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.