Category: SEO Management
What is Local SEO?
Local Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an online marketing practice that promotes local businesses and their corresponding services to potential customers in their area.
To put it simply, local SEO helps your business appear front and centre when potential customers use search engines like Google & Bing, for your services.
According to Google, four out of five consumers want search results to be customised to their local communities.
Imagine you wake up one morning and have forgotten your MOT is due. You grab your phone and do the Google search “MOT test centre near me”. In an instant, Google has served up a list of local garages, with their address, telephone number and even reviews of their service. Naturally, you click the closest garage with the best reviews and contact or call them.
But what if you are a local garage and your listing didn’t appear? All of your competitors are there, but not you, begging the question “What do I do?”
Here at Spire Digital, we want to share some tips to help you improve your local SEO results, and the best part is, they are completely free! And that is tip number 1.
I know, it may not be the best tip in the world, especially when we are giving you just 5. But, if you had to pay to help your local SEO, would you? So knowing that there is a list of things that you can do for free really is a good tip!
Tip 2 – Google My Business Listing
Probably one of the best things you can do to help your local SEO is to have a Google my Business listing. We have a guide to creating this listing on a previous blog which can be seen here – https://spiredigital.co.uk/blog/10-getting-the-most-of-your-seo-in-salisbury
We have created the example we used above to show you. We have searched “MOT test centre near me”. As you can see, a list of local garages come up, with a whole host of contact details. All of these details are pulled in from their Google my business listings. Now you can see why this could be important to your business.
Tip 3 – Complete a NAPS Audit
This sounds daunting. What is a NAPS audit? Well it is simply an acronym for Name, Address, Phones Numbers. When we say, complete a naps audit all we mean is, make sure your company name, address and telephone number are the same in every online location. Add your company to Yell.com, 118, Thomson local and any other local directories that are free. It is as simple as adding your details to an online form and maybe taking a call once a year. Even if your local netball team has a website that can house a link back to you then do it. Anything that can help validate your location with Google will help. So if your company is Joe Bloggs ltd and you think that is the best description of your company then, across all platforms and on all online listings, your company should appear as Joe Bloggs ltd, not Joe Bloggs builders, or Joe Bloggs Building CO.
Tip 4 – Social Media
You should already have Facebook & Twitter, and if you don’t you should. We would also suggest a company LinkedIn profile and even an Instagram account if you are a visual company. Social media works in three ways for local SEO. First of all, consumers are much more savvy these days, and will come to your social media profiles to see what kind of things current or old customers are saying about you and to see if the business still exists. If customers are saying positive things then it validates in their minds that you are the company they want to use.
Secondly, social media is a free platform for you to show off your work. If you are a web designer you can show people what web sites you have built. If you are a tiler you can show the amazing bathroom you have just completed. It is a place to show how good you are, and how much your business means to you.
Finally, social media makes your search profile look even better and gives customers varying different ways to contact you. On this image you can see our Facebook & Twitter links, so even if they don’t click on to our website, they may click on our social media profiles.
This image is a great example of most of the tips we have talked about working together. You can see our Google my Business listing, our social media profiles, and a Yell.com listing, all in one place.
Tip 5 – Your Own Website Footer
We’ll let you know a little secret. Google, and other search engines rank every single one of your web pages individually. Gone are the days where you could just have a great home page to get a good search engine ranking. This means that every page of your website needs to be fully optimised for search engines, ensuring they know exactly where your business is located, no matter what page a customer lands on, and the footer of your website is an ideal place.
All you need to do is ensure that your business address, telephone number and social media links appear in the footer of your website. This means that no matter what page a customer lands on, your location is visible. This also verifies your location to Google every time a customer lands on your site.
If you need more help, please contact the team at Spire Digital.