There are a lot of things to be taken into consideration when starting a business, and in today's technologically driven society, businesses that haven't properly partnered up with the resources and support systems available on the internet are leaving valuable exposure, traffic and profits on the table.
Today's customers begin their search online for the businesses or venues they're interested in. Often looking for a phone number, an address, a list of products or customer reviews. Therefore, businesses that don't have that info readily available or easily accessible online (or businesses that do but have a lack lustre site which displays it) are in need of a fresh approach... if you want to stay competitive.
If you own a local business, like a restaurant, a coffee shop, a bookstore, or any other type of business that requires customers to visit the physical location of your business, you need local SEO.
Unlike traditional SEO which has a more encompassing overview of rankings and digital visibiliyt, local SEO focuses on delivering your most important business information to potential clients that are in your geographical vicinity.
If you want to improve your local SEO listing, there are 4 important aspects to take into consideration.
Of course, Google won't only rely on these 4 aspects when ranking your page on the search list.
There are hundreds of different factors taken into consideration in the ranking algorithms. Some such additional factors that will support higher rankings in search include: keyword usage, content relevance, proximity, social media presence, and so on.
Negative factors include a wrong (or outdated) business location, incorrect business class or category, a NAP (name, address, phone number) mismatched across citations or different pages, etc.
According to Moz, citations are among the top 10 factors taken into consideration in Google's ranking algorithm. That's why it's so important to build them correctly.
As I've said earlier, a citation is considered to be any digital reference of your business.
While some customers will cite just the name of your business and other will cite your business name and address.
The most powerful citation you can get is a NAP as it includes all the important information customers are looking for...
Name, Address, Phone Number.
Unlike backlinks in organic SEO, you can build citations nearly everywhere and it will positively impact your site. Learn how to maximise your local citations here.
As a reference here are some local citation building best practices:
Always keep in mind that the most important rule of building citations is to have a consistent NAP (name, address, phone number).
If you're a brick and mortar business and you want to stay relevant in your community you need a website, a Google My Business profile and you need to put in the time and effort to ensure that web wide your business info is consistent and prominent in all the popular search spots.
Do this and watch your consumer traffic continue to climb.
For a Local SEO case study and checklist be sure to check out our downloadable PDF here.
To learn more about our local citation building services click here.
Leave A Comment