According to Moz, “80% of US disposable income is spent within 20 miles of home.” Local SEO can help you better target nearby customers in real-time. Therefore, if you’re not optimizing your business for local SEO, you’re missing out on a huge portion of your potential customer base.
Here, 10 business execs share their best tip to better optimize your business for local SEO.
Customer Reviews
One of the things we take the most pride in is client referrals. We appreciate that clients have referred people to us because we achieved the type of outcome that they were looking for. You can see that in our Google My Business reviews. For anyone looking to succeed in local SEO, encourage clients to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp. These reviews help give other prospective clients confidence when reaching out for the first time.
Court Will, Will & Will
Always Update Your Website
We keep our website updated with local landing pages for trainings and promote these trainings on social media. By combining local content with multiple marketing platforms – such as social and email – we are able to market our trainings effectively.
Vanessa Molica, The Lash Professional
Hire an Expert
As a small business owner, sometimes you need to delegate responsibilities and differ from someone who knows what they are doing to achieve results. When it comes to the black box of local SEO, an expert opinion and assistance matters.
Dan Reck, MATClinics
WOW Factor
In order to optimize your business for local SEO, you need to be aware of your workflow and find jobs you are doing that have the “wow” factor. Keep your eyes open and look for those jobs. Then, it will be easy to create content that shows off what you can do!
Eric Blumenthal, The Print Authority
Become Your Audience
Step outside of your ‘marketing brain’ and put yourself in the position of your audience. It seems simple, but sometimes it’s as simple as altering your perspective that can help you identify keywords and phrases that you personally wouldn’t use, but are used by your audience.
Caitlin Senior, Caitlinsenior.com
NAP Data
One of the major factors to help boost your local SEO is by making sure your NAP data is listed the same everywhere. If you have the budget I highly recommend using a program like Yext to update your data across 82 different directories including Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yelp.
Brooke Dillard, Vision Hospitality Group, Inc.
Schema Markup
Add schema markup to your website. This will help Google better match your business to relevant, local searches. You want to play this markup anywhere you describe your business on your website. And, if you have multiple locations, be sure to add schema markup to each location page.
Jen Spencer, SmartBug Media
Content, Content, Content
People want local content more than ever. They want to know what’s happening in their neighborhood. Feed that machine and people will notice. After all, a local business doesn’t need an article in the Wall Street Journal, it wants someone to mention how great they are on Next Door.
Rick DeBruhl, RickDeBruhl.com
Google My Business
My #1 tip to better optimize your business for local SEO is making sure your Google My Business profile is completely optimized. Include all the requested information such as business description, opening date, service description, short name, etc. It’s important to also upload images as often as you can. According to Google, profiles with photos receive 42% more requests for driving directions to their location and 35% more clicks through to their websites.
Grecia Olachea, Markitors
Google My Business Posts
Google My Business profiles matter. They matter because relevant and prominent profiles are more likely to be shown in local search results. How can a small business make their Google My Business profile more relevant and prominent? By doing what Google wants you to do with a profile…post. Post events. Post status updates. Post photos. The more active and complete your profile is, the more likely Google is to look at your profile in a favorable manner.
Brett Farmiloe, Markitors
