Why is Local Business SEO So Important?

By Brenda Berg

Promoting your business through the use of SEO techniques is such a vital part of the modern-day implementation.

As a new business, you’ll already be aware that the majority of your network is people in your local area, friends, family and other high-authority figures. As a business, you’ll be promoting products, services as well as discounts and promotion events that are important to your area, as well as international causes.

Without a high SEO ranking, promoting your products and services in this modern world is near on impossible. With careful implementation, you can be sure you’re connecting with the people you need to that will ensure the successful marketing campaign.

Unfortunately, SEO is renowned for being a very technical industry that can eat up all your time, time you probably don’t have to invest fully and on a limited budget, you may not be able to afford a complete professional service. However, in this article, we’ll explore several ways you can implement tactics to give you the best opportunities on the search engine result pages.

Define Your Local Area

As every business, it’s probably safe to say that you’ll mainly be operating in your local area, city or country. You’ll need to consider what people in this area may be searching. For example, users may search something such as “buy in New York”, for example, or “store in London”. Search yourself to gauge where your pages currently are.

This will allow you to know where you currently stand and how much you need to improve. Experiment with the search terms you are using and make sure you write them down alongside your search engine position.

Using Keywords

Now you should have a list of around ten unique search terms and your position on the search engine results page. You should have several words that are commonly used in all your search terms. These will be your keywords. When it comes to local business SEO, there are three main places you’ll want to embed these keywords. Firstly, the title tags. This means putting the keywords in the titles of your pages and the titles of your content posts.

This is what users will be clicking on.

Secondly, the H1 tag. This is what is more commonly referred to as the headline of your page. If you’re posting articles, include your tags in the headlines of your content. Lastly, you’ll want to include a few keywords in your actual page content. The recommended keyword density is around 2.5%.

John E. Tarrant, a content writer for State of writing, explains, “Keyword density is one of the easiest and most effective SEO techniques you can implement yourself. As a rough guideline, for every 500 words you write, you’ll be able to include your focus keyword ten times.”

Set Up Google My Business

As a business with a physical location, setting up ‘Google My Business’ is a necessity and it’s a vital SEO tactic. However, this is renowned for being a long-winded and time-consuming process. To achieve this, you need to set up a Google account using a dedicated business email address. Now you need to find your business on Google maps or by searching and when you’ve found it, you should find a ‘Claim my business’ option.

Click this and follow through the process of claiming the company, store or service as your business. You should receive a letter through the post that you’ll have to confirm as well as some codes you’ll have to match online. The entire process shouldn’t take longer than two weeks. With this completed, your SEO ranking will go through the roof and you’ll be able to have full control over your Google Business page.

Optimised Content

As you can already see, the content on your business website is vital to SEO success. If you plan on writing your content yourself, you’ll need to make this the highest quality possible. Not only will this naturally increase your SEO ranking, but it will also encourage users to want to read your content from start to finish as well as improving the readability levels.

If you get stuck on certain aspects of writing, such as techniques, you can use websites such as Academadvisor for easy tips and tricks that can help you to develop your skills.

You’ll need to be aware of your keyword usage and ensure you don’t create pages and pages of content which could have been summarised in a couple of hundred words. When you’re creating content, you’ll receive higher engagement rates from your users as well as a higher SEO ranking by aiming for around 500 words.

Using free online tools such as Easy Word Count, you can easily monitor this as your type.

Another key tip comes from Anthony D. Hines, an SEO strategist from UK top writers, “As any business website, one of your most commonly used forms of content could be listings. You may have lists of contacts, partnered organisations and upcoming and past events. When referring to these lists, ensure that you efficiently catalogue these listings and keep things organised.

This will help them to become easily indexed by the search engines, helping them show up higher on the results pages.”

Invest in a Responsive Website

One of the most common website hosting programs that the 29% of websites use nowadays is WordPress. These websites are easy to set up using drag and drop techniques, and if you’re not using it already, it’s highly recommended that you look into it. If you are using WordPress, refer to the theme you are using.

You need to ensure that the theme is highly optimized for speed and is responsive. This means that the website will load fast and it will look great on mobile devices, again, naturally boosting your SEO ranking.

The Importance of SEO for any Business

As you can see, SEO is an essential and vitally important concept to consider for your business.

With full control over your ranking, you’ll be able to connect with the people that value your business as well as providing new customers to your store or company with all the information they need to engage with your business. Any events, fundraisers or services you hold in the future will be easily accessible to the people in your local community, ensuring a more successful business.