Further, get positive online reviews to increase your authority. Further, You can encourage your customers to provide you feedback on platforms like Yelp, Facebook, etc.
5. Use Schema Markup
Schema markup is a code that is an interesting part of the Local SEO Checklist. It can be added to your website to provide search engines with more information about your business, such as your address, phone number, and reviews. By using schema markup, you can improve your search visibility and attract more local customers.
Some tips for using the schema Markup for our local business:
- Create a structure Markup Helper for your business website.
- Test markup using the Google Data testing tool.
- Optimize with local keywords in your ad copy.
- Utilize the local extensions to display the location and Phone no. of your business.
6. Prefer Creating Local Content
Engaging the audience with local content is a good way to attract their attention. Create local content related to the content of your city, any local updates about weather, events, local celebrities, etc. Before creating the content research properly to identify the topics and the trends. You can publish the content on your website, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other online platforms.
7. Get Customers to Write Reviews
Customer Reviews play a great role in influencing the rankings. That is why it is a crucial part of the Local SEO Checklist. It is better to provide genuine feedback from the customers and avoid asking for a discount or coupons. Focus on providing the best service to the clients and later remind them to leave reviews. Moreover, you can try interesting and innovative techniques to obtain reviews easily from customers. Like shortening the URL or using the QR code used by restaurants on the table.
Note: Avoid submitting maximum reviews from a single location.
8. Take Advantage of the Local Citations
Citations are the mention of your business name, address, and other details about your business. This activity of the Local SEO Checklist has a strong impact on the Rankings. Also, it validates the GMB profile. However, it is important to build the citations using the correct way. Some of the points are mentioned below:
- Submit to the directories manually.
- The citation websites should be reputable.
- Provide the accurate NAP(Name, Address, Phone no.) information in every listing
- The information should be the same everywhere, to keep consistency.
- Get genuine reviews.
9. Mobile Optimization
Optimizing the Mobile for local SEO checklist is a good approach. According to the data more people use mobile to browse for the business around them. Make sure that your website is responsive and mobile-friendly. A responsive design means one that can adjust to different screen sizes. Furthermore, fonts and the call to action should be clear. Pay attention to the design which is easy to navigate on the phone. Moreover, the website should be light so that it loads in minimum time. Loading speed plays a crucial role in retaining the user on the website when they browse your website.
10. Monitor the Analytics
Tracking and analyzing the local efforts after following the Local SEO Checklist is important. Monitoring the website traffic, popular pages, location of the users, sources of the traffic, etc. Furthermore, monitoring these metrics helps to identify improvements and adjust the strategy. You can use tools like Google Analytics to track user behaviour. Depending upon the type of the business you can use other platforms also for tracking.
Conclusion
In the blog, we have discussed the Local SEO Checklist that a local business owner can follow to improve their online presence. This can be an important part of your Local SEO Strategy. Also, if you want to outsource the Local SEO, you can hire any agency that offers Local SEO services. They do have several Local SEO Package Plans to offer. Local SEO is an ongoing process and definitely, gives a boost to the business.
