Trying to rank your business with local SEO is daunting for anyone who wishes to be someone on the internet. The entire field is constantly evolving and even the SEO wizards need to be in a constant mode of learning to stay on top of their game.
For those who don’t understand SEO, the whole thing is incredibly frustrating and tedious. Many small businesses don't take their SEO strategy seriously which can leave them worse off as compared to their competitors because an SEO optimised website is easily one of the easiest ways to attract new customers.
Using the following tips you can turn your beginners website into the official platform for your business endeavours. Here are some quick and easy to use ways that even an SEO rookie can master.
‘Google My Business’ Account for the win
Google My Business is an incredibly simple tool that all businesses on the internet should avail. It is also free to use and takes little to no time to set up. You can use Google My Business to verify your website, provide business information for transparency and allow potential customers to find you easily on Search engines as one of the verified businesses. Search engines also tend to be much more forgiving towards e-commerce websites that have a Google My Business account.
Setting up a Google My Business account has many benefits such as displaying your location on Google Maps allowing more customers to find your store or your office. It can help rank your business with local SEO. It can also give your business a mailing address if you run an online store and there is no physical address that customers can visit. Customers can also use this account to review your business and give 5-star ratings which are great for establishing brand legitimacy.
Use the Google Search Console
Google Search Console, formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools is yet another free tool that is incredibly powerful in terms of improving your business’ search engine ranking. The Google Search Console allows Google's bots to search, crawl and index your website and provides you with a wider range of analytics and tools to better understand your website’s performance. This includes data and analytics regarding page views, clicks, backlinks and more. You can also use this tool to exclude certain pages that you don't want Google’s bots to index.
Content with title tags, headers and descriptions
Often when making a website, we don’t realise how important it is to have title tags, headers and descriptions. But this is a crucial step in making your website rank higher on search engines. All that work you put into designing a beautiful website, but it can very easily go to waste if you do not have SEO optimised content on it. By using free tools such as Yoast SEO, you can use content and targeted keywords to make all aspects of the website search engine optimised. This means adding keywords in the image descriptions and alternate text, headings in your blog posts, relevant images and even creating short and smart URLs.
Using the H1 header and meta description for your website’s pages and using targeted keywords in these title tags is a great way to make optimise the content on your website. Similarly, meta descriptions play an important role in allowing bots to index your website and to rank your business with local SEO.
Long-tail keyword phrasing matters more than you think
Wondering what long-tail keywords are and how exactly do they fit into your SEO strategy? Keywords cannot just be a random occurrence on your website. They have to be chosen strategically and they should be relevant to your niche for your website to rank higher on search engines and to rank your business with local SEO. Keywords are essentially the searched items which you can relate your content to. People who have already searched for 'black bell-bottoms' are likely going to see ads for 'bell-bottoms' and 'styling tips for bell-bottoms' that you and many others may have published on their website.
If you are planning on launching a website today, start by creating a long-tail keyword strategy for your website. If not, it is never too late to do some research and pick out the right keywords for your website. This means finding out what keywords have been trending in the past six months and using tools such as Google Keywords Planner to help you write web optimised content.
Take the time to fix any broken links and redirects
If your customers land on a 404 error page when they are browsing through your website, consider it high time that you get the broken links in order. Visitors and potential customers can get annoyed with such problems on the websites they visit. If the website is always down, you won't be getting a lot of visitors. Search engines will put your website further down the search results to have a high bounce rate, i.e. the amount of time it takes for visitors to ‘bounce’ off of your page.
Broken links can be internal or external. They are relatively easy to fix. There are many tools you can use such as Screaming Frog, Website Crawler and Broken Link Checker for WordPress. Updating your website’s dead links and keeping it functional is crucial to be taken seriously as a brand and to rank your business with local SEO.
Build backlinks and utilize content to the fullest
Backlinking is an essential yet underrated SEO tactic which can greatly boost your website's authority. Backlinks are a great way to improve ranking and generate traffic by using content you have already created. Authoritative websites are known to actively backlink all their content and it is arguable one of the most successful SEO tactics used to generate traffic and achieve a high ranking on search engines. Backlinking through guest posts is also a great way to take your website to the next level. Guest posting can increase your viewership for the long-term especially if you are writing to get featured on very popular blogs such as The Sartorialist or TechCrunch.
Small wins matter for backlinking as it can help rank your business with local SEO. You can use platforms such as Linkedin, Yelp, and Youtube to increase the backlinks to your website. The idea is to associate your content with other high-ranking, authoritative websites in the same or relevant niche.
Aggressively promote your content everywhere
As a business owner, you already know how important promotion is. But your website and the content that goes on there is not something to take lightly. On the internet, everything needs to be promoted and all the time. Whether it is a blog or a product launch, promote everything.
Every business should make use of social media channels to promote their website to rank their business with local SEO. This is not to say a website is less important. A website is your virtual real estate but social media provides you with an undeniably large audience that should not be underestimated.
With the help of social media, you can make your content go viral and that is great for a business at any stage. The more people know about your products and services the better. Social media platforms are not going to directly boost your website ranking but it is a sure shot at getting the attention of more people and that is what SEO is all about
Connect with bloggers and webmasters
Established bloggers and webmasters have garnered a following which can be very useful to rank your business with local SEO. You can generate a great deal more backlinks, traffic and even more authority in the industry by reaching out to bloggers and websites in your niche. A great way to do that is to connect with them through constructive criticism. You watched a makeup tutorial and found that only high-end products were used. Maybe suggest a drug store dupes to the products used. If all goes well, your input will be appreciated and a conversation will be started. You can go from there.
Target the location
Keywords as we already know are quite powerful in generating traffic but if you want to make the most out of all the resources you have, do not forget about location-specific keywords. People tend to search for location-specific deals, availability, etc but it can be incredibly useful for ranking your business with local SEO.
This is a great SEO trick to rank your business with local SEO, better tailor your content to the target audience you have and create authority not just in the industry but also in terms of a specific location.
Using these simple tricks you can watch your business skyrocket. These SEO tricks are very easy to use even if you don't know the worst thing about ranking your business with local SEO.
Which one of these tips is you most excited to implement in your SEO strategy?