Search Engine Optimisation for Local Businesses
Following the SEO trend is not easy. Everything changes all the time and you never know whether a strategy is outdated. Since search engines improve their algorithms from time to time, this makes it more difficult for businesses everywhere to understand the best next steps to take. And it’s even harder for local companies – especially the ones who don’t have a ton of money to spend on marketing and to run tons of ads.
However, some things stayed relevant in the last few years. Those things are titles and meta descriptions, online directories and online reviews. It’s a proven fact that getting these three things right will get you on the first page of Bing or Google. They’re the biggest search engines, and if it works for these two, it works for any other one that just a few people use. Here is some more info on the subject: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/local-seo/ .
Titles and meta descriptions matter
We’ll take Google as an example. You want to know something, so you type in a sentence in the search bar. The sentence is also called a keyword. You press enter and you get a lot of headlines with a little bit of text under them. The blue part is the title, and the words are the meta description. Both of them need to be carefully engineered to give back more visitors to your site.
All titles need to be from 50 to 60 characters long. As for the descriptions, they can be from 160 to 200 characters. Anything longer than that will be bad for your traffic. Having longer titles or longer meta descriptions will add three dots at the end of the text. And if you’re in the middle of a sentence, then the thought wouldn’t be finished. This looks very unprofessional and it shows that you haven’t paid attention to detail.
This short text serves as a mini advertisement that needs to be crafted carefully. The space on the search engine needs to be used wisely, and always make sure to double check it. Reviewing it will show you how the results look, and whether a part of the text is getting cut off. Click here to read more.
Online directories are extremely valuable for local searches
According to statistics from Google, 80% of people use search engines for local searches. This is huge. If you aren’t capitalizing on this fact, then your competitors surely will. Most small and local businesses don’t bother to claim not even a single business listing. In modern times, we like to refer to this as a missed opportunity.
When doing this, make sure that you give the same information across all platforms. The big three are Citysearch, Merchant Circle and Yelp. The name, address and phone number of your company need to be consistent across all of them. Misspelling something can only produce negative results. Firstly, Google will be confused and create havoc. Having different information will make it harder for the search engine to know which info is correct. This can result in one of two ways. One, the search engine will show the wrong information to visitors. And two, it might not even show your business at all.
Online reviews – the pillars of SEO
A few recent surveys showed that 84 percent of people believe online reviews just as much as a personal recommendation. And seven out of ten people will leave a review if they were asked by the website. This makes reviews crucial for your next strategy. If you need help in making one, there are always companies like Ocean One SEO, which can be of service.
Now, reviews can be either positive or negative. They are rarely neutral since people will either be pleased or disappointed by your service or product. The most important part here is to respond to all of the reviews. It doesn’t matter if they are good or bad. If they’re good, thank the customers for choosing you. If they aren’t, ask how you can become better at what you do.
This shows new visitors that you care about their opinion. As well as that, it shows you’re willing to listen, and that’s very important in our time where everyone just wants to be heard.
