How to Grow Your Business Fast with Local SEO

What is the local SEO?

Search engine optimization is a broad field and while you may be focusing much of your attention on the general SEO, perhaps there is one more area you should be equally spending your resources on. This is local SEO which is more crucial especially to smaller businesses. While the general SEO targets a bigger audience with no specifics at times, local SEO like Omaha SEO is different in certain aspects. Local SEO largely deals with targeting the clients most likely to buy your product or service which is those within your geographical area. While it is good to have a worldwide reach, optimizing your website for local search gets your website ranking in results that give your traffic well advanced in the sales funnel for conversion.

Why you should use local SEO to grow your business

Omaha SEO allows you to get your business in front of those who have the purchasing intent. This is because they do not just search using general keywords but have specified the location and perhaps are looking for the nearest provider or they are doing comparisons. Google statistics back this up too. Local searches make up to about 35% of all search. Another Google statistic worth noting is that 76% of the people who carry out local searches using their smartphones in the end visit that business or a similar one by the next day.

All these, point to the potential of local SEO to grow your business fast. Better still, you do not have to be ranking at the top of the Google search engine results page competing with international brands. You only need to make sure you are among the three results ranking for the given keywords in your area. You also want to be appearing on Google Maps as one of the businesses offering the product or service in that area. It is not as close to impossible as ranking number one on the first search results page but it takes meticulous work and attention to detail. An SEO Omaha company can help you navigate all the details ensuring you strategically locate yourself to be placed as the answer to the search queries in your niche.

To understand how to tap on the potential of local SEO, you need to start by understanding the ranking factors for it. Some are still similar to those of general SEO but local SEO calls for more tailoring and integrating both the location to your business and product. Here are the 8 main ranking factors;

1. Your business’relevance to the search query of Google’s user. It includes your nearness to the person and business category

2. The number of backlinks you have and their quality especially if they come from authoritative local sites.

3. Presence of accurate Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP) details on your website as well as keyword usage on the website.

4. The number of citations you have on the local directories with consistent NAP information.

5. Number and quality of reviews your business is getting online.

6. Traffic to your website, your visitors’ behavior and the mobile-friendliness of your site.

7. Your social media presence and the conversation your business is generating there.

8. Using these details you can come up with a strategy to get yourself more local traffic which in turn leads to higher conversion rates and this helps boost your bottom line and grow your business. It is important to note that efforts to boost your local SEO have multiple and cyclic benefits. As you increase your local presence, you improve your brand’s attractiveness and awareness. This in turns leads to more customers and better reviews which in turn boost your credibility.

How to improve your local SEO

1. Claim your Google My Business Page

This is the first port of call for your business when seeking to harness local search. You could find your page already there or you may have to set it up on your own by filling a form and undergoing the

verification process. The platform is free but gives you priceless exposure. The page appears as a snapshot when someone is looking for your business and shows your working hours, contact information, customer reviews and images you may want to be seen.

The best practices to use on your page are; add as many details as possible and integrate keywords in them, add photos that show your brand, physical location and staff, ask for customer reviews and respond to what you get, enable messaging feature, create and share posts using the four options given of what’s new, events, offers and product.

Finally, ensure you have a Call to Action wherever possible asking people to reach out to you, visit your site, sign up, get the offers, etc.

2. Ensure you also have a page with Bing Places, Yext, and Yelp

Bing and Yahoo are still relevant in the search engine businesses and their equivalent of Google My Business page are Bing Places and Yext respectively. This increases your reach as these two make up for over 12% of search engine usage. Yelp is a major platform for both business and customers on the local scene and every business with a physical location should have a well-structured presence here.

3. Seek out reviews on a regular basis

You want your customers to be regularly posting reviews to signal to Google that your business is active and generating chatter. You may not need hundreds of reviews at a go but a regular stream ensures you do not fall in your rankings. Use emails and dropped in business cards with your shortened page URL asking for reviews form clients with each sale.

4. Make sure your site is mobile friendly

Google believes much of local search is driven by mobile and the stats we pointed above support this view. As such pages which are not mobile responsive get pushed below to improve the user’s experience. Slow speeds and poor interface are the major issues to consider here. Test your page using Google’s mobile-friendly tool and make the necessary adjustments.

5. Get local citations as well as build backlinks with relevance to the local area

Backlinks and citations are what help Google to establish your relevancy and credibility. As you focus on the bigger national or international backlinks, you also want to have a presence in the local authorities from review sites to directories.

This year, maximizing your efforts on local SEO will substantially help your business grow even in the face of increased competition as you will be easy to find for the ready to convert clients.