5 More Simple Tips To Help Improve Your Local Search Strategy

Getting your website found in Google search results can be hard. But it doesn’t have to be. Here are five more simple tips to help improve your local search strategy.

First off, thanks for making my last post “7 Simple Tips to Help Improve Your Local SEO Strategy” my most popular blog post to date.

I know how many local business owners desperately want to rank higher in search results, but just don’t know where to start. That’s why the “7 Simple Tips” post was short and meant to be as actionable as possible.

Of course, there were lots of questions about how to implement some of the tips. Keep the questions coming, I have no problem helping out the best I can. One question that kept coming up was, “after these seven tips, what else can I do to maximize my results with my local search strategy?”

Very good question, and it’s nice to see local business owners taking action when it comes to SEO. There are literally dozens of other ways to SEO your site to rank high in Google and rank higher than your competitors.

However, many of these are very technical and defiantly do not fit in the “simple SEO” category. The point of these tips is to make it as easy as possible for the local business owner to apply simple SEO tactics to their website right away to start seeing better results as soon as possible.

So, if you have already implemented the first seven tips, here are five more simple tips that will not only help you rank higher, but also beat out your competition.

1. The Little Details Are Very Important In Your Local Search Strategy

It can be easy to overlook the little details when posting a new blog post or uploading a new image but crossing your T’s and dotting your I’s can make all the difference.

HTML elements such as meta description tags, alt text tags and titles are just as critical as the image or content itself.

These are the details included in search results, so it’s essential that the verbiage is concise and relevant to your local search area.

2. Be Authentic (Or As Close To It As Possible)

It’s crucial to be as authentic as possible when listing your business on sites like Google, Bing or Yelp.

Fill in and regularly update your business’s description and upload photos that are current and high quality. But remember that images that appear edited or photoshopped can hurt your SEO ranking.

If anyone reviews your business, positively or negatively, you should respond with constructive feedback.

3. Make Reputation Management A Priority

Local businesses must be on top of their game when it comes to their online reputation management to optimize local SEO.

There are several tool options you can use to track, manage and proactively garner reviews, but the focus should definitely be on reviews on the Google My Business page.

Google’s noted that high-quality reviews improve business visibility, clearly indicating the importance of local rankings.

4. Create A Google Virtual Tour

A new and awesome tool for businesses concerned with 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.

5. Manage your Business Citations Effectively

After you claim your Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places and other listings, don’t forget to claim your business with other major local citation sites like Apple Maps, Four Square and Spoke.

Make sure your name, address and phone number are correct. They are the main data providers for a large swath of online business information. If your information is not accurate with them, the incorrect information could trickle out into other citations.

If you want to see a list of the top 50 local citation sites for Canada, check out this list from Bright Local.

Here’s a special bonus tip for those local B2B businesses out there.

6. B2B Businesses Need To Address Customer Needs

What does this even mean? Most B2B buyers don’t start by searching for your brand, product or service (and if they are, they’re already finding you).

They use search phrases that are problem or need-oriented.

Brainstorm with your customer-facing colleagues about common questions and information requests.

Identify three to five key customer pain points you help solve and organize your navigation and content around those.

Now you have 12 simple tips that will help improve your local search strategy and get your local business ranked higher in all the major search engines (Google, Bing and Yahoo).

It’s best to implement them all, but if you run into trouble, don’t hesitate to send me an email with your questions. I am more than happy to help.

If you’re looking for a guide or a good starting point to SEO your website, make sure to get your free website analysis and SEO audit by filling out the form below.

This report can save you A LOT of time.

Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions setting up your local search strategy.

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