Previously I have published “Why you’ll never succeed at SEO” so I thought I would take it a step further and look to local SEO. There are many businesses that are purely looking for local business. It is these businesses that need to maximise their chances of appearing in local searches by their ideal clients.
In this blog, you will see a specific text from Google outlining how they rank your business. You will understand that it is only by the use of best practice online that you will get better rankings. At My Sassy Business, we offer you and your business the opportunity to rank better in the search results and achieve best practices.
Steps to take
- Make sure you have a mobile responsive website.
- Ensure your address and map location is on your website.
- Make sure you have a Google My Business Listing that is up to date, verified and you are asking your local happy customers for reviews regularly.
- Respond to your reviews with an appreciative comment.
- Local business can also mention their address regularly throughout their site. If it makes visual sense you can have it on each page.
- If you have more than one location, have another page for the additional location/s.
- On Facebook – you must have an up to date and regularly used Facebook page
- With Facebook – ask for reviews
- Your Facebook – ensure your about section, hours and more is all filled out
- Make sure your business is within as many relevant local directories as you can. Fill out your descriptions and again include as much information as the directory permits.
- Don’t forget the other social media’s like Twitter and Instagram etc. If they are relevant to your ideal clients you need to be on there and utilising best practice.
- Search Engine Optimisation of your Website and it’s content is essential to help with local search results.
- Read the below excerpt from Google about relevance, distance and prominence – What are you doing to be more prominent in your industry?
No business can promise you or guarantee you that they will achieve first page results for your website. Please ignore these selling techniques from disingenuine operators trying to take advantage.
How Google specifically determines local ranking – from Google.
Local results in Google are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence. These factors combine to find the best match for someone searching in Google. For example, Google algorithms might decide that a business that’s farther away from your location is more likely to have what you’re looking for than a business that’s closer and therefore rank it higher in local results.
Relevance
Relevance refers to how well a local listing matches what someone is searching for. Adding complete and detailed business information can help Google better understand your business and match your listing to relevant searches.
Distance
Just like it sounds; how far is each potential search result from the location term used in a search? If a user doesn’t specify a location in their search, Google will calculate distance based on what’s known about its location.
Prominence
Prominence refers to how well-known a business is. Some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local ranking. For example, famous museums, landmark hotels, or well-known store brands that are familiar to many people are also likely to be prominent in local search results.
Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business from across the web (like links, articles, and directories). Google review count and score are factored into local search ranking: more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business’s local ranking. Your position in web results is also a factor, so SEO best practices also apply to local search optimisation.
NOTE: There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google. Google does its best to keep the details of the search algorithm confidential to make the ranking system as fair as possible for everyone.
References: Google Article – Improve your local ranking on Google
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