The Power of Local SEO for Small Businesses

If you thought Local SEO for Small Businesses was just another technicality that could be ignored, think again. Local search is becoming more and more imperative for businesses that want to compete for and dominate their local organic search engine traffic. They say that numbers do not lie. With that in mind, here are some hard hitting statistics that will prove local search engine optimization is the way of the future for small businesses:

• About 60% of all online traffic now originates from mobile devices (smartphones and tablets).
• At least 38% of all mobile device users look for local businesses at least once every month.
• Out of that, at least 6 out of 10 searches result in a purchase both online and offline.
• About 69% of mobile users expect a local business to be at least within 5 miles of their current location.

These numbers represent millions upon millions of potential customers who cannot find you unless you take local search engine optimization for small businesses seriously and act upon it.

What can you do to improve your Local SEO for small businesses?

Build a worthy platform

Unless you have a website that is both user and mobile friendly, your efforts for local SEO domination will be greatly hampered. About 33% of all consumers believe that local businesses should strive to have a website that is designed for excellent mobile access. This makes sense considering the fact that most people use their mobile devices to carry out searches online as well as the fact that over 52% of these users consider a business’s physical address to be the most important piece of information on any website.

Your website is the ‘welcome mat’ that directs all this traffic towards your brand. Build a website that not only speaks highly of the kind of quality a customer can expect from your business but also of the kind of brand you intend to push into the future. Your website should be well structured, easy to navigate, full of useful content and quick to load.

Publish highly useful and keyword rich content in the right places online

Search engines are still the number one traffic drivers in the world. When dealing with local traffic, take into account the kind of search engine that the local population prefers to use and create content that is suited for that particular search engine. Do they carry out their searches using Google, Yahoo, Bing, and different social media platforms or are they more inclined towards finding businesses on Yelp, Trip Advisor and the likes? You need to know where your customers go for their information and place keyword rich content on those locations so as to lead them back to your platform.

Take local link building seriously

Local SEO for small businesses is nothing without local backlinks. The thing about small communities is that everybody tends to know everybody else. If you want to find the best butchery in your town, chances are that you will ask your local green grocer or convenient store owner to recommend someone. In these types of cases, word of mouth is the best kind of advertising because you learn to transfer the trust you have in your local greengrocer to the recommended butchery.

The same is the case with local link building. If you can get backlinks from trusted local businesses owner websites, you can confidently say that you will be getting high-quality recommendations from these businesses. Local customers who already trust these businesses will then begin to trust you and should they find your website and brand welcoming, then they will begin to do business with you as well.

Make good use of local directory listings

The local Yellow Pages and review sites are integral to your local search engine domination efforts. These are the local authority voices that most customers turn to when they want something validated or when they are looking for suggestions. Find a way to get excellent reviews on the local review sites as well as place your links on the local directory sites for more targeted traffic.

Claim your profile and upload pictures

This simple step is something that most business owners do not bother doing because they do not realize how powerful it is when it comes to cementing their place as ‘one of the locals’. All you would have to do to claim your profile is walk through the various steps laid out by Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local. This is an excellent way to verify your phone number as well as a physical location for anyone looking to find you online. It gives you more credibility in the eyes of the users.

Another way to permanently claim your place as one of the locals is to upload images to your website as well as all social media platforms. This is particularly effective if you have images that feature local occasions graced by local residents and well-advertised across the entire location.

When people see members of their community interacting with your brand they will take that as a seal of approval and begin to think of you as a local community member. Those who do not already know about your business will begin searching for you online and this is where good local SEO practices come into play. Depending on how satisfied they are with what they find, they might just start bringing you their business.

Ultimately, the best way to stay on top of this (because local search engine optimization is an ongoing process) is to hire a trustworthy SEO agency that understands the importance of and knows how to implement excellent local SEO practices.

At Golden Search Advantage, we know how important it is for your business to be recognized locally. We also know what it takes to get your business website from the jaws of obscurity to the top of your local search engine results pages.

Our methods are guided purely by research and verifiable facts that actually work in your advantage. We take the time to study your local target market and come up with the best possible strategy to implement an effective digital marketing campaign that will get you noticed in all the right circles. When it comes to local SEO for small businesses, we have what it takes.