These days local search is just as important to online businesses as it is to brick and mortar businesses. More and more people turn to search engines to find local products and services every day. Don’t let your business miss out on these online opportunities to generate new sales. Many times the local search results will be displayed more prominently than the standard organic or sponsored search results. It is important for an online business to be “front and center” when someone searches for a product or service in a particular city or area.
There are many SEO opportunities for optimizing a website for local searches. But, today we will focus on the top 6 most important tips for local search. As you review the tips below, please keep in mind that you need to use the same spelling format for all of your address listings. For instance, if you decide to list your business address as “321 Maple Avenue, Suite D” then you need to keep it in this same format across all listings and not change it to abbreviations such as Ave. or Ste.
Get started today with our 6 easy tips below:
- Your first step is to optimize the website for local searches. We recommend adding your home office’s city name to some webpages, especially the homepage. For SEO purposes, the city name needs to be included in the following: page title (displayed at the top of the browser window), meta description (description of your website used by search engines), and meta keywords (brief list of keywords that communicate the theme of the webpage).
- Your second step is to make sure that your business address is prominently added to key areas of the website. Placing the business address in the footer of your website is a great way to add the address, city, and state to all pages of the website.
- Having a “Contact Us” page on your website, not only allows people to quickly contact your business but it also provides another opportunity for listing your business address and contact information. Be sure to prominently add your business address and other contact information to your “Contact Us” page.
- If your business is in a competitive industry you may face fierce competition in ranking on page 1 in search results. For a major push in local search SEO, we recommend building a page on the website that specifically highlights your local services and products. The city name needs to be included in the most important SEO elements of the page including: page title, meta description, and meta keywords. The city name also needs to be included in the h1 heading tag (usually the title of your page) and the city needs to be mentioned within the body of the webpage at a minimum of 4 times.
- Including your home office city name in inbound links to your website is another great way to build SEO for local searches. As you pursue opportunities for adding links on authoritative websites, be sure to ask if you can add optimized anchor link text to the link. For instance, if you own a cupcake bakery in San Diego try to get a link back to your website with the following text: “San Diego Cupcake Bakery” instead of just your website name.
- Next, ensure that your business is listed on the top local directory websites. An easy way to check where your website currently stands in local search engines is by visiting getlisted.org and searching for your business by name and zip code. Getlisted.org will compile a list of the top local directories where your business is listed and recommend directory listings. The following are a few of the top local directories we recommend pursuing: DMOZ, BOTW, Google, Bing, Localeze, Yelp, and Yahoo.
There are numerous other tactics available, but the above 6 tips are a great place to get started. For additional information, or to discuss your local search needs please contact Bop Design today!
