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Everyone’s online these days, and people in your local area want to be able to find your small business on the web. Local SEO can be such a meaningful way to advertise your small business and bring in more customers – and it’s a lot more cost-effective than traditional marketing tactics.
You shouldn’t neglect the technical aspects of SEO, but a lot of it is social, too. Forming connections on social media and in real life can help you boost your local SEO. In addition to optimizing your site and adding fresh locally optimized content regularly, you should connect with your customer base on social media, get involved with your local community, and keep an eye on what people are saying about your business.
Optimize Your Title Tags and Metadata
Optimizing your title tags, metadata, site content, and header tags can help search engines find and index your site. You should use your primary search keywords for this optimization, because that will help searchers find your site when they use search engines. Local keywords will draw in organic traffic from people who are ready, or almost ready, to make a purchase.
You’ll get more conversions from this traffic than you would from generalized search traffic. Use local keywords to bring in more traffic from local search. It’s usually much easier to rank high on local search returns than on general ones, and you need to be targeting people in your area, anyway.
Add New Geographically Optimized Content to Your Site Regularly
Each time you add new content to your site, you’re creating an opportunity to incorporate some new search keywords or create some value that will draw visitors to your site and entice them to stay. The best way to do this is to add a blog to your website. Post content with local relevance and content that creates value for your users. Think customer or employee profiles, company news updates, and local event write-ups as well as how-tos, product reviews, and other informational content.
Post new content regularly, because that helps search engines see that your site is active. Make sure you’re using local search keywords in your new content as well. Don’t limit yourself to just written content, either. Videos are excellent for local SEO and they can engage users on a level that text may not. Incorporate local SEO keywords into your video title tag, alt text, and hashtags. If you’re struggling with creating enough content, you should consider working with a local SEO services agency in Phoenix or wherever you live.
Join Local Forums and Social Media Platforms
Social activity both online and off is a big part of boosting your local SEO. Start by joining local forums, like subreddits about your community or businesses in your community, to see what people are saying about you and form relationships. You may also find out what community members want from their local businesses.
Join social media platforms to engage with customers, promote your products, and boost your local SEO. Sharing content from your site on social media brings in users, boosts engagement, and can help build backlinks to increase your authority in the industry and improve your rankings in search. Social media involvement allows you to speak directly to your customer base, advertise events and promotions, and reach people who may only interact with the internet through social media.
Get Involved with Your Community
You need to get involved offline, too, if you want to build your local SEO. Get involved with the community by sponsoring scholarships for local kids, partnering with local nonprofits and charities, or sponsoring or hosting a local event. Activities like these build goodwill in the community and increase brand awareness. They can also generate social media posts and news articles online, which can be great for your SEO.
Monitor Your Reputation
Do you know what people are saying about you online? Keep in mind that people may be saying things about your business on social media or reviewing your company on sites that you’re not aware of. These reviews could be the first thing potential new customers see about your company. You can counteract negative reviews by responding directly to the review on some sites, and you can add a blog post to your site addressing any concerns customers have raised in online reviews.
Local SEO can be such a powerful tool for bringing new business to your online store or brick-and-mortar location. Do all you can to boost your local SEO. The higher you can get to the top of search returns for your primary local SEO keywords, the more your business can thrive.
