SEO rank, marketing strategy, and Google Indexing, oh my! These topics can frighten a small business owner due to their lack of understanding and knowledge of how beneficial SEO ranking is in this new world we live in. We no longer rely on the newspaper, billboards and just a 30 second ad on tv to get our product or service to the world. We have Google! This promiscuous search engine has become one of the “largest billboards” the world has to offer. Any business now with solid SEO can be found from a local search on Google. According to marketing automation provider, Emma, local search queries account for 35 percent of all search traffic.
What does this mean? It means building your local SEO rank with Google is probably one of the most important factors to have a strong local digital marketing strategy. We’ve taken the time, done our research, and compiled a few factors we believe is key to the start of your skillset in local SEO solutions.
Local SEO is Very Different From Traditional SEO
Local SEO is Very Different From Traditional SEOLocal SEO is just how it sounds. It helps patrons find your business when they are nearby, or if they use a location-based search. Many of these searches might look like, “pizza near me,” “web design, Redmond, Oregon,” or “Starbucks.” Google knows the user is looking for businesses within their location due to the focus of the search. This will then allow Google to provide you with a Starbucks within 5 miles of your location, making it easier for the user to locate.
Traditional SEO is very different. This type helps your website rank higher by optimizing its performance and strategic placement of keywords within your website’s content. The user typically searches for terms that are not location-based, but are for things like “how to grow your business,” “creating a platform” or “launching a website.” A search of this type doesn’t need results from businesses nearby, which is why Google will focus more on the content, not the location.
Reviews Matter
This is a great way to not only know if your customers are satisfied, but it also boosts your local SEO ranking. 90% of people are influenced by the rating of a business, and will most likely buy from the highest ranked one. Google also looks at your ranks, and they account for about 10% of your overall rank. How are you ranking? How many reviews do you have? Google will look closely at both of these factors, and rank your website accordingly. The more 4 and 5 star reviews, the better the rank. The more reviews you have, the higher the rank.
Get into the Google Snack Pack
They way Google search results are have changed drastically in the last decade. The goal of getting on the first page was 2010’s way. The first pages used to be the top 10 blue links. If you got on this page, you were sure to have traffic. Google updated, and changed to having the top 7. In 2014, Google brought that number down to the top 3 results, or snack pack. As if it wasn’t hard enough to rank! These top 3 search results, Google considers to be the most relevant to the searches inquiry. There are however many factors that also play into this narrow choice.
Google Desires Fresh Content
If you do anything, you NEED to write fresh, relevant content for Google bots to crawl. The search engines love it! Posting consistently not only helps attract an audience, but it improves your search rankings. This key applies to your blog, website content, social medias, AND Google My Business listing. Google is bias for websites that consistently add fresh content, and will rank you for it.
Get Your Business Name Out There!
Online, there are more than 100 business directories, and they all affect your local ranking, regardless of how popular the directory is. Updating over 100 directories with your businesses information. This is an extremely daunting task, not to mention if your information changes, there’s no telling if you will be able to update all them again. Hard to track down each one, and there’s almost no way of telling they will display the correct information if a correction is needed.
Don’t be afraid, though. We’re here to help! If you would like a free consultation on your website, contact us today! Get your business name out there, and start reaping the benefit of having a strong presence on Google!
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