7 Questions Ethical Businesses Should Ask Before Hiring An SEO Agency

7 Questions Ethical Businesses Should Ask Before Hiring An SEO Agency

Hiring a search agency is a big commitment, that’s for sure. Some people will tell you it’s a complicated process and there are risks involved - but if you ask the right questions, and look out for the red flags, it doesn’t have to be all that scary.

The next 7 questions will help you navigate the world of SEO agencies, consultants and freelancers. Make sure you aren’t bamboozled by smoke and mirrors and get you the results your purpose-led business deserves.

Are you ready? Let’s Go…

1. Do Our Values Match?

If your purpose of being is for the planet and its people, rather than making money from it then you need to work with an Agency who live and breathe those same values. By being on the same page the sum of parts will be a far more powerful thing.

There can be a lot of bluster out there which can leave you wondering - are they who they really say they are? Check out their client roster, social media, and the things they do outside of working with clients to see if you really align.

2. What Do You Do Exactly?

In other words, what’s your process and methodology for SEO?

Competent search specialists will not only have a clear process to follow, but they will also be able to explain it to you in clear terms. The overuse of jargon and buzzwords is an immediate red flag, as genuinely skilled SEO practitioners should be able to educate you on their methodology and empower you to understand how your business is performing on a deeper level.

This is also your chance to step away and sensor check their methodologies to ensure the way they work is up to date and ethical practice.

3. How Customised Will the SEO Service Be?

The thing is, there is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to search marketing. Any impactful SEO agency should take a good amount of time upfront to understand your business goals and collaborate with you to plan their search strategy.

Take notice of how many questions an agency is asking about your business, what your goals are, what does the team look like, what are you doing really well, what do you wish you could do better, who are you competing against and so the list continues.

The more questions they ask - the more invested they are in your success, and it means they are thinking strategically.

4. Who Else Thinks You’re Great At What You Do?

If they’re smart, the agency will be shouting about the amazing results they’ve achieved with clients. Checking out case studies on the agencies website and google reviews is a good place to start, if you can’t find anything here, you guessed it, red flag!

Don’t be afraid to ask for specifics. Say you’re a green tech company or a local community scheme, ask who the SEO agency have worked with previously that align with your purpose or goals, find out exactly what results they delivered and how.

Whilst direct experience isn’t essential, alignment in values is super powerful when it comes to working with any type of digital marketing agency.

5. How Do We Know Our SEO Is Working?

It’s really important you know whether the efforts of your chosen agency are actually working. Sure, seeing green figures where search rankings have improved looks good, but is that what you wanted to get out of your SEO investment? How has it contributed to moving the dial towards your goals?

Now think, do you want to increase sales, onboard volunteers or maybe share more resources? If you have to ask how the agency plan to connect the dots and report on how their actions have directly impacted your businesses metrics then say thank you very much and go find another.

6. Are We Going To Get Along?

In our experience, having a friendly and authentic relationship with our clients makes a world of difference to the results we see. Communication becomes effortless and we find getting to know each other beyond the metrics boosts motivation all around (it’s also just nice to get to know you).

As a purpose-led business, it’s worthwhile asking to be introduced to the team you’ll be in contact with and getting a feel for how you will work together.

For example, when working on SEO with Creative Bloom, you would meet:

Stu & Ollie

7. Why Would You Want To Work With Us?

We know that ethical businesses and non-profit organisations care immensely about what they do, who they serve and the causes they’re championing. The SEO agency you choose to work with should be just as passionate about helping you have the biggest impact possible.

Ask, what about your own company makes you an ideal client for the agency? What excites them and what potential can they see in your relationship.

Bringing It All Together

By enquiring into these 6 areas, keeping a discerning eye out for red flags and connecting over a common cause, you’re likely to have a great relationship with your chosen SEO agency and see amazing results.

We’re an ethically driven digital agency specialising in marketing strategy, SEO, PPC and digital marketing training. If you want to put these questions to the test and see if we’re a good fit, why not book a consultation?

Why Are Keywords So Important to SEO?

Why Are Keywords So Important to SEO?

What is a Keyword in Digital Marketing?

A keyword refers to a group of words that are used by a user to search for a product or service that they need in search engines. 

Having these keywords in the right places on your website means you can show up in search results when these keywords are searched.

If your website says “Pet Supplies in Brighton” and someone searches for that keyword, you can show up in the search results.

Why are Keywords Important for Digital Marketing?

A keyword’s job is to connect information you provide with the person searching for that information - they’re the tether between you and your customers.

Every time someone searches for your brand the keyword they search is linked to the keyword on your website; without them, you can’t be found.

You likely already have keywords on your website, but by placing them purposefully in H1s and H2s you turn them into a strategy - and remember, there’s a difference between your website being “keyword rich” and “keyword stuffed,” if you use too many keywords close to each other, Google can lower your ranking.

Knowing all that, it’s time to go over exactly HOW you turn keywords into a strategy, and the different kinds of keywords you need to be aware of.

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How Keywords and User Journey Connect:

What is A User Journey?

Put yourself in the shoes of your customer; when you’re looking for a product or service, you go through different stages before deciding which to purchase. 

The stages are:
Awareness, Consideration, Conversion, and Retention.

(We’ll go into more detail on them later on, don’t worry!)

Depending on what you’re trying to achieve and where your audience is on their journey relevant to that, the keywords you use can change entirely.

It’s best to have your user journey in mind when thinking about the keywords you want to rank for and include on your website.

Targeting Audiences with Keywords

If you know your audience and the journey they go through before making a purchase from you, you can reach them at multiple points on that journey, making them more likely to choose you over competitors. 

Your audience may have a segment of 25-35 year old women on a good income who own cats; knowing that you can think about what kind of searches they would make at different stages of their journey, and target them directly.

For example, someone searching for “cat collars” isn’t looking for a specific brand, they’re just trying to see what kind of collars are available to purchase - they are at the “awareness” stage. Now is your chance to attract them and make your brand stand out among others, and if you know what segment of your audience you’re targeting, you can use keywords that are relevant specifically to them.

Explicit vs Implicit Searcher Intent:

An “Explicit Searcher” is looking for up to date, relevant information, has specific concerns and specific searches, and is likely about to make a purchasing decision - they know what they want to find. 

These searchers are at the consideration/conversion stage of the user journey, they know what they want to find and mostly know where to go to purchase that product or service already.

An example of explicit search intent is: “Breakaway cat collar for kittens.”

The searcher is looking for a specific product, but they are still deciding where to purchase that from.

An “Implicit Searcher” doesn’t really know what they’re looking for. They’re getting a feel for the market and the brands within it, but aren’t about to make a purchase yet. 

These searchers are at the awareness stage of the user journey, simply investigating options and deciding whether a purchase is necessary or not. 

An example of implicit search intent is: “do I need a breakaway collar for my cat?” 

The searcher is simply investigating a topic, but may still make a purchase once they’ve done more research.

Implicit and explicit searcher intent can be determined by a lot of variables, including the location and device they’re searching from, and the same search can change between the two depending on those variables - that’s why it’s important to know your user journey ahead of time.

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What Kind of Keywords Can You Use in Digital Marketing?

Primary and Secondary Keywords

Primary keywords can also be referred to as focus or target keywords - these are the most important keywords for your website that describe your business, products or services.

Secondary keywords can also be referred to as tertiary or supporting keywords - these include all other keywords that you’re targeting.

For example, a primary keyword could be “cat collar,” and secondary keywords that associate with that could be “green,” “safety,” or “bell.”

Branded and Unbranded Keywords

Branded keywords, shockingly, include your brand name in the search. It can also include misspellings, branded acronyms, or even campaign taglines if that’s something relevant to you.

For example, “Pets At Home” is a branded keyword.

Unbranded keywords pretty much include everything else - like a problem the customer is facing, or a business service or offer.

For example, “cat supplies” is an unbranded keyword.

User Journey Phase Keywords

These keywords target customers at pivotal points in the user journey, and can make the difference between a lead turning into a conversion or not - these are really important, as they create a funnel that you can track and adjust as you go.

They may be action orientated, like providing extra information or expert content that builds awareness and trust between your business and a user, or they may simply be placed in copy on pages with relevant products or services.

To connect these to the user journey, let’s look at some examples:

Awareness: “What’s the difference between a normal cat collar and a breakaway collar?”

Consideration: “Do I need a breakaway collar?” or “breakaway cat collar reviews.”

Conversion: “Breakaway cat collar with bell.”

Retention: “Pets At Home cat collars.”

Global and Local Keywords

A local search term can mean that either the searcher is looking for something in their immediate area, like “pet supplies store near me,” or that they are likely to visit a specific location, like “pet supplies store Brighton.” 

Global keywords refer to any keywords with no location attached, like “pet supplies store.”

Local keywords are incredibly important if you run a business with a physical location or that operates in a specific geographic region - they help you reach customers who can actually use your services. They can help you appear on the Map Pack on Google, and make you more likely to appear on a search results page than a large franchised corporation; that’s something you want to take advantage of!

Seed and Page-Specific Keywords

Seed keywords are the basic batch of keywords that you start with. 

You can come up with these yourself based off of user journey, or use something like Google Keyword Planner to find them. These keywords branch off and allow you to find other, more specific keywords later down the line.

Page-Specific keywords are more drilled down and niche; they’re relevant to an individual page of your website, but wouldn’t necessarily describe your website as a whole. You’ll likely have a few of these to start with, and then you’ll find more throughout your research and by using seed keywords.

An example of a seed keyword: “pet supplies store.”
A page-specific example: “cat collars,” “dog collars,” or “pet beds.”

Head and Long-Tail Keywords

The easiest way to remember these names is that a head keyword will have high search volumes, and long-tail keywords have low search volumes.

The names actually come from the shape of the graph, with a small number of high searches and a huge number of low searches - thinking about these graphs might be intimidating, but the more you use and research keywords the more used to them you get.

The majority of searches are considered “long-tail,” due to how many new searches are made on Google everyday. You’re more likely to be the first person to search for something than you think!

Head keywords come with high search volumes which means lots of eyes, but it also means lots of competition and less clear intent - aiming for the right long-tail keywords can get you far more conversions even though it’s reaching fewer people. 

The more specific a search, the more specific it’s intent, the easier it is to create content that’s exactly what they’re searching for.

For example, someone searching “pets” could be looking for a bunch of different things, so aiming your keywords to rank for that isn’t a great idea, even without the enormous competition. Trying to rank for “where can I buy cat collars?” may seem really specific, but in reality your pet supply store is answering that long-tail search far more accurately.

Application

To get an idea of the best way to apply the different keywords, take a look at our On-Page SEO Guide.

Otherwise, we’ve covered it all! You should now have a better understanding of how keywords affect SEO and how to use them to your advantage.

If you’re still struggling to get your head around it all, why not reach out for a consultation?

The Value Of Local SEO

The Value Of Local SEO

Your local high street really is changing. Online retailers have been mercilessly muscling in on local business traffic, reducing footfall and it’s become increasingly difficult for local businesses to get the customers they need; through their doors. 

As a result, online real estate has become incredibly high value territory and local businesses have begun moving their attention to the top 10 positions on a Google local results page. Owning your space and competing on Google is imperative to get you in front of your local customers and keep you prepared for an ever-evolving, digitally-focussed future. 

So What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO or Local Search Engine Optimisation, is the most effective approach to enable you to market your local business online, with the goal being, to rank as highly as possible for search terms relating to your business/product and ultimately increase sales and leads. 

Keywords that shout ‘local’:

• Digital marketing near me

• Digital marketing agency brighton

• Digital marketing brighton

• Local digital agency

There are a number of different factors that influence Local SEO including: geographical location, Google My Business page optimisation, review signals, local links, keyword rich content etc.

However, it’s important to remember that Search Engine Optimisation of any kind is not something you perform once and then ‘forget about’. You must be continuously aware of the search environment, how your customers are using keywords and search queries differently and also keeping an eye on what your competitors are doing.

What’s The Financial Value of Local SEO?

Let’s understand the financial value of ranking highly for a keyword. Let’s imagine the keyword ‘digital marketing agency’ costs £3 per click for Paid Advertising placement and that keyword gets 200 searches per month.

As the number #1 Organic spot in Google receives approx 30% of that traffic, the clicks you would get in the first organic position would equate to around £180 if they had been generated from advertising.

In addition, if you were ranking for 4/5 other top keywords, that would cost close to £900 a month to cement if it had been generated from advertising.

We should also consider that with paid ads, sometimes users ignore them completely and go to the first organic results - another example of how valuable the top organic rankings can be.

So once you’re ranking well for keywords organically through Local SEO, you’re theoretically getting clicks for free!

Are My Customers Actually Searching Online?

95% of smartphone users have used their mobile to perform local searches. This can be anything from a cafe to Architectural services, local charities, recycling centres and beyond. If you don’t have an online presence, haven’t optimised your website or Google My Business page then it’s inevitable that you’re missing out on a huge amount of potential customers. What’s worse, is your competitors are the ones benefiting from your lack of local signals!

Will Local SEO Help My Website Get Found?

If you follow the right steps, stay consistent and ensure you put the time and effort doing it right, then the simple answer is, yes. 

We have worked with a huge number of local businesses in Sussex and other parts of the UK who have followed our formula and seen their local rankings improve drastically. 

We’re so confident in our process that if after 6 months you haven’t increased your leads, then we’ll work for free until we do. 

How To On-Page SEO

How To On-Page SEO

Hopefully, you’ve arrived here because you’re getting ready to do your own on-page SEO which is something we absolutely encourage at Creative Bloom! It’s not as confusing or tricky as you might think and regardless of what your website is built in, in 2019, pretty much all website builders have an SEO functionality - so whether you’ve already had a free digital clinic with Ollie & Stu or if you’re here for the first time, let’s have a re-cap.

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Your website should be shouting about what you do and for Google, you need to be putting the right keywords in the right places. Below, we’re going to break down each element of your page that should be optimised. As our example, let’s say you have an Art Gallery in Bristol.

Choose Your Keyword

Firstly and most importantly, you need to choose a keyword for your page and this should be unique to each page you optimise. So, have a search on google for the types of keywords a visitor would be inputting and ask people you know! Sometimes we have a bias view of what we think people are searching for. If you’re a local business putting a location keyword is a key factor in ranking locally.

In this instance, I would assume the search would be ‘Bristol Art Gallery’ or ‘Art Galley In Bristol’. You can use a keyword planner to see how popular these searches are. We’re going to go with ‘Bristol Art Gallery’.

Page Title

Your page title (in blue below) is the first element Google reads about your page and this is somewhat ‘hidden’ from a visitor in the tab in your browser.

In this instance our gallery isn’t well known yet so there is no reason to put our brand name right at the beginning because no-one will be searching for it but they WILL be searching for our keyword.

As we’ve chosen our keyword as ‘Bristol Art Gallery’ we’re going to make our homepage title as so: ‘Bristol Art Gallery | The Creative Bloom Gallery’.

As you go through other pages on your site, you could choose keyword variants for those pages that users might search for, for example ‘Bristol Art Dealer’, ‘Art Gallery Exhibition Bristol’, ‘Contemporary Art Gallery Bristol’ etc.

Header (H1)

Your H1 is typically the main heading on your page (see below). This should ideally start with your keyword that you have chosen - ‘Bristol Art Gallery’. We understand this ideally may not sit quite right with the aesthetics of your page, however, without having your keyword in your header, less people will find your page. We’re all about driving more traffic to your pages and getting you more customers!

Note: Your pages should only have ONE H1! If you have any more headings on your page after your main header, make sure you change their heading tag to (H2) sub headings or (H3) sub-sub headings etc.

Keywords In Your Content

Next Google will be reading your content. You’ve already told it that you’re optimising for ‘Bristol Art Gallery’ so now it’s going to check your content to make sure you are who you say you are. That means, in the first paragraph you need to include your keyword ‘Bristol Art Gallery’ however you can. You can see how we’ve managed to incorporate the keyword into our first paragraph (below).

Note: don’t forget to include semantics. Similar words to your keyword that other sites are likely to be talking about. In this instance, with art galleries we should be including semantic keywords such as ‘paintings’ ‘contemporary’ ‘specialist’ ‘exhibition’ ‘collectibles’ ‘collections’ etc.

Alt Text - Image Keywords

Name your images! When looking to edit your page, you will notice when importing or editing images there will be an option to input ‘Alt text’ or ‘Alternative Text’. This just means a keyword to tell Google what this image is - therefore it’s an opportunity to put your keyword in there.

In our example, if we have two images on our page, I will call the alt-text on one ‘Bristol Art Gallery’ and the other ‘Art Gallery In Bristol’ - easy.

Note: don’t get too worried about going through every single image on your site. It’s simply that the more signposting you do to tell Google what your website it about, the better - Image Alt-text is an easy way to do add another positive signal.

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And that’s it really. Do that for all your pages, or (if you have a lot) for your main parent/navigation pages and over time you should slowly start to see your rankings improving. You should still work on creating new content, driving traffic to your pages through different mediums, trying to get links from other websites etc. But this is the solid foundation to start getting you found on Google!

If you have any questions about this article, want to enquire about SEO training with us or anything else SEO related please get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.

Local SEO in 2021 - Podcast With Social Brighton

Local SEO Tips in 2021 - Podcast

Creative Bloom’s Stu was delighted to be a guest on Social Brightons podcast, hosted by Kerry Watkins to demystify digital and talk through the latest local SEO tips in 2020. We love the team and all the work Social Brighton do! Listen to the podcast below:

Customer behaviour in ‘search land’ is changing & is clearly influenced by Google’s most recent updates. Your Local SEO strategy might need to adapt to keep up the pace.

As far as Google is concerned, in 2019 its looking for quality and not quantity and so are your customers! It is far better to add a page that adds real value to your customers rather than producing pages to gain search rankings or creating thinly populated or duplicated content. Your local rankings won’t benefit from these tactics no matter how you tweak them.

Stu’s top tip: Have a look at your website, read the content out loud, do the same for your closest competitors & ask yourself the question: do you deserve to rank?

Google’s updates have not only changed its algorithm but improved the way it displays information about businesses. Potential customers are no longer browsing multiple sites to compare and find their desired service; instead, they are using the vast ocean of information that Google gives them via your Google My Business Page (GMB page). So ensure you pay attention to what’s appearing on the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) and ensure you are on those platforms.

When customers want to access your phone number, review your track record, opening times and upcoming events, they are no longer looking at your website but are expecting to find that information on your GMB page. As Googles & users behaviour changes, your first chance to make an impression on potential customers is by taking advantage of your Google My Business profile and uploading all the information you can and make it sparkle. Here is where you get to own your space - so make it count.

SEO’s are in 100% agreement that Google My Business (GMB) ranking signals will play a much more important for SEO in 2019, especially for local SEO. However, many businesses are not yet paying attention to this new important aspect of local search, so making the most out of your Google My Business page can be a quick and easy way to make you shine brighter than your competition.

Here are our top tips to get you ahead of the race:

• Make sure your business name is correct and consistent, don’t play around with variations, make sure your address is correct, and the map pin is placed in the right spot: you don’t want to send potential customers off on a wild goose chase trying to find your physical location! Also pick the best street view image for your business (and not of bins behind the back!) If your business address is your home consider a virtual office or join a co-working as seeing a residential address can cast doubt on the credibility of the business

• Make sure you’ve got a local phone number listed if possible, it’s easy to get one via VOIP if needed, make sure your correct opening hours are listed & match those on your website: you don't want to confuse Google! You need to be consistent in order to prove your validity as a business

• Most importantly make sure you choose the right categories, choose the fewest and most specific categories: use these predefined categories to reflect what you actually do, it will determine what keywords you will appear for. Pick three key words to describe your business and see what your competitors are optimising for. Here is a great post on choosing the right GMB category by Bright local

• Make sure you’ve got great photos & videos, of you, your people, your office & products and videos uploaded: express your brand identity! Show off your style and don't forget to swap them out every now and again to keep it fresh. Videos are one of the best way to boost engagement and catch peoples eyes so make the most out of them and use them to your advantage

• Make sure you’ve got a great aggregate review score – at least a 4.5: make sure to respond to every review to highlight that you care about what customers have to say! Google isn't sending you those review emails for no reason ;)

• Make sure to update and add any events, and other posts you are hosting through Google Posts: it’s a great way to promote your events quickly and easily while ensuring that you are targeting the relevant people AND you are adding content where Google wants you to

• Make sure that you’re monitoring your questions and answers which is a relatively new feature: answer new questions quickly and if needed ask/answer your own questions so that commonly requested information is easily available so it becomes your FAQ page on GMB

The final point is that you need to take your business wizard hat off and look at your profile as a first time customer. Is all your information readily available? Is it easy to understand and access? Does your business look appealing & compelling? Would you buy from it? 

So keep up to date with how your local SEO strategy needs to change alongside Google’s updates and focus on your Google My Business Page. You’ll show up better in local searches, and gain more conversions!

Guide To SEO - Basics To Get You Started

Search engine optimisation may seem a bit scary initially, but trust us, it’s only the jargon that’s a bit overwhelming. When you take away the fancy wording and hone in on what Search Engine Optimisation actually is, you’ll realise you can start cracking on with it yourself! To start with, SEO comes down to knowing your customer and using quite a bit of common sense. In digital marketing, truly knowing your customers is vital and that’s no different when it comes to SEO. We want to give you a basic understanding of the 5 key ingredients to cooking up a website brimming with optimised content!

1 | Research, research, research. Keywords, keywords, keywords.

So, first thing’s first. You need to know your customers. You need to know what they’re searching for and how they’re searching for it. You need to understand the language that they’re using and where they’re looking for you. It’s important to collate all of this information in a clear format and understand when and where your keywords should be used. This will come in very handy!

n.b. Don’t just assume you already know your customers! This is the most common mistake. Take a look at your analytics and see who’s browsing your site, ask around and approach this with an open mind.

2 | Titles and Descriptions

The next step is to use what you’ve learnt previously to ensure all of your page titles are optimised using your keywords and you have incorporated these into your meta descriptions too. All of this will help to ‘label’ your content so that search engines have a better chance of finding you.

3 | Content is key(words)

Similarly to your titles and descriptions, you need to ensure your content includes plenty of keywords, directing it towards search engines. Content should be optimised in few ways:

•Headers

•Body Text

•Images

•URL Slug

Just remember not to keyword stuff! That’s when you’re stuffing so many similar keywords into your content to a point where it is no longer legible or naturally flowing. This can be detrimental to your search ranking and it’s likely any user who reads it will just turn away.

4 | Your website isn’t the be all and end all

Although your website plays a huge part in your overall SEO, it’s important not to forget about the rest of your online presence. Social media and citations on listings are also important and search engines regard these websites highly. Remember to keep everything up to date, consistent and as optimised as possible.

5 | Linkbuilding Gives you power

A good way to think about links is like votes. Links act as pointers to your website, leading search engines to believe you are trustworthy and indicating legitimacy. Links from higher ranking websites should in turn increase your visibility, but make sure that the links are relevant and trustworthy themselves!

If you have any questions or want to learn more, get in touch with us!

Three Essentials Of Getting Local SEO To Work

You can't have Batman without Robin. You can't have Wallace without Gromit. And you cannot have a local business without local SEO! If you aren't on the local digital map then there's a very high likelihood that you'll be missing out on lots of potential opportunities that would otherwise be heading your way.

We understand that digital marketing can seem overwhelming, with lots of technical jargon being thrown at you left, right and centre. However we have a fantastic Local SEO training workshop that will provide you with a no-nonsense, no-jargon approach to digital marketing, in particular local SEO. To give you a taste of what you'll learn about, here are some very simple yet effective ways that you can begin the journey of growing your business locally.

Your 'Google My Business' Account
Google My Business is the best place to start. This gives you your very own little chunk of Google real-estate, helping your customers to find out information about you, including opening hours, address and images of your products and services. Google also lets you post information about deals and helps promote what's happening on your social media pages. It encourages your customers to leave reviews by making as easy as possible for them to just log on and express their upmost admiration and appreciation for your business. Google also keeps an eye on the other big review sites such as Facebook, Yelp and Trip Advisor, so encouraging reviews across the board is important.

Make It Easy To Be Found
A citation is a reference of your business on a directory or local business listing (Name, Address, Postcode etc.). You should add and maintain citations of your business using some of the many software platforms available, such as Moz Local, Brightlocal or Whitespark. Your local citations should stay consistent across the board, so when you're uploading them to any website or listing, always ensure that they match. If you change address, or phone number, make it a priority to go through all of your online platforms and update all of your citations. You can tell google what your website is about by ensuring you use local schema markup. This code applied to your website alongside citations will all count towards your Google ranking.

Creating Content
Although you must ensure that you are using the correct keywords for your business, it's important to remain user friendly as much as possible - Google has an eye on that too. Local keywords can be effectively used within written content, however, it's important to spread them out amongst title tags, alt tags and headers to avoid keyword stuffing. Internal linking within content also helps to boost that local ranking. Look for way to include links on local directories and other businesses, perhaps even approach a local blogger to help get people linking back onto your site. 

We've only hit the tip of the iceberg here but sign up to our next Local SEO workshop if you want to get stuck in.