SEO goes beyond just using the best key phrases and having the quickest loading times. Local SEO is the process of ensuring that your sites rank highly in SERPs such as Google, Bing, MSN, and Yahoo. By optimizing your site, your overall ranking will increase, and local searches will showcase your site as a top option for products, goods, or services offered. Here is how you can effectively do your local SEO work for you.
Branding
Your site's most fundamental and critical part needs to be the overall branding and design concept. What colour scheme are you using for your site? Do these hues match the current trends in website design? If you use earth tones and mild pastels, then the answer is yes for 2021. Bold colours should be used only if you combine those bold colours with a retro or icon-based theme. However, if you have a physical business, the colour scheme between the physical location and your site should match.
Logos should be made for your site and be consistent with your brand. Consumers identify you by your branding and your branding by your logo. If you do not have a logo, have a professional graphic designer make one for you. Ensure that it is unique and epitomizes the content presented on your website.
Take a NAP on every page.
Local SEO primarily works by associating local businesses and websites with the location embedded within site. So, if a site does not have the name, address, and phone number on the pages, the algorithms cannot associate that page with a location. This is a significant setback for SEO, especially if your site has multiple pages for services. You do not want to rely upon just the home page to drive traffic to your site. All pages should be discoverable.
The easiest way to have a NAP on every page is to embed the information into your pages' footer. Copyright information should be within the footer as well. By placing the information within your footer, you do not have to worry about accidentally removing the text from your page. If you use shared domain and web hosting services that offer website creation, this should be as easy as dragging and dropping a text block onto your footer. The same is true for shared WordPress hosting sites.
Do not forget to add a google map to your contact page. You should not have a map on every page, just the contact page. The name, address, and phone number should be on all pages.
Registration is a must.
Once you have established the name, address, and phone number and placed your google map, the next step is to have the pages registered. There are two registrations you should be aware of. The first is the essential domain registration. This needs to be done on all of the major search engines. The second is the local registration. Register your website with Google businesses, Bing businesses, and Yahoo when performing local SEO. Doing this will place your site into the location search database.
Comments and Reviews
In today's world, we thrive on the opinions of others. Rankings, reviews, and comments are essential factors in local SERPs. As such, you should engage in all comments and rankings on all sites. Great feedback is the best way to boost your local SEO. However, there may be times where you get a poor review. This is not necessarily bad for your rankings. If you engage, do not argue back and forth with the client. Instead, offer an apology to them for not being satisfied and solve the problem. Online viewers will see that you are a professional who strives for a quality product or service.
Because Google algorithms use customer engagement and organic feedback to rank your site, you are encouraged to build reviews and comments in several different ways. If using a shared WordPress hosting or using domain and web hosting services for your HTML site, you can embed YouTube, Instagram, or Twitter feeds onto your site to boost the local SEO.
Link Up
When you are confident that your site has the best SEO practices, contact other sites that rank highly in the SERPs and seek a partnership, guest blog, or mention. Any site which links back to your site is a checkmark in the local SEO rankings. The more people link back to your site, the higher you will rank in the pages.
Consider Ad Placement
Using ads is a way to drive traffic to your site. Keep in mind that your site needs to be optimized for local SEO before using ads. Place ads within Facebook and Google for the best results. Do so sparingly as advertisements are not accessible on either platform.
