Are you a small business CEO working on a shoestring budget? Are you looking to make your mark on the local SEO scene? Then here are some tips to help you cruise along the online route smoothly without stretching your budget.
Related: Local Onpage SEO: My 11 Point Checklist
1. Create Local Places Pages
If you want to build a local SEO presence, then ensuring that you have a local business page for all three major search engines i.e. Bing, Yahoo and Google, is imperative. True, you will have more to take care of in terms of three different listings and dashboards but it is well worth the effort in the long run.
Getting started is simple, fill out your business information with details about your location, business hours; phone number etc. and you have completed the first step to setting up an account. Maintain consistency in the data that you fill out across all listings.
2. Optimize and Categorize Your Page
To optimize all your business pages you will need to upload a good number of quality photos. You could include pictures of products and services, location, how to get there, etc.
Categorizing your business correctly is really important to optimize local search. You can choose from several local search engines which offer you the flexibility to place your business into 2-5 categories in order to help them understand what your business does. In order that your business shows up in local search engines it is imperative that you use appropriate keywords.
3. The Power of Images
When people search for local businesses, they want to see photos. The good part is that most local accounts including Google+ Local allow you to upload at least 10 pictures. Ideally you should try to have that many photos (at least 10 photos) uploaded. What sort of photos work best? Photos of actual buildings/offices/restaurants and products and services.
4. Online Reviews
Reviews are trusted by people as they give a firsthand account of their experience with the product or service. There is always a danger of fake reviews but there are ways to avoid them. No, not the obvious of offering gifts to people who review products but something like adding a button on your webpage to prompt visitors to leave a review after purchasing something or visiting a particular page.
5. Business Citations
It is possible that your business is listed elsewhere and by someone else. In case it is true, you can claim this listing. Services like Yext and Localeze make it easy for you to see where your business listings can be found online. You can also use Google MapMaker to determine whether there are any duplicate listings of your business.
Hopefully these tips will help you become more visible and easily found by customers online. Don’t let a small budget deter you from making your mark on the web. A little time and some effort spent will pay off in terms of better online visibility making it easy for people to find you.
