The classic local search: “Google find a something near me”.
Find something near me –
where I am…
not where I was…
not where I live…
not where I am from…
Your customer’s cell phone is always pinging out their location data but your business isn’t . If you need local search traffic – you have to make sure you tell Google where to find you.
Local business means local seo
‘Near me’ searches are up 34 times since 2011. That kind of growth is legitimately called explosive. It’s not a surprise that your website isn’t likely to be ready for ultra local searches.
Understand that the searcher wants results as close as possible and Google wants to give that result. Ideally the perfect search result would be within blocks of the searcher.
Your website may be ready for your town, now you need to optimize it for your neighborhood.
How to get your site local optimized
Local SEO is what you do after your website has been search engine optimized. After you’ve cleaned your code, written brilliant titles and descriptions, created awesome content, you are ready to get local.
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Is your exact address used on each page? I like to add it to the bottom navigation and copyright panel.
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Have you used your neighborhood in the page content? “Best pizza in Sand Lake, Anchorage”.
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Does your website address match the address you’ve used in your business citations? Exactly?
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Who in your community is linking to you? Authoritative links from your neighborhood are necessary in local seo.
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Have you set up your Google My Business page? If not, you aren’t serious about your search engine optimization.
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Are you getting local reviews? You want reviews coming in from your grid on Yelp, Facebook, Google + and other local directories.
Once you’ve got these items in place you can take a deep breath and relax. Your job isn’t done but you are now in a good place to be found.
~JM
Need some help getting your site ready for ultra local searches? I have a handful of spots open for new clients.
