- Google Places – This one is not number one because it is free, it’s number one because Google is giving a lot of preference to google places. You can list your address, number, and website, and users can leave reviews of your services (so it goes without saying you need to be a company that leaves customers satisfied to get the most out of this).But, just like the regular Google results pages, ranking can be hard. After all, there will be hundreds of companies wanting to appear under a search for “Cleveland Jewelers”The good news for you is, many companies still are not taking advantage of this, but that won’t last long.
- YouTube Optimization – Make a video (something worth making), upload it to YouTube, rank on page one locally……Quickly!YouTube, another Google Product. So yah, it’s getting a high rank on this list. YouTube Optimization. It’s particularly effective in local search since relatively few businesses have created and published video promotions for themselves.• Geotag the video
• Link your website in the description
• Include your name, address and phone
• Associate the video’s with your Google Places and Google Plus listings
• Embed the video on your website
• Promote the video on social media and via email - NAP Consistency – One of the largest local-SEO changes from 2012 to 2014 is the importance of properly formatted and correct business contact information.Any reference of a business’s name, its physical address, local phone number, and website are referred to as a business citation. The elements tied to a business location (name, address, phone) being referred to as NAP. The pin-point accuracy of this dataset is critical for local marketing as it provides search engines validation of your location and contact information. Sounds simple enough but nearly 50% of small business have formatting or data errors in their citation NAP – their local visibility on search is sure to take a hit for it.
- Link Building – This list could be reordered from top to bottom and reordered again. Link building is one of the most important tools ever in SEO.Back-links: Like traditional SEO, domain authority is still an important ranking factor for local search. Domain authority is a prediction for how a website will perform in search rankings (learn more about domain authority). By attracting high quality links to your site from high domain authority websites, you can boost your own website’s domain authority and ranking in search results.Links From Local Websites: You will also want to get links to your website from locally relevant websites, even if they have a low domain authority. If they are influential in your local area, then try to get a link.
- Blogging – Most small businesses start to sweat at the thought of writing blog & social media posts, but here’s a simple strategy that will get your content marketing roaring like a lion.Checkout www.articlebase.com – You can search for content related to your industry and republish the articles on your own blog. You have to retain all the links and credits from the author, but this is a quick and easy way to begin publishing content. Once it’s on your blog, share a link on your social media pages directly to the article on your site.Once you get rolling, start thinking about original content and images. Original content is better and other sites might just share it, creating more links back to you!
- Keywords: They are magic! – This could be numbers 1-8, but again this list is not really ranked in order of importance, just 8 down and dirty tricks that are must haves for Local SEO.The single element driving traffic to most websites is not the visual part of the website – it’s the wording. Search engines do not see the visible parts of your website – they only see the words. That said, it makes sense to focus as much attention there as possible.There is a ton of information online on how to find the best keywords for your business. Run a couple searches and you will find a ton of useful guides.Why your there, search for “huron ohio seo” and see if BrandBrella’s video is not listed on the first page somewhere. Those were posted on May 14th 2014 and today is May 23rd 2014.How about that for quick!!
- Get Social – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest… These are all places you need to create a profile and post information about your business with links back to your website. Post images, articles, video’s. It all does one thing. Helps to improve your local rankings. You will notice in short time that your social profiles will start showing up in local results.
- Get Involved In Your Online Community – If there are local websites and forums, then it’s a great idea to get your business participating on them. This continues to bring home to Google the relevance of your business to a specific area, especially if you’re able to include links to your website (be very careful not to spam social communities, though). Local newspapers as a prime example, have websites with areas to comment and post. Just stay out of the politics and local gossip.
