One of the best things you can do for your local business is to improve your position in Google search results. Optimizing your website can be a huge boon to your brand’s visibility, but there are plenty of other things about local SEO Australia you can do as well. If you’re ready to boost your local business’s rankings, follow these simple tactics:
- Use Google My Business
Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool that any business can use. It allows you to create a profile for your business and list it on Google Maps and the Google search engine results pages (SERPs). You can add photos, hours of operation, contact information and other details.
- Build Citations
A citation is an online reference to your business’s name, address and phone number (NAP). It doesn’t have to be a link — even mentions on social media profiles count as citations. Local businesses should ensure that citations are accurate across the web, because inconsistencies in NAP information are one of the biggest factors in search rankings.
- Get Reviews
A study by BrightLocal showed that 84% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. I’m one of them! When I need a new service or product, I always read reviews first on Yelp, Google or Amazon before making a purchase decision.
- Start Blogging
If you’re not blogging at least once per month, get started today! Start with simple how-to guides related to your industry or company culture blogs that demonstrate your expertise while showcasing your company’s personality. You can also repurpose old content into something new and fresh by adding new insights or stats from the past few years since the original post was published. If you don’t have time to blog yourself, hire a freelance blogger from platforms like Upwork or Fiverr who can write articles for you on a regular basis.
- Claim your business on Yelp
To most consumers, Yelp is synonymous with customer reviews. Whether or not people have written reviews about your business on Yelp, claiming it ensures that all of the information is accurate — again, including address and contact information.
- Work on your reviews
A high average rating can improve your visibility in Google’s local search results. Encourage your customers to leave reviews wherever possible, including Google, Yelp and even Facebook.
It’s also important not to abuse the review system, however. Google and others will penalize businesses that try to game their systems or force positive reviews by offering discounts or other incentives.
Get to know social media. Engagement on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter can affect your rankings indirectly — if you regularly post interesting content related to your business and industry, and people engage with it (share it with friends, give it a “like” or a “+1”, etc.), that tells Google that you’re an “authority” on this subject matter, which can improve your rankings for related keywords.
- Check the “Seven Pack”
The first thing you need to do is type your business name into Google and see if it pops up on the right side of the screen in the Google map listings, known as the seven pack because there used to be seven listings (Google made some changes and now there are three).
I think everyone should check this even if they don’t have a local business because you never know when someone else is going to list you as their address in their Google Places listing. I’ve seen this happen with spammy businesses doing this to try and rank for keywords in other cities. It’s better to catch it before it happens.
