8 Best Local SEO Strategies for Startup Businesses

Local SEO has become a quintessential marketing process in recent years, mainly due to the ever-increasing size of the internet. Its sheer depth makes it nearly impossible for small businesses to get noticed online. This is where Local SEO comes in; the main objective of a Local SEO campaign is to increase the visibility of a business/website by presenting information in a search-engine-friendly manner.

Regardless of your business, whether in a single location or nationwide, you must improve your local search SEO to increase traffic and sales.

Google uses links, website content, local listings, local citations, and business listings to return the most relevant results to its users. Thus, knowing ways to improve your local business SEO is essential.

In this article, I will go into some of the most effective and efficient local SEO strategies.

Local SEO strategies

SEO for Local Business

New businesses misunderstand the applications of an SEO strategy. A typical SEO strategy is meant to draw in traffic from global searches. It will affect International keyword rankings, while a Local SEO strategy is expected to bring traffic from local searches and will jeopardize the keyword rankings of a given geographical area. For example, if I were to search for “the best mattresses” in the U.K. and U.S.A., the results for the two locations would vary considerably.

When I say the above, I am not saying that a Local SEO Strategy is more effective than any other form of SEO strategy. I just mean that if you’re not an international business, your resources would be better spent on local SEO strategies as they are more likely to bring in traffic that converts. Now, here is a breakdown of some of the competent local SEO strategies

The Best Local SEO Strategies

1. Accurate Local Citations

Simply put, a citation is an online reference to your NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number). A citation is like a link but does not link back to your business. Therefore, they are mostly put up in plain text. Search engines use local citations to evaluate your business’s authority. Here is an example of a full citation (Full citations are made of the complete NAP while Half citations have, well, half a NAP): 17 Drive, East Midlands, A81 2EL (0330001152)

You need to be conscious when working on citations that the format and information of your NAP must remain the same in all listings. It is because search engines examine NAPs to root out fake businesses, and if your NAP is the same on multiple directories, Google will be convinced that yours is not a fraudulent business. There is a general misconception that citations are only put up on business directories; the truth is that there are numerous websites except for business directories that take citations. Here is a list of sites that allow citations for the UK region.

Although partially completing local listing pages appears to be common practice on Google, Yahoo, and Bing, it won’t get you the results you want. Every section needs to be completed, and all available space needs to be used to maximize your results. Try to fill your local pages with as many videos, images, and text as the listing will allow.

2. Online Reviews

This local SEO strategy is perhaps the easiest to plan and implement. A good online review can work wonders for your business and pull in many business for you. Some websites are dealing with nothing but reviews for businesses from the same city/country. Here are a few examples of websites that work with local reviews: Yelp.co.uk, brownbook.net, reviewcentre.com, and bview.co.uk

Not only do reviews help you climb the keyword ranks, but they also play a serious role in a consumer’s decision-making process. How do you get good reviews? Easy, ask for them. A happy customer will be more than willing to lend you a hand in building up your business. Whenever you think a customer is pleased with your service, ask them to go online and leave you a review. Like last month, I went to a restaurant that had just opened up recently. I was quite pleased with their service, and I guess the manager saw that. After finishing up my meal, I decided to leave behind a tip. It led to me being told that the house was refusing suggestions and asking for Yelp reviews instead. I was more than happy to abide.

Reviews help with click-through rates and play a significant role in local SEO. This is because consumers will always be engaged with listings with many reviews. However, you must approach this naturally and not force your customers to leave a review, so you must apply the ‘gently, gently’ approach. Let them know you would appreciate their feedback, and direct them to where they can do so.

I recently read an article that said 72% of consumers trust an online review as much as any personal recommendation. Maybe that ought to prove the importance of a good review.

3. Location

In local SEO strategies, your location is one of your most important keywords and is an active part of your NPA. You need to ensure that your address and all are on all pages. Certain on-page elements, including meta descriptions, title tags, and headings, should include your location.

It does not mean you should stuff the keyword where it isn’t relevant, but it should be prominent. If you happen to be a franchise and have multiple offices, you will have to ensure each office has a web page. This is important as slacking off in this area may cost you a lot of traffic. And be sure that the different branches’ web pages have unique and relevant content. Like other search engines, Google tends to penalize websites that duplicate content. Using similar content seriously endangers all your SEO efforts.

If you have multiple business locations, you will want to create a page on your website dedicated to listing all of the information for all locations. You should include the address, phone numbers, locations, hours, and a brief description.

4. Longtail Keywords

Search engine algorithms (especially Hummingbird) have changed how keywords can be used. According to most local SEO experts, the new algorithms allow the search engine to sort through web pages faster and more efficiently. Despite keyword density, they can find relevant web pages while discarding those that are not.

Go back to the drawing board and chalk up a new keyword strategy. You may want to consider keywords in a question format, as the search engines tend to favor those as much as (if not more than) the robot-friendly counterparts. Figuring out an exact keyword’s rank has always been tricky, especially with the updated algorithm. But there is a new and reliable method that allows you to check the keyword rankings

5. Link building

Link building will always be an important aspect of local SEO, so you should focus on earning inbound links. On other websites, local citations are occurrences of your business name, address, and phone number. You should focus on increasing your links and citations to increase and strengthen your local search results.

It’s essential that you do guest blogging and blogger outreach, as they will give you an excellent opportunity to create content that targets specific local keywords. If your blog content is high quality and proves useful to your website visitors, it increases the chance that other websites will be willing to link to it, thus creating inbound links to your website.

Link building to improve local results is going to be a little different from that of a national campaign. You will want to build relationships with local community groups, organizations, and even the local school system. Many schools have a sponsorship or donor page on their websites, and a small donation can help you get exposure within your community and earn a link that will help improve local results.

6. Local Directories

While identifying national directories is important, you should also identify local and industry-specific industries that will give you a high-quality listing. Try to avoid low-quality directories created solely for SEO. You should ensure you only include your listing on directories with frequent traffic to maximize your chances of acquiring links.

It would help if you created your local pages for Google My Business, Yahoo Local, and Bing Places for Business. These are often referred to as the top three, so make sure you create and verify each one. If your business has multiple locations, set them up properly so each location is represented.

Businesses will have duplicate local pages, so using a service such as Moz to identify and remove any duplicates is important. Duplicate listings occur when a company lacks organization and has multiple people working on marketing. You must continue to monitor your listings once you have removed the duplicate listings to ensure that no more listings are created.

7. On-Page Optimization

Correct on-page optimization is needed to achieve the highest possible local search rankings. Many business owners either don’t know enough about on-page optimization or are so scared they won’t do it. That’s why employing an SEO agency is the right decision, as they can handle all of this for you.

8. Publish Regular Content

You must create useful information about your business and industry that your site visitors will enjoy reading. It gives your business a voice and an outlet. If the content is topical and informative, it will position your company as a leader in the industry, thus increasing the likelihood that visitors will be converted into customers.

Conclusion

These are a few Local SEO strategies, but they are quite effective. A thing to note is that all these are quite incomplete; you need to combine them to develop a strategy that fits your website.

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