Local SEO Tips for small businesses

Given that nearly everyone is looking for a business or a service local to them, today, search has become more location focussed than ever. Below, you’ll find some basic SEO tips; targeted toward small businesses, that will help you gain more local website traffic.

Keyword choice — Think local

Whether you're just starting, or if your SEO campaign has been up and running for a couple of months, keywords are the foundation to build your strategy on.

Keywords define what your content is about. They’re the terms that people are likely to search for before finding your content. We recommend you always narrow down your keywords, so they are linked to a product type and a location.

In order to improve your local website traffic, the location of your business must be included within your keyword list. Make you apply your keywords to your Page title, Page description, Headers, and on page content.

Register yourself as a business on Google

Whether you have a website or not, it's crucial for a local business to have their Google business account set up and managed properly.

Google My Business (GMB) is essentially a local business listings service, that appears to the right of your search results. Creating a Google Business account can drastically increase your local search visibility since it’s solely ranked on location. So, if a user in a location near you is searching for your service, you’ll show up not only in the search results screen, but within Google Maps too.

This is easy way to rank on the first page of google for local search with minimum effort. And best of all its free! Go to www.google.com/business and register today.

Backlinks are one of the most powerful ranking factors. A backlink is link back to your website from other sites within the internet. There are plenty of possibilities for you to get a backlink. But the easiest method is to submit your site to online business directories, especially local focused listings. Hopefully the above tips will help you rank better locally. Just remember: SEO is a marathon, not a sprint.