How SEO Can Boost Local Businesses
If you are a local business, it can sometimes be hard to compete with larger companies. Even in the online space, larger companies can do and spend more attracting customers than small businesses.
However, there are ways that you can try to boost your reach and your presence both online and with advertising. Let’s see how SEO can boost local businesses and help them compete.
Boost Your Online Presence by Aligning Your Data Across All Platforms
If you are a small business, you likely have a website that contains all of your important information such as address, telephone number and name. However, this isn’t the only location where this information should be listed.
If you also have pages on Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor and other sites that show your details, you need to ensure that they are all the same. You never know where someone may find your business, and if the information is wrong, it might prevent a sale or a new returning customer. Another place where you can add your details is on your Google Business Profile listing. This is a free platform, formerly known as Google My Business, that local businesses can use to drive traffic to their website.
There are many SEO services for retail that will help you do this type of alignment across all platforms. However, it is important that you regularly update them if things change. One of the most vital pieces of data is your opening hours if you have a physical store. Many people will check this when they look at your site so they can decide when to come to your store.
Target Searches For Local Products and Services
Your SEO strategy needs to be able to target the keywords that you want to rank for. As an example, if you are a hair salon, then you need keywords that will help you be found, such as hairdressers or hair cuts.
The more keywords you can rank for in search, the more chance you have of being found. It will also help you rise up the rankings so that you are seen before your competition.
There are best practices when it comes to adding keywords. You don’t want to add too many to your content, or it will be seen as spam. You also need to add keywords to titles, photos, and other content.
If you have chosen and placed the keywords correctly, then you should start to see your online presence growing over time.
Help to Stand Out Among Your Competitors
Every company has a competitor that they need to stand out from in order to get sales and compete for customers. Your SEO strategy can go a long way to helping you stand out from the crowd.
Firstly, it will give you the edge over companies that don’t have an SEO strategy, and that don’t implement SEO practices. It will also help to place you above your competitors in search even if they do use SEO.
It is important to look at what your competition is doing and see where you can do things better. If they are not using a certain keyword that you can rank for, then you could use it to help get your business advantageously placed in the rankings. Even if they rank for it by accident, you will likely be ranking higher than them because your website is optimised.
Use Collaborations
Ideally, your website should include content that you can rank for in search that is relevant to your business. If you write articles for your site, then why not see if there are other local businesses that might want to collaborate? This might mean writing an article for each other’s sites, especially if there is a common theme between you.
This type of collaboration adds authenticity to your site and shows Google that you have information worth sharing. It doesn’t just have to be articles, as you can also share special events with others or collaborate on a product that goes well together. This type of collaboration will help you be seen by other customers – and of course, it will help you support other local businesses.
Conclusion
If you want to boost your local online profile, then the best way is to use SEO. It will help get your website noticed, and encourage both online and in-person sales.
With many people now using their smartphones ‘on the go’ to search for products or services near them, there can be more opportunity than you think to scoop up new business when you get your own firm’s local SEO approach right. So, why not begin to make that investment today?
