Top 10 SEO Tips for Businesses

If you have a small business in one region, it is essential that you adopt Local SEO practices, in order to be seen in the search engines and stand out from your competitors. This strategy relies on marketing your brand, products, and services to your local target market.

Optimizing local SEO means more traffic to your website, more leads, and higher conversions because the strategy is more relevant to your base of local prospective customers. This focused strategy is a way to help you compete more effectively against larger national brands that have unlimited budgets.

It is estimated that 35% of all search traffic is based on location. Without local SEO, your business could be losing out on a significant amount of traffic.

Here are the top 10 ways you can make your local SEO successful.

1. Create a Separate Webpage for Each Product or Service

Don’t be tempted to lump all your products or services together in one page. Each page needs to be SEO optimized. And this means each page needs to be relevant to search terms that your potential customers are searching for.

If you put all your products or services on one page, the SEO effect becomes considerably diluted. So instead, dedicate one page to each unique product or service that you offer.

If you’re a business that only has one main products or service, but you have various locations, you can use location-based copy for each page. For example, “Dental Implants” will become “Mitcham Dental Implants”, “Guildford Dental Implants” and “Richmond Dental Implants”.

2. Do Basic On-Page SEO

You can do basic On Page SEO simply by using your top two or three search terms as page titles, headers and sub headers. You might want to use a Keyword tool to establish what people are searching for. But these range from free to several hundreds a month. So if you want to just go after the basic terms people are searching for, your website stats will let you know what terms people are using to arrive at your site.

Keyword research is a massive topic all on its own, and you can go into as much or as little depth as you want. But if you start with a few phrases you know people are searching for, you can put those into a free Keyword Tool (most paid Keyword Tools have a free version), and it will produce a list of related keyword phrases. Some will also let you know what the competition is for those phrases.

Once you know which keywords are best, use those relevant keyword phrases in your page titles, headers, sub-headers, images and other files. Also use variations of these phrases in the content.

If you are using a WordPress site, you might want to get an SEO plugin such as Yoast that has a handy traffic light colour scheme to let you know how good your SEO efforts are. You don’t have to have everything perfect, but if you have a lot more green ticks than red crosses you know you’re on the right path.

3. Have a Google My Business Page

Google My Business allows you to list your business location on Google Maps and in the local search results.

Google lets you display important information about your business, such as opening/closing times, contact details or a link to your website. You can also post a link to special offers and upcoming events.

GMB listings are free but should be seen as a necessity for all businesses, as many people look for businesses in relation to where they are. And when they are presented with a map, you want them to see that red pin next to your business.

To optimize your Google My Business profile, make sure to add content to it regularly. Google likes Business Profiles to be kept current and active. So post pictures and updates as often as possible.

• Provide accurate and up-to-date information
• Include your logo, opening times, accepted payment methods, what you do and lots of images
• Ask your customers to review your business online, and respond to the customer reviews

4. Get Reviews from Happy Customers

As well as using Google My Business for reviews, ask customers to leave them on TrustPilot, Yelp, Facebook and Twitter too. Getting your customers to write glowing reviews for your business doesn’t just optimize your online presence, it also encourages more local customers to buy from you.

Ask for a review in person straight after the sale.

Collect emails or mobile numbers, and send a post-purchase email or SMS text asking customers to write a review once you know they had a good experience (You won’t need to ask the unhappy ones; they leave reviews without being asked!)

Respond to existing reviews in a professional way, thanking reviewers and addressing complaints in not-so-favourable reviews.

5. Local SEO Voice Search

Voice search has grown rapidly in the last few years. So it’s now crucial to optimize for how people ask questions when speaking into their devices, compared to how they type their queries into search engines.

Your customers are using more long-tail keywords when using voice search compared to regular search. So you’ll also have to adjust your SEO to be a more conversational tone. For example, take into account the traditional question starters; Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.

It’s also crucial to consider user intent when optimizing for voice, as these searches are most often performed when the user needs a specific piece of information. If a potential customer is asking in voice search what your business hours are, that information should also be readily available.

6. Optimize Your Website for Mobile

According to Statista.com 54.8% of devices in 2021 online are mobile. So you need to have a fully responsive website design, that will display your content beautifully no matter what size the screen of the user.

• Ensure your website loads quickly (in under three seconds)
• Use big clear fonts that are easy to read
• Use images and copy sparingly, giving only the information you need to. There’s no room for filler on a small screen.
• Use an Intuitive interface for the best User Experience

7. Base Content on Local News Stories and Events

Creating content that relates directly to a local issue or hot topic is going to grab your local customers’ attention.

• Write blog posts around local news stories or events
• Create videos about local charities or good causes that your business supports
• Set up location-specific web pages on your website with high-quality local content if you serve different parts of a region

Say you’re a local estate agent, you can create different pages; one for each of your locations, where you can feature laser-targeted content around news events or changes in the local real-estate market. This strategy could also help you get ranked for each specific location.

8. Use Location Pages or a Location-Specific “About Us” Page

Location pages are essential if your business has more than one location in an area. These pages need to provide at least the following:

• Name, address, and phone number
• Store hours
• Individual descriptions
• Testimonials
• Promotional offers
• Parking availability
• Google Maps attached to each location page

If you only have one location, creating an “About Us” page that focuses on local, relevant information is essential. For example, if you have a florist shop, your “About Us” page is the perfect spot to mention your shop’s involvement in supplying the flowers for any festivals or special occasions in your town or city.

9. Use Business Directories

You can get good backlinks from online Business Directories such as Yelp, BingPlaces, 192.com, Yell, FreeIndex, Facebook and more.

Not only will getting your business name, address, and phone number into these directories help visibility, but it’ll also boost your local SEO. It’s also essential that ALL your details match exactly across all the platform you use.

So if your address in Google My Business is:
Chrysalis Boutique, 210 Church Road, Manchester, M1 8NL

…don’t word or punctuate it any differently elsewhere. Example:
The Chrysalis Boutique, 210 Church Rd, Manchester M1 8NL

Did you spot the differences above?
Answers:
1. “The”
2. Road/Rd
3. A comma missing after Manchester

It’s bots that process this info, so they all have to match in order to give your online presence that boost. The same goes for all the additional information. Type it all into your website, and then copy and paste it into the various business directories.

• Your company listing should always include these basics:
• Accurate business name, address, and phone number (consistent across all directories)
• A backlink to your website
• A thorough description of your business

10. Obtain Backlinks from High Quality Sites

Link signals are backlinks pointing to your site. And who you get links from is measured by Domain Authority. The higher the Domain Authority the more influential the site. So it’s important get links from popular, high quality sites, as they will help boost your SEO.

To get high-quality backlinks, you could:

• Create high-quality content on your site so your visitors will want to link to your content
• Guest blog on reputable sites with a high domain authority
• Engage with local influencers on social media or email them and ask them to link back to you

Conclusion

Google and the other search engines are always making changes to how they rank sites. So it’s essential to stay on top of local SEO in order to get your site noticed by your potential customers. By implementing these Top 10 SEO Tips, you will ensure that your business has a solid foundation when new SEO features are introduced. And if you’re unable to make these adjustments, you may want to talk to a small business SEO service provider.