Focusing on your local SEO is a great way to get customers in the door of your business. Since 50 percent of consumers who do a local search for a business on their smartphone actually visit that business on the same day, it pays to show up in local searches. While the general rules of SEO are the same for local and non-local, there are some crucial steps to take to ensure that people can find you. Here are some helpful tips for getting your local SEO up to speed.
Make your website welcoming and fast
Before you get too far into funneling people to your website, make sure your website is ready to welcome them. Your website must be optimized for mobile devices to retain the 87 percent of smartphone users who search something on Google every single day. Even if you put a ton of work into ranking high, people just won’t interact with a not so user-friendly website especially those that take forever to load.
Aim for Google’s 3-pack
Google shows two things for almost every search: the top three “snack pack” search result and an organic search result. The snack pack result is the top three local places that best match the search criteria. After that, the regular, organic search results show up. You definitely want your business to show up in the snack pack since its the first choice to click on. Improving your local SEO will increase your chances of showing up in the top three slot.
Google My Business, Bing, and Apple Maps
Improving your local presence is as easy as filling in information about your business. Claim your Google My Business, Bing Places and Apple Maps listings before you go any further. Those are the top three main listings that should be correct and claimed to help your local SEO. Even though Google is more popular than other search engines, it is still worthwhile to check on all of your business listings on other search engines since some people still use them.
Consistency is key
Beyond search engines, there is a plethora of places that your business information can be cited on the web. Google wants all of your business details to be the same, so the more consistent your information is, the higher your ranking. Even if your business has several working phone numbers, for example, you should commit to listing only one online. Varying information online, known as citation signals, will make Google think that consumers will have trouble contacting you and therefore will rank you lower.
