Local SEO for Small Businesses – These days, with the increase of competition among various businesses, search engine optimization is gaining much more importance than ever before. It has become a must-to-do for small businesses to seek help from SEO to optimize their businesses.
SEO is a huge opportunity for every type of business. This is why almost all types of companies and businesses are getting help from SEO for marketing purposes and for getting higher ranking on Google to boost their leads and sales.
In SEO, sometimes companies target customers from all over the world, and sometimes it’s done locally – local SEO.
For example, if you are a small business owner in Miami and looking to target the customers in the Miami, Florida region, you must set up a website and hire an expert to do “Local SEO” for your business website. You can bypass many competitor sellers and earn a considerable profit than others selling or offering the same product.
Hence, In this guide, you’ll get things about local SEO that how you can apply SEO techniques for your small business while targeting the specific area you are holding business in.
What is Local SEO?
The process of optimizing a business/service website for a specific region against the searches on Google, Yahoo, and Bing, targeting the customers from that region specifically. It can be a local village, city, state, province, or country.
“Local SEO” is the subunit of broader SEO, and it’s done for the purpose of targeting the local customers.
In general SEO, the businesses target searches from all over the world, whereas in Local SEO, the businesses target the searches from a specific geographical region.
- Logo Optimization
Here, your business needs to have a specific logo and then optimize it. It’s the first step to know Google about your business. For optimization, Instead of uploading a logo file on the website with the name “Logo.png,” upload a logo file with the name of your business.
For Example, for a business with the name “Miami Coffee”, the logo file will have its name as “Miami-coffee.logo” instead of “logo.png.”
The same logo should be across all the channels.
02.Title, Descriptions & URLs
It’s the second step of Local SEO targeting the customers from Miami, Florida. Make titles, descriptions, and all the URLs completely SEO optimized. The title must not be longer than 50-60 characters.
In the description, add the local phone number and location of your business that should be no lengthier than 156 characters.
For instance, for “Miami Coffee” it will be:
https://www.miamicoffee.com/miami-coffee
03.The Map Pack
The Map Pack – often known as “The Local Pack” includes three business results that are: The Map, biz results and the organic results.
For building the Map pack, you need you to add your business on the Google Map by adding the name of your business, full physical address, and the local phone number. Keep in mind the phone number should be with the local area code and not the toll-free number.
- Local SEO Keyword Research
At this step, you are going to research specific keywords that the visitors on Google search. These keywords are the words that mostly customers type in the search section of google to find the results.
One free tool for keyword research is Keyword Planner, and others are Semrush, Ahref, Ubersuggest, and Moz. The last four are paid tools.
- Google My Business
To have the verified business presence on Google, you need to submit and register your business at “Google My Business” and submit all the legal documents required by Google.
It will ask the business name, company name, brand, address, and ownership verification. After properly setting your business on Google and complete verification, your business will appear in the search results on the internet.
- Get More and More Reviews
After Google My Business setup, you should try to get online reviews from your customers. You can either run a campaign offering free or products/services at very low prices to grab the customer’s attention and get the best reviews.
The more the reviews, the higher your business ranking, and thus it increases your business to appear first on google search.
- On-Site SEO For Local Business
Here at this step, try to do On-Site SEO for your local business. Write the compelling, informative, and relevant content on the website completely optimized, targeting the local area that is “Miami” in case of your small business.
- Create Business Pages on Social Media
For now, at this step, you will create the business pages on social media with handles starting and ending at the same names and with the same design and logos that you have for your business website.
You can create these pages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to increase your brand/business awareness and grab the customers. Consistent posting and activeness on these accounts will make your business rank higher on Google.
Benefits of Local SEO
01. User-Friendly Websites
SEO would help your small business in the Miami area create a faster, smoother, and user-friendlier website. Undoubtedly, many people stay confused and think that SEO is only for optimizing the websites for search engines. However, many don’t know that SEO also includes the improvement of websites for better user experience.
If you create a well-structured, clean, and uncluttered website, it will compel the visitors to stay longer on your website, thereby decreasing the bounce rate. Always post relevant content (Sales pages and blog articles) with every bit of information and SEO optimized. This content must have answers to the visitors’ questions regarding the products or services they are looking for.
The relevant content, faster website, and beautiful design make the users happy and satisfied. Thus, with the use of “Local SEO” you can boost your website ranking, visitors, and ultimately sales.
02. Bring in More Customers
SEO is probably the most efficient & affordable marketing strategy that exists today. If you are selling a product at your shop in Miami and another shopkeeper who sells the same product at both local/physical and online shop, then your competitor is getting more benefits, and you’re losing a big opportunity of profit!
You need to build a website regarding your product or services and then hire an SEO expert to optimize your website locally. SEO makes your small business available on the internet very fast to the customers’ searches for a target product or service you are offering. For the Miami, Florida area, you should set up your local shop and then optimize the website locally with a Google my Business, and Google Map. In this way, the customers from Miami will find your shop, product, and service more easily than millions of others.
03. Better Conversion Rates
As optimized websites load faster and are easy to navigate and surf and display properly on every device, whether it’s a mobile phone, desktop, or tablet, therefore, by applying the techniques of “Local SEO” targeting Miami, Florida, you can grab more and more visitors and readers to your website and better conversion rates.
04. Build Brand Awareness
With the help of SEO, you can build your brand awareness. The higher ranking on SERPs increases your brand awareness when your optimized website appears on the first ten pages with a search on Google, Yahoo, and Bing; the visitors keep trusting your brand more than others that are very below the top search results.
That is why for your small business, to build better brand awareness, either locally or nationally; you must invest in SEO and try to get top ranking on Google for the Key Terms you’re dealing with. It’s not the 90s era, search engines now play a significant role in making or breaking your brand.
05. Bypass Competition
SEO strategies for business make it to bypass its competitors in the industry. For Example, if you are in the same industry, selling similar products or offering the same service at the same prices, in the same area – consider almost everything equal, so which company do you think will grab the local customer?
A company with no proper SEO or a company with proper “Local SEO”? Whose website will load faster?
You’re getting an answer from yourself! The website targeting the customers of that local area will load faster and appear first in the search results, which ultimately convert the visitor into a customer. So, what are you thinking for? Why don’t you invest in SEO!!!
