If you are looking to be dominant in your local SEO market, there are a few key techniques that you can follow to maximize your appearance when customers search for local businesses to service their needs. Review and implement these three tips from Houston SEO experts and you will certainly see an uptick in your sales:
- Keyword research
The focus of local SEO strategy is to make it easily identifiable to potential customers. Any small business wants to appear in local search results for what are known as “near me” searches. Toward that end, Houston SEO experts recommend that a target should be to come up in a search result for your type of business “in my area.”
Further, contact information for your business along with business hours, location and other relevant information should be prominently displayed.
A Local keyword research is much easier than searching for a keyword to create content for a blog since the terms are anchored to the services your business provides and its location. Most often, a search seeks a specific location or service.
Service in location (SiL) is the place to start in a keyword search. In so doing, take all of the services and products offered by your business and add “in [location]” at the end.
Using a keyword generator tool may also be helpful if you are finding it to be a challenge identifying all of the keywords associated with your business.
Another method to obtain ideas for local search keywords is by using the auto-complete function offered by Google. The google website provides suggestions for completion based upon the searches that are most popular on the web.
- “GMB” = GOOGLE MY BUSINESS
Google places a priority on businesses that have been verified and which have taken the time to list basic information on their website.
By creating a “My Business” listing on google, you will rank higher when a prospect undertakes a local Google search. It is easy to set up an account and well worth the time and effort.
You will need to include the name of your business, website, phone number, hours of operation, location of the business and services provided along with areas where you deliver, if applicable.
Other avenues available for similar listings are Yahoo, Bing, Apple Maps. These platforms make it simple for prospects to identify the businesses.
While it is mandatory to establish a GMB account for best local SEO results, the same is not necessary for Apple Maps or Bing Places. Of course, Google is the main search engine that people use but Bing and Apple Maps offer a different avenue by which customers will help identify your business.
- On-page SEO
This is a technique used by marketing agencies whereby landing pages and other pages on the web are optimized in order to rank higher on search engines. Best practices for this marketing strategy are as follows:
(a) Including the full keyword in the URL;
(b) Featuring the keyword in the “title” tag
(c) Keeping keywords concise and brief;
(d) Use of the keyword in the are of the meta description;
Local SEO is vital to your business’ appearance at the top of search rankings. Combine it with the proper marketing strategy, your visibility will improve and increase and you will begin to see that you consistently have the edge on your competition. Only businesses that use these modern-day techniques will truly realize the benefit and power of SEO.
