Building a rock solid foundation for local search visibility in Google is important for brick and mortar businesses, particularly within the age of mobile. Fortunately for local SEO newcomers out there, editorialist Chris Marentis shares his technique for doing simply that.
Local search visibility grows progressively vital as “near me” searches on Google still rise. Your future customers could also be searching for you at home on their pc’s, or they will be using a mobile device on the go, like a mobile phone or a pill. In fact, Google confirmed earlier this year that mobile searches have formally overtaken desktop on its search engine.
In different words, those who use the number one search engine are searching for your business, usually while mobile. Is your website preferred? Are you visible in search results?
Here’s the way to ensure your business appears in search engine results consistently and fully.
Figure out where you stand before getting started
When starting a local SEO campaign, you face the primary tasks of checking whether or not your business is listed in any respect, then ensuring it shows up in a manner that best represents your organization. To get started, visit Google and do a fast explore for your business name. In several cases, your website might already be in results.
However, this doesn't mean your job is finished, even though all the data is correct.
Remember that Google customizes its search results on a continuous basis in an effort to boost the search experience for every person. Factors that influence your customized search results might include:
Your business location
The device that you are looking out for
Your social media connections
Your search behaviour in the past
To verify the ownership of your business in the local search listings, the following 4 steps will help you cement your local footprint in Google Search Results.
1st Step: Get listed in Google My Business
If your business is listed, but it is not claimed by an official representative of your business, follow the guidelines from Google to claim your listing and verify it.
In this method, you’ll have an opportunity to go through the information they have for you and make the changes you want. Have proper knowledge of Google’s guidelines for your local listing in order that any changes you make are approved fast.
If you've got multiple locations, you'll be able to manage all of them from one account using local listings of Google My Business.
2nd Step: List your business in other places
When your Google local info is correct and claimed via Google My Business, you may be tempted to stop there. However, if you have ever looked for a business in your local area, you may have noticed that Google doesn’t simply rely on your verified information. Some listings also highlight links to reviews on different sites.
In a recent survey conducted by Dimensional research, 88% of responses are influenced by reviews online. While you can’t modify reviews others have made, some sites like Yelp permit you to respond on the bad reviews to make sure future satisfaction that may leave a decent impression on people, significantly when most of the reviews are positive.
Rich snippets of the ratings on these review sites appear prominently on SERP too. Together with check-ins and local directory listings, this also offers a lot of data to Google regarding your business, which can indirectly improve your rankings.
3rd Step: Manage your Local submissions on a continuous basis.
The way your local business data looks, even though it is formatted, and even the data is accepted, changes over time. Secondary directory submissions +that don’t even exist nowadays might become necessary tomorrow.
It’s thus important to search out some way to manage and monitor not only your Google My Business submissions, but all the sites that have right local information regarding your business. you also got to understand what new tools are relevant and the way to use them to your benefit. Your success with online visibility might depend upon making an attempt to remain informed.
How can you achieve this and still have time to run your business?
For local businesses particularly, it’s crucial that you simply find a solution that features software system tools for management and monitoring. You may like a solution that has support to guide you through the entire process, and services that may assist you when successful growth makes the job unmanageable.
Step 4: Make sure that your website Is Mobile Friendly
If you’ve been taking note to mobile search engine optimization news within the last few months, you will find everybody freaking out over one thing known as “mobilegeddon.”
This name was in regard to the release of Google’s new mobile ranking algorithm rule, released on April 21, 2015, that expanded mobile-friendliness as a signal for ranking. This meant that everything else being equal, mobile-friendly websites would enjoy higher ranking in mobile search result pages than their non-mobile-friendly counterparts.
In the beginning, it appeared to some people that Google was bluffing; over time, however, people who didn’t take the warning seriously began to see the negative effects of Google’s mobile-friendly update on their search visibility.
Whether or not you have noted a change in traffic and rankings from Google, there’s a method to make sure that your website passes muster.
Google created a mobile-friendly tool for testing. Using this tool you will understand whether a page on your website must be updated for higher mobile performance. For getting a full analysis of your website’s mobile friendliness report, you'll need to register for Google Search Console and access the mobile usability report for your website.
Know more about Local SEO techniques from Axat Technologies.