Do you run a local business? How do you know what people are searching on Google when they look for a local business? And how can you ensure that you show up at the top of your customer’s search results when they look for a business near them? The answer is Local SEO.
Think about this: according to Moz, 90% of purchases take place in physical stores, and 80% of US disposable income is spent within 20 miles of home. Gas, groceries, coffee shops, barber shops and restaurants are all necessarily local searches. With stats like that, you can’t afford to rely on global search engine rankings for your local customers to find you.
But how (and more importantly, why) do you need to focus on Local SEO? It includes optimizing your website in a way that increases traffic by finding and using local keywords, optimizing your business profile and building NAP (Name Address Phone) citations. That means, you need to know what people are searching for, and create your content, answers, and products around what they’re looking for. And how do you know what people are searching for? There are a few things you want to take into consideration.
One is to make sure that your information on the internet is correct and consistent across all search engines. Two, ensure important info like your business name, address, phone, locations and ratings show up on the first or second line of search results. (Don’t forget Google Maps). Three, how your business appears in SERP (search engine results pages) pages, directories and other sites that provide listings of local services. And finally, to ensure that all of your information (SEO content) remains relevant through time, and updated periodically as necessary.
If that feels like a lot to look at, we’ve done the work of putting together a list of tools and solutions that will make it easier for you to use an all-in-one service that can do several things. We share our best local SEO tools and solutions below.
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