Multiple individuals predicted one day mobile search would topple desktop search and they certainly got it right. You may not even know it but this isn’t “new” news, this actually happened around springtime of 2015. So why are we bringing this “old news” up? That’s a good question…listen to this.

“50% of consumers who do conducted a local search on their smartphone visited a store within a day, and 34% who searched on computer or tablet did the same.” – Go Globe

The Truth About SEO

If you have been ignorant of local SEO, you need to wake up this very moment! These customers of yours are not only searching for your local services and products, they are taking action on what they find. The internet is always changing and if your business is not up to the latest local SEO strategies then you’re losing a significant amount of website rankings and potential customers each and every month.

Many people think SEO is just about links and content. The truth of the matter is that it’s about attracting and engaging with customers who want and need your products or services. If you want your customers to find you, you’ll have to implement local SEO correctly. In this short post, you’ll find 3 important techniques that will help boost your local SEO.

 

Citations

Citations are simply where your business is mentioned on other websites and places found on the internet. Citations are referenced with their business’ name, address, and phone number, also known as NAP. Often these citations provide a link back to your website.

Examples of citations are Google Maps, Yelp, Foursquare, Angie’s List and so on. Chances are your business’ NAP and website may already be listed in a couple of citations. Sometimes these citations can find your website and gather your business information to create an unclaimed listing. If this hasn’t happened, you can always create them. Citations influence Google helping you to rank in local search as well.

Claiming your citations can be a tedious task. If done manually, you’ll have to sign up to each citation site and claim your business. Along with that you’ll be entering your business information along with additional properties such as images or even videos. Creating citations can be very time consuming and that’s why there other options.

You can pay somebody like a freelancer to do it but you’ll need to know first which citation sites to register for, or you can use websites like Whitespark or Bright Local to help you find citations. Look around and read reviews to figure out which one works best. An easy way we figure out which citations to sign up for is by checking your top competitors’ citations.

You want all your citations to be congruent because if someone finds your business locally, there’s a chance they will land on your citation first. If the information is wrong on that listing, you may lose a potential customer. A safe way to make sure you don’t mess up is check if your citations matches your Google listing.

 

Mobile Friendly Website

Because mobile search has become primary not too long ago, Google went ahead and split their index between mobile and desktop. Google’s official statement was that more than 50% of searches are through mobile devices. Although the exact number is unknown, we do know mobile searches serve a significant amount of traffic to local business and should be focused on.

So how do we find out if a website is mobile-friendly? There’s a tool called the “Mobile-Friendly Test” that can help you to see if you will need to address the issue at hand. The tool is simple and free to use. If your website does not pass the test then you will need to fix it by making your website responsive design. Basically, responsive design allows your website for mobile users to easily interact with your pages and fit the screen on their mobile device.

Many local businesses are not aware about accelerated mobile pages (AMP), but if you’re blogging content on your website then you should definitely think on integrating this feature. AMP make pages load instantaneously for mobile users. By integrating AMP, your website will have a better bounce rate and possibly an increase in rankings.

 

Local Link Building

Links are one of the main factors to ranking in the search engines but you don’t want just any links, you want quality links. Link building is an effective strategy but can also be a tedious task. Learning how to find and build links can take up a lot of time which local business owners do not have. Generally the best solution is to hire an SEO expert.

For local businesses, one of the best type of links to get are neighborhood links. You want links from businesses that are around you. Nonprofits, sponsoring events, local business groups are some examples. Links that are relevant to your city or state are good too.

Getting a link from your neighbors are powerful in ranking and building your reputation. Spreading your website around will show your customers how involved your business is. This can results in better networking with higher businesses and bringing in more customers.

There are other techniques that can help boost your local SEO, but the 3 mentioned here are enough to get started and seeing results. Building a local SEO campaign will take some time but the results can be astounding. If you don’t have the time to learn local SEO, then we highly recommend hiring an expert. Our agency, Innovation Mind, can help create a custom plan to help your local business get going with the right SEO. Thanks for reading, we hope you found some value in this post and learned a little more about local SEO.