Improve your online presence through Local SEO

With over 90% over people using the internet to search for a local business (most through Google) its imperative that businesses now use the internet to drive sales.

Can you be found online or are your competitors taking sales away from you due to them being found first when somebody has a need for your product or service? Local SEO is a way to keep ahead of the competition.

Local SEO must haves

What is SEO?

A great looking website is a great step to being found online, however you still need to drive people to your site and have a better online presence. It is easy to get lost and your business needs to be easily found and the best way to do this is through Search Engine Optimisation or SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a way of improving how your website ranks through search engines such as Google when people want to find a product or service. An optimised website means that you are closer to the top of the searches and so more likely to be found by your target market.

There is a lot of technical things involved with SEO when it comes to the running of your website, but there are also several things that can be done outside of your website to improve your SEO.

How does a search work?

Whenever you search for anything on Google it will look for patterns and ranking factors and return a list of sites that it believes are relevant to your search criteria. Google performs this search through its Google Index, which is a kind of saved copy of pages across the web. When it sends its programs to crawl the web those programs look for and search for content across the pages and then stores the information to be at the ready.

Google then uses several processes and algorithms to rank sites. It is worth noting that these algorithms are forever changing and so keeping up with how Google ranks sites and pages can be a daily job. The results that come through are based on things such as popularity, relevance, and trustworthiness, which is typically provided by inbound links.

Ensuring that your SEO fulfils these requirements assists in ranking you higher in the search list than your competitors.

Local SEO.

Is pretty much what it says in that it is a way to ensure that your website is found in your local area but through utilising Googles local search algorithm.  What’s that, Google have a local search algorithm?  They sure do!

So why is that?  Well, it’s actually been around for years, but with the increase in mobile devise usage it’s become more and more relevant.  Google sees their job as giving you the best answer to your online request and through the increase of local information, Google is able to determine where you are and give you the most relevant results it can.  In some cases, the best answer is the closest supplier with some fantastic reviews, not the large well-established website that has been conducting SEO best practices.  Don’t worry that your existing SEO activity has all been for nothing and only Local SEO matters now.  Existing SEO techniques will always help your results it’s just that there are some specific on-site and off-site strategy’s you need to employ to appear in the Google 3 Pack – or local results.

So who would benefit from Local SEO? any business who has a physical location or services a geographic area can benefit from Local SEO.

So, what can you do?

If you want to be found within your service area, then there is a long list of things that you can focus on to start getting results and in the infographic below we’ve included 11 of those steps. These include things such as your Google My Business Page, Social Media, Keyword Development, Online Citations and Localised Content to name a few.

By using this as a starting point you are on your way to looking after your Local SEO, however, be aware that this is not a “do it once and its done” situation. Once you have these things in place you then need to keep optimising and checking the search criteria of your target market and customers and tweaking what you need to as you go along to make sure that you stay relevant within Googles search criteria.

Live Wire Media ensure that you are making the most from your marketing budget by helping you to generate leads and customers through your online marketing and Local SEO.

We will sit down with you and look at what your current needs are and work on a strategy to get you seen ahead of your competition within your local area.

Generate Leads, Spark Sales And Fire Up Your Business

11 steps to local SEO Infograph
Stuart

Author Stuart

Media & Marketing specialist, Photographer,Partner,Father,Beer lover & in my own world an ex Rock God

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