LOCAL SEO SERVICES FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Learn more about what makes Markitors the best local SEO company for a small business.

Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps a small business get visibility on search engines for local searches related to their products and services. On Google’s search engine result pages (SERPS), local SEO is most recognized through Google Maps, Google Local, and traditional Google Search results.

Google says that local SEO search rankings are determined by relevance, distance, and prominence. Searching “local SEO services USA,” for example, will yield results in the United States that are most relevant to the query, closest to the searcher’s location, and have a higher prominence. This means that if you are located in Phoenix, then using this search term will show local SEO marketing companies in Phoenix that are most relevant and closest to you.

Some important factors that help define local SEO include:

1. Relevance

Business Listings

A business owner should create profiles on business directories, such as the ones below to establish local citations. A business directory is a list found online that indexes businesses based on their niche, location, and industry. 

  • Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business)
  • Bing Places
  • Yelp
  • Social Media Profiles like Facebook
  • Yellow Pages
  • Other Business Directories

On-Page SEO

Information on your website is used to determine whether your small business would match the intent of a local search. Here are a few elements of on-page SEO that are factored into local rankings:

2. Distance

Distance is self-explanatory. Is the physical location of your small business within the service area in which a search is being conducted?

Managed Local Citation Services

These local SEO marketing services identify, and correct inaccuracies like business name, address, phone number (NAP), and other information pulled into local search results. The goal is to make sure this information is consistent and accurate across hundreds of local citation services.

  • Moz
  • Yahoo Local
  • Whitespark

3. Prominence

Prominence is an umbrella term that captures how important your business is, based on brand, customer experience, and more factors that include:

Online Reviews

  • Yelp Reviews
  • Google Reviews
  • Other Positive Reviews & Testimonials

Off-Page SEO

Search Engine Results

So, what is local SEO? It’s optimizing your business website to show relevance, distance, and prominence. This helps search engines display the most relevant local search results for potential customers.

According to Google, every month, there are:

  • 5 billion searches on Google for restaurants
  • 3 billion searches for hotels
  • 1 billion searches for clothing stores
  • 600 million searches for hair and beauty salons
  • 5 million searches for coffee shops

Local SEO helps market your small business to potential customers at the exact moment when they are seeking products and services similar to yours.

Take SEO for food businesses, for example. Let’s say you’re in the mood for Chinese food, and you conduct a search for “Chinese restaurants.” At that moment, a searcher is highly likely to visit a Chinese food restaurant –– much more likely than if they just received a piece of direct mail or saw a social media ad that advertised a local Chinese restaurant.

Search intent is captured within local SEO through relevance (Chinese food versus Italian food), distance (0.3 miles away versus 30 miles away), and prominence (is it good Chinese food, based on reviews from Yelp, Tripadvisor, and other ranking factors?).

For those reasons, local SEO is a key component of a marketing strategy for a local business. Even if you aren’t a brick-and-mortar business, search engine optimization has shifted in recent years toward a local search focus.

Take our small business, for example. A few years ago, our website began to rank on the first page of search results nationwide for the term “digital marketing company.” Today, while we still enjoy a prominent ranking for this term. Search engine result pages now show business listings in Google Maps, local listings of nearby small businesses, as well as organic listings like ours.

In other words, the space has gotten more competitive and crowded as Google has identified keywords that better match search intent with local results. That is if you search “local seo services USA,” you will likely see a map featuring several local SEO marketing companies near you, in addition to organic listings.

With that said, using local SEO to reach potential customers in your service area is an important online marketing tactic for any small business.

A local citation is a mention of a business online. This can include the mention of a business name, address, phone number (NAP) on any directory, website, article, app, or social platform.

These local citations help prospective customers discover relevant businesses and can also influence local search rankings.

Data within a local citation can include:

  • Business Name
  • Address
  • Phone Number
  • Business Category
  • Hours of Operation
  • Website URL
  • Social Media Links
  • Photos
  • Verified Listings
  • Reviews
  • Owner Response to Reviews
  • Email Addresses
  • And more!

The best way for a small business to manage local citations is to verify the accuracy of the information and to fill out complete profiles on the online directories that matter.

Why are local citations important? Because they can mislead potential customers. The wrong address, phone number, or hours of operation can negatively impact a customer experience. And since search engines focus intensely on user experience, a misleading local citation can lead to a decrease in online visibility on search rankings.

That’s why local citations are so important to local SEO. Local searchers rely on them for information about your business, and so do search engines. Whether you’re managing your local campaign in-house or are working with a local SEO company, your business should create, update and monitor local citations to ensure accuracy and that you’re found by local customers.

Google provides business owners with a business listing that appears in both Google Maps and local search results.

Here’s how to maximize your business page in a Google Search:

1. Enter complete and accurate information.

The more information about your business, the easier it is for a local search engine to connect local customers with your goods and services. Make sure to fill out information like your physical location, phone number, webpage, and other business information.

Learn how to edit your business information.

2. Verify your locations.

To appear in SERPs like Google Maps and Google Search, business locations must be verified by adding or claiming your business listing. This can be done through a Google Business Profile (or GBP/GMB) listing.

3. List accurate hours.

Potential customers need to know when your business will be open. Adding store or office hours gives both customers and Google confidence to rely on the information in search engine results.

4. Manage & encourage Google reviews.

Monitoring and responding to online reviews shows potential customers that you care about their business. Positive reviews give searchers an idea of what to expect if they were to call the listed phone number to learn more.

5. Add photos.

Images have always been an important part of search engine optimization. Including photos of your office, products, and services not only improves your local listing but it’s an important factor in differentiating your business on results pages.

There are several other ranking factors that enable a small business to appear in a local pack on desktop and mobile searches. But these are some of the main tips offered by Google Local Guides.

 

Google shares that local ranking is primarily determined by relevance, distance, and prominence.

Relevance

Google receives a local search query and connects a user with a few local business listings. These local listings are based on Google’s understanding of your business. The more information you share with Google about your business –– business name, phone number, website –– the better Google can match your business to a relevant potential customer.

Distance

There’s not much magic to distance. How far is the search away from your local business? The closer the search, the more likely your business will display in the local pack of search engine result pages. As mentioned earlier, if you are in Phoenix and search “local SEO services USA,” the results you will get will be those that are the closest to you even if you didn’t type the word “Phoenix” in. These search results will change if you are in Denver and type the same query.

Prominence

Prominence, according to Google, is how well-known a business is. Local links, articles from bloggers, local citations, and more digital marketing tactics all factor into the umbrella term of “prominence.” Other important factors include positive reviews, local keywords, and even schema markup. Basically, it’s anything online marketing-related that falls outside of “relevance” and “distance.”

You can learn more about how Google determines local ranking on this Google Support Page.

The cost of local SEO ranges between $250 to $2,500 per month, depending on your location, industry, and business. Another factor in cost is whether you do it yourself or pay a local SEO marketing company.

Some do-it-yourself tools like Yoast Local SEO ($69/year) or Moz Local ($129/year) are very affordable for a small business.

SEO companies who offer local SEO marketing services can charge between $250 and $2,500 per month. These packages can include a combination of content marketing, schema markup, and link building.

The best way to get accurate pricing information is to request a proposal. To find out how much working with a local SEO marketing company will cost you, contact us or call us to learn more.

Markitors has a full suite of local SEO services for small businesses. Learn more about each one below.

On-Page SEO 

Our On-Page SEO services cover areas such as internal linking, page titles, meta descriptions, page structure, and more. On-page SEO is anything that is done on the actual web page that affects its ability to rank in search results. 

Keyword Research

Our Keyword Research services allow you to skip the hassle of doing keyword research for your small business. We use a handful of tools to conduct the highest-quality keyword research and competitor analysis.

SEO Content

SEO Content is another service Markitors offers local SEO clients. From our extensive keyword research, our team of content writers constructs valuable, SEO-driven blog content, landing pages, and more. This content, aligned with targeted SEO campaigns, will boost your website’s visibility in search engine results. 

Digital PR

Our Digital PR services expand your brand’s digital footprint. We strategically secure online placements through media relationships. This will build up your brand mentions and backlink profile to make your site more authoritative.

Technical SEO

Our local SEO marketing company will take care of Technical SEO, so you don’t have to. Our team will run regular tech SEO checks to find errors and fix them before they negatively affect search rankings. We will manage elements such as site speed, status codes, structured data, crawling, and more.

We work with clients across the United States but specialize in local SEO in the following cities:

Local SEO for Arizona Small Businesses

Local SEO for Texas Small Businesses

Other Cities Where We Specialize in Local SEO

We are a small business ourselves, so we have plenty of local SEO experience. We built our business using local SEO starting in 2012 and have continued to grow over the years using the same tried and true methods.

Trust us to build your business through local SEO just like we built Markitors. We know the methods that are proven to work and will use them to boost your business’s organic traffic. If you are outside of the cities listed above, don’t fret! We’d still love to work with you.

We always strive to be in the top search results whenever somebody searches “local SEO services USA,” wherever they may be, so trust us to know what works.

Contact Markitors today to get started on your business’s local SEO.

Markitors provides local SEO services to small business owners in a wide range of industries including, but not limited to:

Education

We have worked with many different clients in the education sector, from preschool to higher education. Local SEO is important for education clients, especially as they are looking to enroll more students in the area.

Franchise

Franchise SEO consists mainly of local SEO efforts. Franchisees are targeting a local audience to bring new customers to their business through SEO strategies. Local SEO helps franchisees rank higher in local search results. 

Non-profit

The non-profit sector benefits from local SEO immensely. Depending on the type of non-profit, support from people in their local area is often their main goal. Local SEO can help non-profits target a local audience and grow their organizations. 

E-Commerce

We have worked with many e-commerce small businesses to improve their local SEO and boost sales. E-commerce SEO services are the perfect way to drive high-converting traffic to your website. 

Real Estate 

Our local SEO services for real estate agents help attract new clients in their area. Since real estate is all about local business, having a local SEO strategy in place is essential to success. We optimize real estate agents’ websites and online presence to make them known in their area.

Healthcare

Healthcare SEO is focused primarily on local SEO so that people in the community can find the quality care they need. By updating business listings, creating a Google My Business profile, and more, we can bring in new patients to healthcare facilities. 

These are numerous industries we do local SEO for, and our network is constantly growing. If you believe you could benefit from local SEO services, get in touch with Markitors today!

If local SEO sounds too daunting to tackle on your own, trust the SEO experts at Markitors.  Working with a local SEO marketing company will save you time and maximize the potential of your small business.

At Markitors, we provide full-service local SEO that starts with an initial audit of your website. Once we understand the current standing of your business’s SEO, we develop a customized strategy to improve its rankings and visibility in search engine results.

You can contact us online or schedule a consultation to chat about local SEO for your small business. 

We’d love to work with you to develop a local SEO strategy that will drive customers to your business. Just get in touch, and we’d be happy to help!

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LOCAL SEO AUDITS

AUDIT YOUR WEBSITE TO LEARN HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE.

LOCAL SEO SERVICES

Content

1

Complete data, verified profiles, and accurate information.

Digital PR

2

Local citations and local links to improve prominence.

Technical

3

Schema markup and optimization for mobile searches.

LOCAL BUSINESS CASE STUDIES

WHY IS SEO SO POWERFUL FOR SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING?

Learn about how this long-term, sustainable solution works.

LOCAL SEO STRATEGY ARTICLES

TESTIMONIALS

I can’t recommend Markitors highly enough from both a speed and investment angle. Their SEO services are very effective in growing your brand online.

— Brian Mohr, Co-founder of Y Scouts

OUR LOCAL SEO CONSULTANTS

If you Google the term “small business SEO,” you’ll most likely find Markitors on the first page of search results. Of the 15,000+ digital marketing agencies who offer Local SEO services in the United States, Google consistently ranks us as one of the top agencies.

We launched and have built our SEO agency in a sustainable and predictable way through search engine optimization. We do the same for small businesses.

We get results. We practice what we preach. And we believe in having a good time while connecting our clients with customers.

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