10 Reasons Why Your Small Business Needs a Website
Have you ever wondered what life would be like without the internet? Banks will cease to operate, our phones and social media apps will be
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So, you’ve put your business online. Congratulations! You have taken the first step in establishing an online presence for your business. Now what? Once your website is up and running, the next step is to ensure your business is visible in local search results.
But how do you do that? And more importantly, what are the factors that influence your local SEO ranking? Contrary to popular belief, local SEO is not just for businesses with an online store. A study from SEO Tribunal showed that 97% of people learn more about a local small business online than anywhere else.
Now the big question is, what can you do as a business owner to improve your ranking in local searches? This post will discuss the most critical factors that affect your local SEO ranking and how you can optimize your online presence to rank higher in search results. Keep reading to find out more about these factors!
Before we dive deep into the factors that affect your ranking in local search results, we’ll cover what local SEO is and why it is vital for your business.
Local SEO is an online marketing strategy that helps your business get noticed by clients within your geographic area who are looking for products or services that you offer. As a business owner, it’s crucial that you understand the importance of SEO in order to grow your business and why you should strive to rank higher in local search results.
However, when it comes to ranking in local search results, several factors come into play. And while the specifics may change from time to time as Google modifies its algorithm, some things remain consistent.
By understanding these factors, you can leverage them to your advantage and improve your chances of appearing higher in those all-important search results. Below are the most critical local SEO ranking factors.
Your Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly known as Google My Business, is a tool created by Google to enhance the visibility of local businesses through Google Maps and local search results. This tool allows business owners to provide their business details, including name, address, contact details, and services.
As a business owner looking to optimize your online presence, creating a GBP for your business should be at the top of your to-do list. The first thing you need to do is register and verify your business on GBP using accurate details.
Once you’ve verified your business, edit your profile with the necessary information to help Google and other potential customers locate you. This information will include details about the services you offer, business hours, and even attractive photos that will instantly captivate the attention of any customer.
Google ranks your GBP based on three local SEO ranking factors: proximity, relevance, and prominence, so ensure you supply only relevant information that can help customers locate you better. You can also check out Google’s guidelines for listing your business on GBP for additional information.
On-page signals are critical for ranking your business on local search results. These signals include the presence of name, address, and phone number (NAP) on the page and the presence of keywords relevant to your business.
In terms of keywords, place your keywords in titles and other strategic positions that satisfy user search intent. In addition, you can use longtail keywords to ensure that your titles and content are relevant to search queries.
Furthermore, always use location-specific pages with local information if you have a business with multiple store locations. For instance, if you own a business with different branches in Boston and Chicago, create pages specific to each location and fill those pages with information and contact details that are local to the area. Doing this will help to increase your rankings and relevancy in local results.
As an additional tip, create and optimize your pages to be mobile-friendly. Most people do searches with their mobile phones while on the go, so ensure your page loads fast and can be easily accessed by anyone with a mobile phone.
We could write 10 pages on the importance of backlinks alone, and it still won’t be enough. Backlinks help give your site credibility and expand its reach on search results. While getting backlinks is essential to your business ranking, Google evaluates things like quality of links, the authority of inbounding domain, and the relevancy of anchor text when analyzing webpages and content.
So, while establishing backlinks, choose authoritative sites with proven credibility to strengthen your backlink network and ensure your backlinks have an impact on your rankings. For local listings, backlinks are helpful, although a well-optimized GBP can still rank well without substantial backlinks depending on the local competition in your area.
Positive reviews from customers tell Google that you know how to run your business efficiently. Even if you receive a negative review from a client for reasons beyond your control, be sure to respond to the review. Next, follow-up accordingly to ensure that the issue is resolved properly. And don’t even think about paying to get more positive reviews; Google uses factors like frequency of reviews, diversity of reviews, and quantity of reviews to evaluate the quality of a business.
Our advice is to focus on satisfying customers properly and give them a nudge or an incentive to review your services. A happy customer would be more willing to provide you with a genuine positive review that can help attract potential clients in the future.
You might be wondering what behavioral signals are and why it affects your ranking? Well, behavioral signals inform Google about clients’ behavior when they visit your website. These signals include mobile click-through rate, bounce rate, dwell time, and social media check-ins.
The click-through rate gives Google an idea of how often people click on your link when your business appears in search results, while bounce rate informs Google of the frequency at which users return to the search engine results page after clicking on your site.
The goal is to reduce your bounce rate to the bare minimum by providing relevant and useful details on your business page. This, in turn, will increase your click-through rate and dwell time because people tend to stay longer on pages that provide helpful information.
Moreover, because of the increased dependence on social media platforms, social media check-ins like on Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms can increase the engagement rate of your business page and hence your overall ranking in local search results.
Online citations, sometimes referred to as internet yellow pages, are listings that mention your business on reputable websites where people seek information. These websites include Trip Advisor, Yelp, Facebook, Apple Maps, Bing, GBP, etc.
Use citations to gain reputable backlinks and ensure that the NAP listing of your business is consistent with your GBP profile. Your NAP listing should be something like this; Company Name, Street Address, City, State, Zip Code, (Phone Number)
Or:
Company Name
Street Address
City, State, Zip Code
(Phone Number)
Inconsistent NAP citations can create confusion when Google tries to identify your business. So, suppose a platform lists your business incorrectly. In that case, you can give them a call and politely ask them to change it to the correct information.
Google evaluates the number of mentions or citations your business has, the accuracy of data, and the authority or quality of citation sources, so it’s essential to ensure your business is mentioned on reputable sources with consistent data.
Once again, content makes the cut and not just any type of content but local content relevant to your business location. Use resources like blogs, landing pages, and social media posts to increase the visibility of your business by creating engaging and updated content that is relevant to your local community.
When developing local content, apply SEO best practices to ensure that your content is visible to potential clients. In addition, you can optimize your content by using variations of relevant longtail keywords to engage and satisfy your readers and site visitors.
Local SEO is critical to your success as a local business owner in your community. And while there are many reasons you should care about local SEO, these are the top three that will undoubtedly get your engine revving. Local SEO:
Nonetheless, apart from the above reasons, here are some noteworthy statistics that will help shed more light on why local SEO is vital to the success of your business.
Google’s algorithm is constantly changing as they seek to provide users with the most relevant and up-to-date information that satisfies their search intent. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to monitor these changes and run your business efficiently as a business owner.
However, a digital marketing firm like Keys2 Media will help you manage your local SEO needs while you focus on running your business. At Keys2 Media, we provide local SEO services to help you stay ahead of Google’s everchanging strategies. Our SEO consulting service focuses on the unique needs of your business, and as Massachusetts natives, our team understands the unique local SEO factors that can best help your business.
We designed our strategy to help you get it right the first time regardless of whether you’re a new or an existing business. We know what it takes to get your site ranked high in local search results. So get in touch with us today; let’s help you integrate local SEO into your business.
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