6 Ways To Increase Local SEO

When it comes to building your local SEO reputation, there are several strategies you can implement to improve your standing on Google’s search results. While it is important to stay on top of all of Google’s regulation updates, the following tips serve as a general outline to help you know how to better implement your online presence to bring in more people in your target market. 

Tip #1: Consistency 

One of the most important aspects to optimizing your SEO is consistency. The first step to creating consistency is consolidating your online presence. Cleaning up your online listings is necessary because as your online presence grows, often times duplicate listings and false listings are created. These alternative listings pop up when people search for your brand. So it is important to use a tool like Moz Local to track all of the listings that have your business’s name. This allows you to go through and update each listing that is legitimate with the proper information—contact info, services offered, and content listed. This will allow you to create across-the-board consistency for all of your legitimate listings. Simply type in your business name with all the proper capitalization and punctuation, and you’ll be able to simply update your web presence. 

Tip #2: Reputation Management 

Consistency plays a big part in brand reputation management. Good reputation management comes through understanding how to interact with consumers online. Oftentimes when a business receives a poor review or a negative comment, the corporation or figurehead responds to the consumer with an apology and sometimes a coupon to glaze over the situation. However, this can actually be seen as sloppy complaint management. 

A better practice to implement would be to respond to the complaint with an active listening mindset. Hear the consumer’s true issue. While they may have had a bad experience with one of your cashiers, the consumer’s issue is likely not with the cashier themselves. The consumer’s issue is with your customer service as a whole. In this case providing them with good customer service by listening to their complaints and addressing each area of them will go over much better than simply buying off the disgruntled customer a coupon. 

If the complaints are consistent across multiple reviews, making a change to your product or services—and making that change known in your poor reviews—might be necessary. 

Tip #3: Local Keyword Optimization 

Boosting local SEO also has a great deal to do with optimizing your keyword choices. No matter what kind of content you create, SEO runs on keyword placement. Inserting local keywords in your about page, your blog posts, your video summaries, and even your images is paramount to ensuring that locals find your site. 

Entering in location information is a start. However, there are some other ways that you can involve local keywords in your searches. Mentioning local school districts, events, mascots, local phrases, and even local history are ways to drive traffic to your site through common everyday searches. Showing your involvement in the community on your website is one way to naturally place these keywords into your content. 

Tip #4: Reviews 

As we mentioned before, review management plays an important role in your Google ranking. Positively interacting with your critics is one way to improve your Google ranking. However, the goal is to garner more positive reviews the negatives. The way to do this is to engage with your satisfied customers. Offering customer loyalty programs, offering coupons for consumers who leave reviews, and reaching out to customers for testimonials are all ways to ensure that you are getting good reviews on your site. People have a tendency to not say anything about a product or service if we are satisfied with it, but we’re very quick to complain when we think that something needs fixing. That is why it is so important to engage with your consumers who had a positive experience. Oftentimes consumers just don’t think to leave a review unless they’re asked to. Not everyone will leave a review but many will. Do not be afraid to ask. You miss all of the shots you do not take. 

Tip #5: Partnership Backlinks 

In addition to using local events and entities in your keyword optimization, another way to improve your local SEO is to gain backlinks from your partnerships. The local events that you sponsor or are volunteering with, reach out to them and ask them to promote your business on their website. If they’re writing an article about the event, ask them to backlink your site on list of volunteers or from a picture summary. 

Tip #6: Social Media 

Lastly, social media presence is absolutely paramount to boosting your local SEO. Not everyone is going to find your website, but almost everyone in your region is on social media in one manner or another. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest are your best bet for reaching out to your local consumers on a daily basis. 

When it comes to choosing which social media sites you are most present on, a little bit of research needs to be done based on your demographic. If you’re looking to reach out to older citizens, Facebook is your best option. Facebook has become like everyone’s address book, but the demographic that hangs out on Facebook the most are middle-aged to seniors. Millenials use Facebook on occasion, Millennials are more often on Twitter or Instagram. Knowing where your demographic hangs out is incredibly important when it comes to choosing your social media 

Another aspect of social media that needs to be considered is consistent presence. Social media is not the place where are you bombard your customers with sales pitches. Social media is the place where you show your culture company culture. This is where you discuss events that you volunteer at, charities that you partner with, your vision for the future, your blog posts, the list goes on. Content creation and consumer engagement is the entire purpose of marketing on social media. Occasionally you can post a sale or two, but the best thing that you can do is position yourself as an active community member and an educator. This is how you build the most effective relationship with your consumer base. 

Conclusion: 

At the end of the day, there are several strategies which you can implement to improve your local SEO. Building a reputation as a consistent hub of information is the first step to building your SEO rankings. Going through and eradicating out-of-date posts is key to ensuring that your consumers have the best information possible. Additionally managing your reputation through good customer service is absolutely crucial. Remember when dealing with the consumer who was less than satisfied, listen to the heart of their complaint and address that in your response. It may be painful, but it will garner healthier relationships in the future, and you may even redeem a lead. 

Optimizing your keyword usage and your back linking resources is also important. Partnering with local events and entities is the key to showing that you are an active member of your local Society. 

Lastly social media presence is paramount to success as a local small business. Creating engaging content for your consumers to interact with not only increases your marketing influence but it positions you as an educator in your niche among the community. This will brand you as an authority and drive more business your way.