Local SEO for a small business

For small businesses, local SEO is crucial for gaining visibility online. 4 out of 5 consumers use search engines to find local information. This can include directions, contact information, reviews, or locating the services nearest to them. The great news is boosting your online presence for local searches is easy and quick to set up.

Step 1 - Create a landing page for each location

Make sure you have a page on your website for the location you want to target. For example, if you have a store or gym you will need a page focused on the store itself. This should include:

• Location Address/map

• Contact information

• Images of store/business

• A brief description of what customer can expect

• Updates on events at the location

• Optimise Meta Title and Description to appear for local searches

Step 2 - Create online business listings

This is the most important step and will make sure your business shows up in the local listings and maps of the major search engines. Google, Bing, Apple, and Yelp all allow you to create a business profile free of charge. You can add all your business information from address, images, and opening hours to store updates and events and is a great platform to communicate with your potential customers.

• How to set up Google My Business

• How to set up Bing Places for Business

• How to set up Apple Maps Listing

• How to set up Yelp Listing

You will need to create listings for each location you have a store or premises and make sure it links back to the relevant location landing page. It’s very important that the information on the landing page is consistent with the information on your listings.

Step 3 - Local Reviews

To make your listing stand out and give it the best chance of appearing high up in the search results having good reviews is key. Reviews on Google my Business should take priority as this accounts for around 90% of searches. If you know you have a happy customer send them a link to the local listing and ask for a review.

Step 4 - Add Internal Linking

If you have priority locations adding some internal links will give your local page a nice boost. You can even add a link in the footer for maximum effect. This helps Google to find the page easily when it crawls the site and passes on authority from other pages to these location pages.

Step 5 - Get Inbound Links

If you have the time and resources gaining links from other websites to your local pages can give your local SEO a huge boost. A few simple ways to do this are through sponsorship of local events, guest blogging or if you really want to push the boat out you could create a press release focused on gaining links from the local news outlets.

Final thoughts …

This is a quick win for a lot of businesses especially if you have a physical location. Make sure you include keywords in your optimisations that people will be searching for. For example, if you're a cafe specialising in vegan food, make sure you include terms like ‘Vegan Cafe’ and ‘Vegan Food’ rather than just the name of the cafe.

If you don’t have the time to do this yourself and would like a professional to set everything up then get in touch today or check out my small business digital marketing packages