Are you planning a local takeover for your business? Do you want to receive more local traffic to your website? Gaining more local business is becoming increasingly more important and it is forever becoming more and more important to plan your local strategy. As Google are consistently updating their Algorithm it is critical that you stay on top and ahead of the competition. In this article I will be discussing 4 points which will help you succeed in your local quest.
1. Make sure your website is locally optimised
One of the most important factors you need to take into account is to make sure your website is locally optimised. Without local optimisation your website will massively struggle to rank for local searches. To optimise your website locally you need to make sure your Meta Tags are all locally specific to every page and that your content includes rich local 'text'. The more information Google can gain from crawling your website the more it will know about your business. You need to make sure that your Title Tag is not only relevant to the page but that it also includes the location you want to rank for as well. This goes for your Meta Description too, keep it as relevant as possible whilst adding the location too. You also want to make sure you include your target keywords within these Meta Tags too. If you want want to learn some other useful on-site changes you can make to your site read this article - 9 Different On-Site Optimisation Factors for Your Website.
2. Have a strong, fully optimised 'Google My Business' page
Let’s start this section by asking, do you have a 'Google My Business' page? If the answer is no then the first step you urgently need to take is to create a 'Google My Business' page! You can do this by clicking 'Get onto Google' on this page – www.google.co.uk/business/ and then following the on screen steps. If you already have a verified page, which has a small amount of information on, you need to make sure your page is fully optimised. By this I mean you need to ensure that your page is 100% complete with the most current and up-to-date information for your business. You also need to make sure that your page has your full and correct address, this will massively help with your local SEO. If you are struggling with how to keep your page updated and fresh, here are some great ideas – 5 Tips to Keep Your 'Google My Business' Page Fresh.
3. Submit your website to local directories
Local directories can be an absolute goldmine for gaining local dominance, and here is why. Google places a very high importance on relevancy and what is more relevant than a local directory advertising a local listing? Another reason why they can be so useful is because local directories can rank very highly within local searches. This is great as it means you can get even more traffic to your website from just being on a directory site.
4. Check out your competition
Another great point to gaining good local rankings in search engines is to check out your competition. By this I mean see what they're doing in regards to local work. Have a look around their website and see how locally it is set up. Do they have a whole section about their local work, do they have a local case study or testimonial section? These are just some points you can look at on their website. You can also take a look and see what sites they have links on, to do this just simply search the business name on Google and see what websites they show up on. To focus more on local results, search the business name and then put the location they are in after, for example 'Business name Derby'. This will then show a lot more local websites that you can try and get your site on, like directory sites.
If you are struggling to find out who your competitors are, simply search your business field and put your location at the end. Then the sites that are showing up are all businesses that are in your business field and that are working within your area. Here is a great article with some other ideas on how to outperform your competition – 5 Ways to Outperform your Local Competitors.
If you follow the above points and continue to make updates to your website you're always going to stand a great chance of dominating local search results. You just always need to remember to stay active and continue reading articles to learn even more about what you can do!
