Best Local SEO Strategy in 2017 for Small Business

What is SEO? How can you implement it in your business plan?

This is what almost everyone thinks and is curious about. But, before that rethink, if you’re missing something big.

What I mean to say is whether you know about organic SEO and local SEO?

If yes, then can you differentiate them?

I’m talking about this stuff because it’s important to identify your niche customers and inform them about your services. You must practice the suitable approach for your business.

According to the survey of Brightlocal.com on local SEO industry, local SEO earns Avg. $1358 per customer per month and 86% of SEOs is expected to grow their business in a year.

For the owner of a small business, Local SEO is the best strategy to establish your visibility in your locality.

Here, in this article, I’m pointing out the Local SEO Strategy for small business.

Intending the users who don’t have a clear idea of Organic SEO and Local SEO, I’m noting down a small overview of these.

Organic/Global SEO is best for the business which targets global customers. While Local SEO is suitable for the business which targets local customers. This means Local SEO will limit the customer reach to the local area. But, Organic SEO will extend your customer reach to the international market. The website has to specify the geographical qualifiers such as city, state, country and contact number as the keywords for Local SEO. However, it is not included in Organic SEO.

Now, let’s talk about the importance of Local SEO for small business.

Local SEO is an effective approach to promote your small business in the local area. The first and foremost benefit of having Local SEO is to provide the ease of searching local services/products to the customers in a distinct area. This will eventually cater the small business to extend their business value. Thus, the small business can easily scale up their products and services as the number of customer increases, and increase their ROI.

To enforce Local SEO for your small business, you need to set plans and drill different strategies according to the objective of your business. So, what are these practices, let’s see them.

1. Create Your Company Profile

You have to create a local page for your business which serves as a company profile. Your company profile must be well-structured and well-written. The information on your company profile includes the location of your company, contact details, team members, your business objectives etc. Mostly about us page on your website contains this information.
You also have to ensure the regular update of your business page (Company Profile). This will help the search engines to stay up-to-date with your business.

2. List your website on top-ranked online directories

Placing a website in the online business directories is somewhat like promoting your business. Listing your business website on specific directories depends on the category of your business. You can find many online directories, but it’d be wise to go with a high-quality source. The top-ranked online directories include:
– Google
– Bing
– Yahoo!
– Yelp
– CitySquares, etc.
It’s great to set the precise information of a company like a company name, address, and contact number on the online directories that suits your company profile.

3. Use consistent NAP citation across all web pages

To achieve the best result of local SEO, you need to provide accurate NAP (name, address and phone number) citation across the web. You have to check NAP citation on online directories, social media accounts and other sites. For the better ranking in the SERPs, you have to make this information visible in all web pages. Also, you need to check the consistency of NAP citation on every page of your site.
Placing NAP citation at the footer of the web page is the most popular.

4. Maintain Relevant Titles and Meta description tags

Titles and meta descriptions are the element of HTML which holds a small portion of SEO. The search engine limits to accept approx. 50-60 characters for title tags and 160-200 characters for meta description tags. So, while writing titles and meta description, the user must choose the suitable words to give the professional description of the business. At first, your potential customer will see titles and description in the search engine and determine whether you are the expected one or not.

5. Quality Link Building

Link Building is a factor of achieving good local SEO results. But this doesn’t mean to earn random links. The search engine will not rank your position by examining the quantity of link rather it checks the quality of links. Quality links will give high traffic and increase the conversion rates for the business.
For the newbie, it’ll be difficult to gain the quality link source. But, you can ask your local business partners to establish the link. This will boost the business value of both sides.

6. Collect Customer Reviews

Being a human, we all consider the best product if someone refers it as a good. Same goes for a business. So, the clever way to build a trust between you and your potential customers is to share the mouth-of-words of your clients on your site. You can ask your clients to share their views via social media or the website.
There is a high chance of purchasing the goods with positive reviews than comparing others.

7. Optimise the website

Proper optimisation of the website leads high ranking in the SERPs. For the better result of local SEO, you need to optimise your site according to the location. You have to ensure the use of accurate NAP citation on all pages and checks the relevancy of head and title tag of the webpage.
On-page and Off-page SEO are two factors of SEO optimisation. On-page SEO includes content, data structure, keyword research, titles & description etc. And Off-page SEO includes quality links, social shares etc.

8. Create Relevant Local Content

Strong content is the building block of good SEO. The more relevant content will drive more customer to the site. So, you need to do some research on keywords and use them to create relevant content.
Wait!! Having a nice content is not enough. You need to add your location info to make local content easily available to the targeted customer.

9. Share using Social Media

The users of social media network are increasing each day, so does the business owners. Even though social media do not reflect the direct impact on the search engine, you’ll experience its passive involvement in enticing your niche customer. You have to update your channel in a regular manner to observe the effect of social media on your business.
First, create the social media page for your business. Then, follow your targeted customers to grow your local business. After that, start to post new updates of your product, sponsor local events and invite the local participation, offer exciting rewards to the loyal customers and more. Finally, you’ll be engaged with your local customer.

Final Thought

Most of the small business owners have already set their business success using Local SEO. Why are you staying behind? These are the most common, yet straightforward approach to implementing. Your business can have more options through online visibility. So, make it happen.
If you’ve experienced the use of Local SEO, then share your understanding with us in the comment section.