The local search market has become a lot more crowded in recent years with an explosion of small business owners discovering the value of the Internet – all competing for the top spots! So how do you get an advantage over your search marketing competitors?
It isn’t easy. You don’t just have to compete with other local businesses, but with businesses from across the country (and in some cases, across the world) – and you’re also up against blogs, forums, directories and a multitude of other websites. To top it all off, search engines have began to customise local results so there’s less space “above the fold” for natural results.
But this change by the search engines is actually a good thing – it is aimed at giving actual local businesses a bit of an edge on relevant, local searches – because, after all it is you the searchers are looking for!
Get listed on Google Places to make your mark on local search results.
Here are some top tips for local SEO in terms of getting ranked and getting noticed.
- Verify your Google Places listing. This is a great first step – any local businesses listed in Google places will appear next to the maps on local search results.
- Be sure to encourage some of your customers to review you as your review ratings appear below your website’s name in search results. But remember it’s illegal in the UK to post fake reviews!
- Include your address and contact details on every page of your website. Not only is this good business practice (it helps raise your customer’s confidence in using your website), it can help local search engine rankings.
- Get listed on review websites. Sites such as Qype and Yelp are great as you can setup business profiles are free and any reviews posted are included in Google local search results. Happy days!
- Sort out your old school SEO stuff! It’s surprising how effective just optimising on page factors can be in an uncompetitive market. Make sure your page title tags include your location in a natural fashion. For example, “ABC Accounting Services – Edinburgh, Midlothian”.
- And make sure your Meta descriptions are well written, to the point and contain your target keyword AND location. If it does rank well, then search engines will likely use your piece of text as the description – isn’t that handy?
- Read, learn and implement Schemas. Schemas are used by search engines to generate rich snippets in search results, so if you sell a product, host an event, write for a blog or numerous other functions that are covered, then you should be marking up your HTML as appropriate. If your listing stands out from others then it’s likely you’ll see more traffic from your rankings.
Anyone else have any tips for local SEO?
Scott
