7 Proven Ways to Dominate Local Search

By Sebastien

There is a world of competition for local small businesses in the current climate, with many larger businesses winning business by cutting margins and sacrificing quality for quantity. We’re here to help you keep your margins and your quality and beat the rest with a few simple steps to improve your online local Search Engine Optimisation.
So let’s dive in and discover the best way to set up your online presence to benefit your physical business.

1. Google My Business

If you have a physical shop, chances are you already have Google My Business set up – even if you don’t realise it, this is the act of setting up your Google My Business page to show up on Google Maps, receive Google Reviews and advertise your opening hours. So how do you optimise this page to give you the best chance with your business?

Update your Information

Make sure all information on your Google My Business page is accurate. Correct opening hours are important, not just because they tell customers when they can come into your business but because it gives customers a view of an up to date, reliable company.

Answer reviews, the good and the bad.

Responses to a review can go a long way to increasing the customer base and building trust for your company. We recommend a response to any review, even if it’s bad, offering the customers a chance to resolve issues or inviting them to discuss issues personally with yourselves, showing you are more than happy to resolve issues and work towards a better business, this can impact the view potential new customer will have of your company. And if returning clientele is common for your business, then a review can go a long way to inviting more customers to utilise your services. Keep reviews personal and accurate, if you have multiple people working in your company then sign off reviews with your names, make the review personal to the customer, use their names and make a note of the business they completed with yourselves. This can make your business more trustworthy in the eyes of future customers.

By improving your Google My Business Page, Google might even recognise your business as authentic, and if they do there’s an increased chance of you appearing at the top of listings or in a small space next to results which can increase traffic.

2. Ensure your name and location match your business across the internet

Make your business quick and easy to spot by checking the name of your business and address across any online social media.

NAP – Name, Address & Phone Number

Your NAP should be within the HTML on your website to make it easier for Google to display it on location based search engines. Make sure your NAP matches across any online presence you may have. This includes matching social media to your website and to your Google Business Profile.

3. Perform a local SEO Audit

A local SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) audit will look at how your Google My Business Page functions as well as if your site is working as expected, crawlable or erroring. Is the site currently ranking well against competitors and does it perform how it should when being accessed?

Local Search Engine Optimisation Audit

There’s a lot more to look for with a good local SEO audit, want to know more? Get in touch with us today for your free, full, online audit. We audit websites, social media and Google Business Profiles to make sure your online presence suits your business needs.

4. Optimise your website for your local or target area

Optimising your search engine rankings is a big part of having an online presence, but what do we really mean when we say this?

Targeting Locations

Adding your targeted location into page titles, descriptions and headers within the website will increase your rankings on Google when people use that location or are in the area searching for your business. Include keywords and locations to tag you business so Google knows just who you are and what to rank you higher for.

One Page Per Location

If your business has more than one location, don’t limit your online presence. One page per location on your website can give your business the boost it needs for each of your physical locations. Separating out your physical addresses by location on your website and dedicating a page to the individual locations is important as it gives Google a better idea as to how to rank you, however on the back of this, don’t duplicate content. Every page should be unique to give your site a better SEO.

5. Ensure your website is mobile friendly

Websites should be mobile friendly first, we always aim to optimise for a good, smooth and responsive mobile design on all the websites we work on.

Mobile Friendly First

We say this a lot, but it’s very important to us to make sure that your website is mobile friendly, because Google looks at this before anything else, and a low performance score on mobile will mean a lower ranking on Google, even if the search is on a Desktop. It’s important to note that 61% of all Google Searches are performed on mobile.

6. Participate in your local community

It’s time to get to work! Partner with a nonprofit, volunteer in your local area, or sponsor an event, then tell the world about it! Appearing in local media and linking this to your own online presence – website or socials – is guaranteed to boost how Google sees your business online.

And there you have it, 6 ways to boost your local SEO and get your business to the top of the listings in your local area. But why stop there? Get in touch with our team today to find out more about how we can help you and provide you with a free website audit.