Have you been thinking about SEO services for your local business?
If so, that’s great.
A professional, visible presence online is now just part of being in business in 2019.
And the reasons are simple.
Consider this very common, everyday scenario.
Let’s imagine that your business is in dog grooming.
Annie (imaginary person) has a smelly dog.
She goes online and searches the term ‘Dog grooming business’.
She sees all the Ads in Google, however decides to click on a page that is not advertised (only 20% of people actually click on the Google Ad, crazy right?).
She sees one of your competitors websites, ranked right at the top, then clicks on their website.
Because she is in the market for this service, and needs it done asap, she calls your competitor right away and books in the $300 Deluxe Doggie package!
Fido is going be one squeaky clean dog, Annie is a happy customer, and you just missed out on a $300 sale – no bueno!
Unfortunately this happens every single day, in every single industry.
Businesses that understand the importance of SEO are catching all the ‘Annie’s’ everyday, while other businesses are praying for the phone to ring.
So how can you start to get ranked higher in searches right away?
Here’s 5 Ways To Improve Your Local SEO In Melbourne or Sydney Today
1. Keyword Research
isStart compiling a list of 10-20 Keywords you would like to be ranked higher for.
Head over to tool called Ubersuggest and search all the related search terms and see how much traffic they are getting each month.
Any search term with above 30 is worth taking note.
Search these keywords in Google and see which of your competitors are ranking high on the search results.
Click on the first 3-5 searches and start taking notes.
Write down the Title of the page is and what the content of each page contains.
Headings, subheadings, subjects etc…
Get ideas on how you can out rank these keywords but writing more in depth articles and really going above and beyond to help your customers.
If you are consistently improving these pages with relevant content, your searched keywords will start to skyrocket your website to the top of these searches.
It won’t happen overnight, but you can generally expect keywords to start ranking in 2-3 months.
The great thing is, this new traffic source, never stops.
2. Set Up Google My Business
If you have not registered your business on Google My Business then you will not be ranking on the Google Maps searches.
Visit Google My Business and register your Domain, Name, Address and Phone Number.
Once you register your business, Google will send you a postcard in Mail to verify the location.
Log back into your Google My Business account and verify your address.
Now customers that search your business name in Google Maps can find you!
3. Create Online Citations
A citation is just a fancy way of saying directory.
Register your business on important directories to get ranked higher on Google Map searches.
To get higher rankings on your website you need to build authority.
To build authority, you need start creating links from different directories so that Google recognises you as a real business.
These online directories are websites like; YellowPages, True Local, Yelp etc…
A pro tip is to register your business on high authority directories to build even more authority on your website.
Higher authority, higher rankings.
These high authority directories are websites like the Victorian Chamber of Commerce, BNI. Some are free and some require an annual subscription.
Is it worth paying for? Well, Google loves these sites because they have such a high authority. If you are paying to be registered, you are most likely a credible business.
Now don’t fuss, these directories don’t have to be created all at once.
Set yourself up a calendar notification to remind you to register your business on 3-4 directories every month.
If you would like to check your sites authority you can use a tool like Ahrefs.
4. Write Clickable Title Pages
People want to easiest and quickest path to a solution, give it to them! It’s important to really think about the title’s of the webpages you are creating.
You want people to click thru, right?
Make it enticing for them, give them value.
For example “7 Easy Steps to Grooming Your Dog Without Spending $100’s Of Dollars.”
Click Thru Rate (CTR) is a ranking factor that Google monitors in its ranking algorithms.
If your page title’s are not getting clicked on, you will not show up on searched keywords.
If people are not interested, Google is not going to rank you.
Create page titles around step-by-step guides or easy to digest information.
People want the quickest and easiest path to a solution, give it to them!
But be-careful, don’t be spammy with your titles or try to over optimisation your page by throwing in your keyword everywhere.
Google does not like over-optimisation and will penalise you for it.
5. Update Your Website Content
All we hear is content this, content that.
The truth of the matter is, content is important.
When your website has new content, it show’s Google that you are staying relevant.
Relevant content is what Google cares about.
Therefore, Google will show your site more frequently in searches.
Set up a content calendar to stay on track with your blog posts.
If you can’t commit time to blog, you can hire a content writer or an SEO company.
There’s a pretty good one here 🙂
If you can’t afford to hire outside help, here’s a quick hack.
CONTENT HACK – Transcribe Youtube videos that are relevant to your topic. But be careful not to type it word for word, just get the main ideas and put them in your own words.
I hope this information has been helpful and you now understand how important SEO is for your Local business.
If you need help getting your website ranked higher in Google searches feel free to check out how we can help or feel free to contact us!