In 2017, it is vital that you optimize your website for location. As more entrepreneurs and small business owners enter industries, marketplaces become overcrowded and vying for audience attention becomes a competition. It is more important than ever to pinpoint your consumer and do everything in your marketing power to impress and win them over.
Once you know who you’re after, a good start to converting target audience to consumers is optimizing your website SEO for local searches.
So, what is local SEO?
Local SEO augments your website’s likelihood to rank high in particular geographic settings. When a Detroit user whose location preferences are on initiates an online quest for say, pizza, they’ll get Detroit-based listings. As long as you’re employing local SEO tactics, you should show up in the search.
Local SEO experts consider the localization of search optimization vastly more important than ranking well in national and global searches. What’s the point of ranking high in the Detroit consumer’s search if you are a neighborhood bistro in Brooklyn? Additionally, you are sifting through the competition by localizing SEO. There is a lot of effort put into high national search rankings. If you’re not conducting business nationally, that’s a lot of effort you could be fueling elsewhere in your business.
Making sure your website is local SEO friendly suits the majority of users that qualify their searches locally, e.g. sushi near me; it ensures that search engines recognize your location match you with respective consumers; lastly, users who search locally are generally headed toward a purchase. This is the ideal audience to capitalize on.
So let’s get to it. What steps should you take to make sure your site is primed for local traction?
Local SEO Tips 2017:
- Local Schema. Schema markups are data fields that let a search engine know what needs your business meets.
- Optimize GMB. Google My Business is a powerful tool to have in your box. In order to realize its potential, you must complete your profile. Remember, Google favors those who participate in its SEO tools.
- Customer reviews. Google and other search engines continue to increase the leverage of customer reviews. The more positive reviews you have, the higher you can move up. Customers want to know what they’re getting with your service, and reviews provide them just that. Whether you get a good review or a bad one, make a habit of responding to consumers input.
- Locally optimized content. Every time you push content (and it should be frequently), make sure it is locally optimized.
- Mobile-ready website. Mobile use numbers continue to skyrocket, so it is imperative your website is mobile friendly. You can bank on most of your local searching consumers to be physically nearby. Search engines like Google monitor their geo-location and push searches accordingly. As long as said consumers are on their smartphone, Google is only going to share mobile-ready websites.
- Clean up your NAP. NAP is your Name, Address, and Phone. Google determines search rankings by relevance, distance, and prominence. So if you want to rank in their favor, you need to update and complete all of your listed information, verify your location, double check listed hours, manage and respond to related reviews and include high-quality, engaging photos.
Local SEO is not so different from regular SEO except that it is specific, and it allows you to directly compete against similar, proximal businesses. Get in touch with your Detroit local SEO service squad at EM360. We’ve got you and all your SEO needs covered in 2017.
