Many local businesses are finding that they can enjoy great SEO success and exposure by focusing on local SEO metrics rather than general SEO. One of the major benefits of local SEO is that, because Google and the other search engines are placing a higher degree of relevance on geographic location, small businesses can easily find themselves featuring on a search results page alongside national and international companies.
The average internet user isn’t going to look at the search results and say, “Oh, this company is there because they have invested in local SEO,” they’ll simply look at your company and think you must be good to be featured alongside famous brand names.
The appeal of focusing on local SEO is obvious; how can you build your local search presence?
Claim Your Listings
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Claiming your local business listings is all-important. The two most crucial are Google+ Local – because Google will look at this, link it to your company, and immediately start ranking you when people close to you search for your relevant keywords – and Bing Places for Business.
Once you have established these two, you can start claiming business listings elsewhere across the internet. Local SEO agencies like Bright Local provide tools that enable you to build listings quickly, which strengthen your local optimisation.
Use schema.org Mark-Up
Highlighting your location and contact details on your own website with schema.org mark-up is essential for showing Google that this is important information. Without it, Google will look at all your information equally when they crawl your pages, whereas you want there to be a real focus on your location.
Get Involved Locally
One of the great things about local SEO is that getting out and involved in events and initiatives in your community strengthens your online performance. Whether you sponsor an event at the local school or provide special promotions at a local event, little things like this can have a big impact, particularly as you will get many social mentions, incremental traffic from attendees who become aware of your business, and links from local bloggers and media who want to feature you.
Again, all of these local signals will be picked up by Google and used to further strengthen your local online presence.
Use Social Media
When we say use social media, we’re not just talking about the likes of Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. Yes, they are important, but you should also think “old school,” which means getting yourself on local community forums and websites to establish your presence and again drive traffic.
If you are a small local business, a local SEO focus is your opportunity to see your site ranked alongside the industry ‘big boys.’ Make sure you are making the most of it by following these tips.
Original Post Here: How to Build Your Local Search Presence
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