How to Boost Local SEO to Get Higher Ranking

How to Boost Local SEO to make your business rank on the first page of Google or other search engines?

You had this question in your mind, and you wanted to know the secret.

That’s why you’re reading this article. Relax, you will have all your questions answered in this article.

Just keep reading and start implementing the learnings so that you can boost Local SEO to get your business ranked higher on the search engine results.

Let’s first take a little background about the searches.

Why Boost Local SEO?

Nobody asks for directions nowadays, neither do they ask for the service providers or the businesses nearby.

They simply “google it”. Before the internet era, when people wanted to find a particular business in their area, they would have to go to the Yellow Pages, Phone Directories, or ask people around.

Now those yellow pages, phone books, printed product brochures don’t exist. Or simply doesn’t serve the purpose anymore.

People now find the products or services they’re looking for online through search engines like Google, Bing, etc.

Whether you’re looking for a restaurant, a cafe, or a salon, you just take out your phone and search it on the web.

To serve the search intent of the users’ search engines have taken note of this and use the geographic location of the user as a ranking factor.

They started ranking the businesses based on their physical locations.

Though search engines also consider other factors, which we would discuss further in this post.

But, there are thousands of businesses listed over the web, and putting your business on the first page of the search is challenging.

This is where local SEO comes into the picture. You need to find out answers for:

What is Local SEO?
How does local SEO work?
How to Boost Local SEO to get your business discovered on the search engines?
What factors do search engines take into account when ranking local businesses?

We will cover everything you need to know in this post.

Here’s a checklist of search ranking factors that you should make sure your website has in order to boost local SEO and be more visible in local searches.

When you’re visible in the searches you get visitors on your website and you can convert them into customers through your content, products, services, and offers.

Tips to Boost Local SEO

Below we will discuss the step by step method to boost local SEO to help your business get prominently visible in the search engines so that you get the right traffic and customers.

Have a Mobile-Friendly Website

As mobile internet usage has surpassed desktop usage, your business must start implementing local search strategies to compete on the search engine results.

In addition, when someone enters a query into a search engine from a mobile device, the location is automatically picked up by the search engine through the GPS of the device or based on the last location of the device, and factored into the search, and the users are then given results based on their location.

Google and other search engines give preference to websites that are mobile-friendly. This means that if your site is not optimized for mobile usage, it will be docked in the rankings.

Make sure your website is mobile-friendly. Here is a Free tool by Google called Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test where you can check if your site is mobile friendly.

If you find that your website is mobile-friendly then you should consider making it mobile-friendly. This is not an option anymore, because more than 63% of internet users use their mobile as the first device for making online searches.

Obviously, if your website is not mobile-friendly most probably Google won’t rank your website on top of the search results. Even if you get that top position and the user clicks on your website and finds it hard to navigate and consume content on it he would leave it in few seconds before taking any action on your website.

Hence, investing in making a mobile-friendly website is the intelligent investment you would make into your business.

Standardize Your Business Name

Your business name is the most important factor that determines how well your website ranks in the search engines.

Because people usually search your business by your business name online, hence, it is essential to keep your business name uniform on all platforms.

For example, don’t use the title ‘Daily Pet Shop’ on Yelp and ‘Pet Shop Daily’ on your Facebook page, and ‘The Daily Pet Shop’ on Instagram.

Not only does this interfere with the search engine’s rankings, but it also confuses potential customers who are searching for you online.

Choose your business name very carefully, and use the same name everywhere, online and off-line.

Use the same contact number, address, logo everywhere, so that people identify your business in the first glance.

Your business name should be unique enough to stand apart from other similar businesses. Check Out the following examples:

You just saw the same name across the channels. This makes the user identify the brand’s channels very easily.

If you want us to help you with creating a unique brand identity for your business including brand name, domain, social media setup, website, App, Logo, Imagery, Content, etc., just let us know and we will help you cut through the clutter.

Also, you can read out this post on “How to Choose Business Name for Your Startup” to get ideas to choose a unique name for your business.

Build Your Online Property

In the online world, everything starts with a search. And to get found in the search you need to have a website.

Or if you don’t want to have a website and you have a physical store, register your business on Google My Business.

Once you register and verify your business on Google My Business, it would automatically add your business on Google Maps, which makes it easy for the users to locate your store, and also drive down to your store using google map.

However, having a website is a good idea. Because on your website you can put valuable information for your visitors and customers.

Also, you can take online orders, bookings, accept payments, etc., on a website.

Write Relevant Content

Content is the reason for the searches happening on the web. But, it’s always the good content that wins the hearts of its intended and targeted audience.

When you start creating your, web page content, articles, or blog posts, ensure that your content is relevant to your business and meaningful to your audience.

Your content should be informative that your readers or anyone across the industry find helpful.

Don’t forget to include information about local events, like concerts, seminars, get together, launch party, workshops, etc.

This local information is very relevant to the local customers and this content will really help you draw in local users. It will also help you boost local SEO for your business.

Use Keywords Based on Search Queries

The search terms or phrases people key into the search engines to find any information is called keywords.

Keywords are very important in the whole SEO equation. So, you need to first understand the importance of the keywords.

You need to research what keywords people would enter into search engines to find your product or service or your business.

To do that, first put yourself in the place of a potential customer in your niche.

Ask yourself what they would likely search for if they need what my business offers. The best marketer is one who knows his customers very well.

First make a list of those keywords which first come up in your mind, which are related to your business or products or services you offer.

Start entering those keywords one by one into the search engine and see what other suggestions it shows below the keyword you have entered.

Note down them too. Also, use the online tools to have a better idea about the keywords, their search volumes, which websites rank on the first page of the search engines.

Use online tools such as Google Trends, Google Analytics, and Google Ads to research more ideas about the keywords.

Google Trends

It is a free tool, but it is very effective. Google trends allow you to search for a keyword and look at the number of searches for that term over time.

It can also be filtered down by state, month, week, year, etc. to have a better idea about the popularity of the search term.

Keyword Research Tool of Google Ads

It is a tool that is designed for business and website owners looking to advertise for their website, to find the keywords that are most suitable to their marketing goals.

Google Ads Keyword Research tool will give you very detailed insights into the total volume of searches on each keyword.

Google Analytics

This helps you see the keywords which have been searched on the google search engine to find your website.

It even shows you keywords on which your website appeared, but not on the first page. You can see those keywords and create content around to make your website appear in search engine result pages.

Use Geographically Targeted Keywords

To boost local SEO, the relevancy of the keyword is important but also equally important is the context.

You should include the relevant keywords in your content and also the city or location your business is located.

For instance, if you have a car repair shop in Austin, Texas, you can use the keywords, car repair shop, car repair shop Austin, Austin Car repair shop, Austin Car Repair Garage, etc.

This will help you appear on the first page of the google search results when someone in Austin search for the car repair shop nearby.

Optimize Content for Search Engines and Search Intent

The foundation of digital marketing success is into creating unique and valuable content.

The content of the website determines how many people see it, get engaged with it, share it, save it, and how many just ignore it.

All these factors are taken into consideration by the search engines while ranking a website and its pages.

As a thumb rule, the higher the quality of your content is for the keywords you are targeting, the higher you will rank in the searches. Content is the reason searches happen on the internet.

And the best content beats all the competition. This is why content marketing is such a significant aspect of online marketing. For help with your content marketing strategy, check out this post.

Build Links

Link Building is another factor that Google and other search engines take into consideration while ranking a page.

It is pertinent to mention here that, the positive links are what give your website credibility, and the negative links might result in penalizing your website.

Hence, you should be doing link building with the utmost care.

Internal linking on the website indicates which link to follow for both the search engine bots and the visitors.

Better the linking, better would be the result. Internal linking is when you link some of the relevant keywords in your content with your previously published content, which makes the readers learn more about that keyword.

Perform On-Site SEO

After you have written your content, you need to do On-site SEO for your content before you hit that publish button. Few things which you need to do in your on-site SEO are as follows:

Title Tags

When creating pages and posts on your website, make sure that the title and <title> tag includes relevant keywords for each blog post.

Headings

Just as with the title, headings also play a role in search engines. Just make sure that these headings such as <h1>, <h2> and <h3> fit within the context of the article.

Description

Write descriptions which is a gist of what your content is about and what the visitors would read in it. This gives visitors an idea of what they can expect in your content before clicking on the link.

Images

An image is worth a thousand words. And Images tell a whole story in itself. Images also enhance the quality of the content.

For example, infographics, pie charts, bar graphs, etc. helps the readers understand the content easily and quickly.

Images should be properly named and should be properly placed to complement the content. Also, images should be properly optimized to reduce the loading time of the page.

Alt Text

Don’t forget to include alt text in your images. Alt-text is a short description of your image. Visitors on the page see the alt text in case images don’t load for any reason.

This gives them a clear idea of what image in the content indicates.

Alt text also helps the search engine bots understand what is the relevance of the images in the content. And that helps the search engine bots take into consideration while ranking your page.

The purpose of optimizing images is that they can get found online in Google Image Search.

Use Local Structured Data Markup

Structured data markup, also known as “schema markup” or “schema.org markup” should be added to your website’s code.

The Structured data markup provides search engines with more information about your business, like the products you sell, reviews you’ve collected, services you offer, language, and location of your website and store, etc.

Very few websites use this Schema Markup, and mostly they use the basics.

Needless to say that if you use it properly you can make your local business stand out, and get higher ranks than your competitors.

You can use the Google Structured Data Testing Tool to see if your markup is properly implemented.

Leverage Social Media

Who has not heard about social media marketing? It is arguably the best way to market your business. It is also a key factor search engines use to rank the websites.

And it also helps Boost Local SEO for your business.

Sign yourself up on social media and set up your business pages on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn Company Profile, Twitter, and whichever social media is best for your business.

For help determining the right social media platforms for your business, check out this post.

Social media pages help your business rank higher on Google searches because of their domain and page authority. Keep posting interesting and useful content on your social media pages, and engage your audience.

Create Directory Listings

Creating local listings for your business in the local directories will also help you get higher ranks in the search engines.

Listings on major directories such as Google My Business, Yelp, Foursquare, Bing Places, Just Dial, etc., will help your business to show up in smaller niche directories.

Creating listings in local directories is easy. You need to fill in details of your business such as the name of your business, phone number, address, website, and any other pertinent information.

The more directories your business is consistently listed under, the more Google will trust you and the higher your business will rank in local search results.

Here is a list of High PR Social Bookmarking Websites where you can create your backlinks from.

Customer Reviews

Search engines also take into consideration the reviews which your customers give for your business. The aim of Google and other search engines is to provide its visitors with the most valuable results.

Obviously, the business with more positive reviews gets better ranks than those with negative reviews.

Visitors also like to go to places for which people review positively. Because everyone wants to have a better service.

Encourage your customers to leave positive reviews on Google and other quality websites for your business.

Not only will this improve your ranking it will also boost your reputation and thus generate more customers for your business.

Give your customers the best service and they would write positively for you.

That’s the key. You can sign up for Google My Business, Trust Pilot, etc.

Your customers can write reviews for you and your prospects can read those reviews.

Google 360° Virtual Tour

A new and very powerful tool for businesses concerned with boosting local SEO is Google Virtual Tour.

You can now add a 3-D photo tour of your business to your Google profile, which will show up in searches on Google maps.

Search results with photos are not only twice as likely to generate interest but Google gives preferential treatment to any profile that has added this feature through its search algorithms.

So, go for it if you want your customers to have a virtual tour of your store before they actually get there.

Online Reputation Management

Reputation is everything in the online world. Online reputation management is all about showing the positivity of your business and its services. As we discussed that the search engines give higher ranks to the businesses having positive reviews.

But the negative reviews might kill your business altogether online. Be proactive to respond and resolve the negative reviews. Keep your focus on garnering positive reviews for your business to stand out among your competitors.

External Link Building

One great way to drive attention to your local business is to get other people to talk about and link to you. And if they haven’t done that yet, you can reach out to them.

Or you can find a way to make them talk about you and link to your website. External linking not only gives your higher ranks, but it also brings you more traffic and customers.

You can use Google Webmaster Tools or Open Site Explorer to see who is linking to you now. This may give you some inspiration to find new places that can offer you exposure.

Summary

These are some of the tips to boost Local SEO which would give your business higher ranks in search engines.

Implement these local SEO tactics and give your business a new place in search rankings. Start today to Boost Local SEO for your business!

If you want a personalized SEO consultation or help boost local SEO for your business get in touch with us.