Are you a local business that needs to get qualified leads?  Then you should have a local SEO (search engine optimization) strategy if you don’t want to miss out on qualified leads!

If you want to rank well in the search engines for your geographical location its time to strengthen your local SEO efforts.

When done correctly, local SEO can help you generate more high-quality traffic, leads, and conversions. It can also help you compete with big brands and stay relevant in the competition.

Below are six effective tactics to strengthen your local SEO strategy. So let’s get started.

1. Optimize your “Google My Business” page

I’ve written about this before and will keep harping on this topic because it’s SO important for the success of local business owners. If you do ONLY ONE THING do this!  The most important way to strengthen your local SEO strategy is to optimize your Google My Business page.

Once you have your page verified and listed, your business will show up on Google Maps when users search for businesses like yours.

It will also help your business to rank better in search engine results. Google My Business listings show up below the paid for listings on search engine results pages.  Your Google My Business listing can also appear on the sidebar of Google search results pages.

Follow the below tips to optimize your Google My Business page and strengthen your local SEO:

• Make sure that you provide detailed, accurate, and up-to-date information about your business.
• Add your business’ logo, relevant images, exact location, payment methods, the services or products you offer, and hours of operation.
• Encourage your customers to add their feedback and ratings.
• And ALWAYS be quick to respond to your customer reviews.

These valuable tips and tricks will help you strengthen your local SEO and generate more high-quality leads for your business.

2. Optimize your local business listings

Next up, making sure your business listing is correct and optimized on all Local directories. This is another place where users search for local businesses. So be sure to add your business listings to all popular directories in your niche.

These directories often rank high in Google search results for local search queries. Anyone who checks these directories can be redirected to your website or business if you optimize your listings. This will not only help you increase your organic search traffic but will also help you get qualified leads.

Update the name, address, and phone (NAP) section

Ensure that there are no misspellings and avoid using abbreviations or anything confusing. If there is any change in your contact details, update all of your listings accordingly.

Also, make sure that these details are consistent across all listings. Otherwise, people might get confused and won’t know which one to trust.

3. Optimize your website content for local keywords

You should optimize your website content with keywords that are relevant to your local customers too.

You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to find relevant yet local keywords using the location filter. The tool can help you identify the most popular and relevant local keywords that you should target.

Once you have a list of local keywords, you should include them in your website content, meta descriptions, titles, and URLs.

However, you need to examine the competitiveness of your potential list of keywords before you use them. For this, you can use tools such as SpyFu to see if your competitors are also using these keywords. If the same keywords are strengthening your competitors’ local SEO, they might work well for you too.

But a  word of caution, never over-use keywords. Keyword stuffing might make your website content seem spammy, and you may get penalized by Google for it. Make sure that you evenly distribute your keywords throughout the content and add them in a way that they seem to fit in naturally.

4. Ask your satisfied customers to give positive online reviews

According to Bright Local positive reviews influence 68% of consumers to use your local business.

Positive reviews can help you attract new customers. So, go ahead and ask your satisfied customers to share positive feedback. You should also encourage them to give good ratings for your business online with Google, and Facebook.

91% of millennials trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. So gaining positive reviews for your business online can help your brand appear as more trustworthy.

When you provide quality services to your customers it will encourage them to become your brand advocates, write more positive reviews, and recommend your business to their friends and families.

Here are some tips to get reviews from happy clients:

• Always make sure to ask for a review in person once a customer uses your services. You may want to send them or hand them a page with links to your Google and Facebook pages to make it easy for them to give you a review.
• If someone purchases a product online or in your store, send them a text message or an email asking them to give a review.
• Always reply to customer reviews as soon as you read them. Thank your customers for positive reviews and encourage them to visit again.

If you receive a negative review, you should apologize for the discomfort and try to solve their problems politely and professionally. For instance, when you type “Plumbers near me”, you can see a list of local businesses along with their ratings.

5. Make sure your website is mobile-responsive

It’s really  not an option today. Google insists on it. Having a mobile responsive website is imperative to your Local SEO efforts.

52.2% of all website traffic came from mobile devices in 2018. Also, this percentage is likely to increase further.

Source: Statista

Your website should view properly on all platforms, desktop, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Using a responsive website design can help you get an edge over your competitors and can also improve your local SEO. You should follow the below tricks to create a mobile-responsive website:

• Always optimize your images and videos to reduce page load time.
• Carefully plan your website layout and navigation menus. Make sure that it is easier for visitors to find what they are looking for.
• Improve page load speed. If your web page takes longer to load, it will be unable to hold a user’s attention.
• Add social media sharing buttons to your product pages and blog posts. Make sure that it is easy for visitors to share your content in their circles.
• You can use tools such as Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to examine whether or not your website is mobile responsive. This tool can help you improve the mobile responsiveness of your site by providing you with valuable suggestions.

6. Strengthen your social media presence

Social media does have an impact on your presence in search engine results.

Establishing an excellent social media presence can help your brand to appear as more credible and trustworthy. Social media could also serve as a great source of backlinks and high-quality traffic.

You need to be very active on your social media channels. Proactively promoting your business on social media can help you increase your brand awareness and reach. This can help you attract more people to your brand, products, and/or services.

But always post content that is relevant and useful to your audience. If they find your content valuable, they are more likely to follow you and visit your website and share your content with their social networks.

Promoting your business on social media is an effective strategy to increase your brand’s visibility and traffic. It can also positively impact and strengthen your local SEO strategy in the long run.

Wrapping Up

After reading this I hope you see how important it is to take time to develop an effective local SEO strategy.

You should always stay up-to-date about the latest SEO trends and capitalize on them to stay ahead in the competition because SEO is a constantly changing thing.  But good basic SEO strategy such as relevant content never changes.

So get to work and follow the tips I’ve discussed here to strengthen your local SEO strategy and rank higher in local searches.

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