A Comprehensive Guide To Local SEO For Small Businesses

Being a local business owner, do you want to make your business more visible and generate high revenues?

I got a great way to make it happen for you.

So, to make your local business successful and drive more customers, you have to make sure to optimize your business for local search.

What if I tell you that…

You can also rank your business on the first page of Google and drive more customers to your business.

For this, let me introduce you to, A Comprehensive Guide To Local SEO For Small Businesses

Here you will find some of the best tips and ideas that will help you in optimizing your local business for search engines.

So let’s get started:

What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO is the practice of optimizing your local businesses to get more visibility and high revenues. Also, by optimizing your local business you can make sure that your business is potential for “Near Me Searches” and make it easy for your customers to find your business.

Is it so important? YES!

See, nowadays, people are relying more on finding businesses ONLINE rather than preferring Offline, and…

Also, it is not just about increasing sales of your local business, you can also perform local SEO for small businesses to improve organic traffic and up your website’s rankings.

Read More: A Definitive Guide To SEO For Small Business

Higher Conversion Rate

There’s no question about it!

If your business is fully optimized for local searches, then obviously your business will get higher conversion. That is… if customers come to your website and find what they need (products or services) then they will definitely purchase it.

This is what Conversions are! Visitors convert into leads, and then finally loyal customers.

A fact to know is “28% of customers make a purchase after searching locally”

Business Expansion

It is obvious, having a business, you do want to grow after certain times.

For this…OPTIMIZING it is a great way. This will surely increase your visibility, marking your value among your business community and building the brand value of your small business among people.

And this is a plus point…

More the people get to know about your business, more will they visit and render your services. This will result in increased sales and revenues, and create an opportunity to expand your small business.

Building Long-Term Networks

As I mentioned above, local SEO for small businesses can be done to build long-term relations within the community and also with potential customers.

For any business owner, the first thing to look for is Customers. With local SEO, you can stay connected to your old customers and gather a large number of new customers.

With this, you can also maintain a healthy relationship with your business community.

So by now, you must have got to know the key benefits of local SEO for small businesses,

And next up I have…

“Some tips you must consider while doing SEO for small local business”

Small Business Local SEO Tips

Optimize Your GMB Profile

A free tool from Google called Google My Business Profile assists business owners in managing their online presence across the search engine and get more visibility

Let us assume that you already have listed your small business website on Google My Business.

But if not, let me tell you the basic steps to Register your business on GMB.

Open Google My Business > Manage Now > Fill in the details accurately > Ask for the verification mail.

Here’s the detailed view,

Fill up your Business Name and Business Category

Name your business’s geographic location area to target

Enter the Business Address,

 At last, your business Contact Details

After this, you can click the Verify Button and within the next 5 days, you’ll get a postal verification code to verify your business profile.

The point you should remember is to fully optimize your GMB account.

• Provide each and every detail of your business (name, address, contact details, product photos, location, email)

• Reply to the comments and reviews of your customers.
• Ask your customers to further share their reviews with more audiences.
• Keep the details up to date

Optimizing for Google My Business is not just a task to do, but with this, you are enhancing your customer’s experience to find you easily.

By doing this, you can ensure that your business can be found by the potential audience very easily which can help you increase the number of clicks to your business website.

Read More: Complete Google My Business Guide

Next local SEO for small businesses tips include;

Make A Consistent NAP

Consistency matters. A lot! As I have discussed above, NAP that is (Name, Address, and Phone Number) is what a customer looks for when searching for your business.

It’s your duty to make it simple and easy for visitors as well as search engines to find you.

NAP is what makes you findable when searching for near-me queries.

For example,

If you have a business Cakes and Cookies in Sacramento.

And now if anyone asks Google, “Cookies Shops near me”. As result, they’ll get….

A Local 3 Pack

Locations of the shops on Google Maps

And Directories (such as Yelp.com) that have many more options to look for and visit.

Now, if you click on any result…you’ll see each and every detail about the outlet.

Name – Look’s Good

Address- Fine

Phone Number – Perfect

So NAP – All Good 👍. 

Plus, they even provided their Menu Cards and Photos of the food also. That’s how you take full advantage of every aspect.

This is what a good, or let’s say optimized website looks like. With this, as you can see, they are ranking higher which increases the chances of getting more clicks and even visits to their outlet.

With this, let us jump to the next tip…

Claim Business Directories

As I have mentioned the word “Directories” above, Business Directories or Citation Sites are ways to mark your presence in the market.

These business directories include a number of local businesses located within a specific region.

Now, the point is that you also have to claim all the business directories. Some of the most common and high-authority sites are given below.

Plus, here is a link to another blog of mine which is, 500+ Top Local Business Listing Sites – Citation Database

Considering GMB to be the best option to be cited and driving most traffic is not sufficient. But do you know, “Yelp.com is the most preferred directory that is found in the top 5 results” when any business category is searched?

Also, you must look to give the correct details of your business to directories which include NAP, Working Hours, Public Reviews, Photos, etc.

If your business is not registered in business directories, Read the article given below to get registered…

Read Further: A Definitive Guide To Citations SEO

Now, being listed on these directories can really help you in the following ways:

1. Getting More Online Customers 

Registering on famous citation sites can drive more potential customers to look for products or services. Plus, here is a fact almost 76% of people who search for near me queries visit the business within a day.

And 28% of those searches convert into purchases.

2. Increased Rankings In Search Queries

As you know, being listed in the directories with high domain authority would also make you rank higher in the search results as well.

But always remember to get listed in the directories relevant to your niche. As there’s no benefit to getting listed in all the directories. Be it less but RELEVANT

Perform A Local SEO Audit

Now that your business website is listed on several directories, it is time to check its performance. For this, you have to do a Local Site Audit.

As you know SEO never stops and it goes on and on…You must measure the performance of your website and identify what all improvements are needed.

A Site Audit enables you to analyze your competitors, your website’s rankings, keywords, CTR, and much more…

A local SEO Site Audit includes-

1. Website Audit

Tells about the overall performance of your website which includes the technical audits (Page Speed, Website Structure)

2. Google My Business Audit

Includes perfection in every aspect of the GMB profile. Such as Business Information, Hours of Operation, Accurate Location on Google Maps, Website Links, Photos, etc). The more complete profile more will be the appearance on the Google SERPs.

3. On-Page SEO Audit

On-Page SEO is what google crawlers look for while indexing your web pages. A site audit scraps out the mistakes conducted in the web pages and tells what all improvements are to be done.

It highlights the components such as 

Title Tag: Is it missing, is it too short, or long (60 characters), or is any duplicate found?

Meta Description: Too long or if any duplicates are there.

Headings– tells if they are missing, especially H1 tags.

URL– too short or long, having target keyword or not.

Image Alt Text– tells whether the images are having a short description about it or not.

4. Citation Audit

Analyzes and tell whether your website is listed in the relevant directories or not. Finding, monitoring, and updating all primary citations with your correct Name, Address, and Phone Number can be done using business listings and citation management tools.

The aim is to find the areas that are missing to be listed.

5. Content Audit

Content is all that matters. It is what fulfills the need and requirements of your audience.

Producing quality content is a must-do thing in small business local SEO. Plus creating content that is answering all the questions in the form (what, why, who, how).

Improve Your Internal Linking Structure

Both internal linking and external linking are very crucial aspects for small business local SEO.

But now I will tell you about how to improve your internal linking strategy. See internal linking is a link that connects one page of a website to another one.

Let me elaborate with a quick image below,

Can you see how the highlighted code is pointing toward another page of the same domain? This is what Internal Linking is.

Coming to the benefits of internal linking, we have,

• Helps search engine to index your web pages faster
• Increases the potential of getting backlinks
• Give more value to the users

With this, let’s discuss some must follow Internal Linking practices

1. Create More Content

With more and more content, chances will be high for you to interlink more pages to one another.

2. Choose The Right Anchor Text

Anchor Text is a text on which the internal linking is done. You have to choose the right anchor text that is in the context to be interlinked.

Let me show you, 

In the above image, the blue links are anchor text that contains the interlinks to other web pages of the same website only.

The first one will drive you to a webpage related to ‘Citation Sites’, the second will take you to a webpage related to ‘GMB’ and the third one will navigate you to the webpage of ‘Landing Pages.

So it is must to choose the right anchor text to interlink that navigates the visitors to the right webpage.

3. Try To Put Links In The Starting

Putting internal links at the beginning can increase the stay time of the visitors and decrease the bounce rate as well…

When you put these links on the top itself, the chances are high that visitors tend to click on these links that can surely hook them straight away to your website.

This is how you can improve the internal linking structure of your website. To sum up, you can apply these practices and make it easy for Google bots and users to easily navigate through your website.

This will really boost your local SEO for small local businesses.

Read More: Interlinking For SEO: Everything You Need To Know About It

Add A Location Page To Your Website

If your business is located in multiple locations then you can add those location pages to your website. These pages provide users the information regarding the details of your business ( Name, Address, Phone Number).

Here’s an example,

And if you click on any location you will land on a page like this…

Get Inbound Links

Inbound Links or Backlinks are links coming from other websites. Now, as small businesses you might say is there a need to get backlinks…

To start with I would say, YES! It is important for you to get backlinks for your small business as getting backlinks from other websites would tell the search engine like Google about your website’s trustability.

If other websites are linking toward you then Google bots tend to rank you higher which can further drive more traffic.

The process is simple, simply search for terms related to your website’s niche and list out the websites you know are the best ones.

Now, what you have to do is Go to Ahrefs.com and insert the domain URL of the website you listed one by one. 

With it, you can see the backlinks they have, and later you can outreach those websites and ask them to link you back.

For example, let’s say you have a business related to “Digital Media Marketing”. Now you just have to search for websites that are related to your business.

Choose a few websites and enter their domain URL in Ahrefs Free Backlinks Checker Tool. As a result, you will get backlinks they have.

As you can see in the image above, you will be able to the backlinks (top 100 results).

And lastly, you can ask similar websites to link you back to the content you published on your website. Through this, you will get backlinks.

Another way to get backlinks is through Guest Posting, which is publishing an article on other websites to get backlinks.

Some more unique ideas include hosting a community event, sponsoring a webinar or meet-up, promoting a local cause you care about, and cultivating connections with influential individuals.

With these practices to gather inbound links, you can also boost your brand awareness.

Target The Local Keywords

Local Keywords include the keywords that people are searching to purchase a product or service. Ranking for such keywords can drive more local traffic to your small business website.

People take this step lightly thinking they are aware of how customers are finding their company online. This frequently results in them focusing on the incorrect keywords or completely ignoring keywords that might have a positive impact on their bottom line.

For example, if you’re a photographer in California, you’ve probably already figured out that you want to rank for keywords like “photographer in California” But have you thought about the other services you offer? Do you have a page dedicated to Wedding Photoshoots or Product Photography? Do you know how people search for those services?

This is what your customers are searching for and you have to target these keywords also.

You must not leave any chance for Google to not rank you on the search results…

So, to gather the best target keywords you have to conduct local keyword research.

For this, I have a few simple steps for you to look for…

• List The Services You Offer
• Understand Implicit And Explicit Keywords
• Add Your Core Term To Your Keyword Research Tool
• Add Locations To Your Keywords
• Organize Your Keywords With Search Intent
• Group And Map The Keywords

You can take the help of Keyword Research Tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, Google Keyword Planner, and many more…

Read More: Step By Step Guide To Perform Keyword Research For Local SEO

Let’s search for the keywords…and here you go, can you see the keywords that you can target and further write content for.

Now that you have identified the keywords, let me tell you how to use these keywords and create content around these keywords.

Create Local Content

Creating content is what comes as the last step to conducting a local SEO for small businesses. To achieve the goal of a successful SEO strategy, it is very important to create content that is not only helpful to your audience but also your business.

Now creating content doesn’t mean that you have to write whatever seems to be there.

Instead, create content that is informative and helpful to your audience.

After all your content is what will make the visitors purchase your product or hire your services.

So these are a few tips to make your content more appealing to your audience and help you achieve your small business’s local SEO goals.

1. Include Local Keywords In Your Content

To rank, you must create an optimized content strategy. For this, the first thing to keep in mind is adding target keywords in your content. 
For example, if your business is a product selling in a local market, then your content must be describing the product and includes SEO-friendly descriptions of your products. Like this,

2. Your Content Must Be Answering The Questions Of The Audience

Taking the same example, you must include every detail of the product while creating the content. Mentioning the price, quality, features, benefits, material, etc.

3. Write In A Conversational Tone

This is how you can actually communicate with your customers. Take this like talking with a friend. Just like how you talk with your friends, in the same way, you have to communicate with your customers.

4. Your Content Should Be Voice Search Friendly

Optimize your content for voice search queries. It should be like, if someone asks Google about your product, your website should immediately appear on Google SERPs.

5. Include Attractive Visuals And Videos

Images and Videos are what support the text you write. To make your content more attractive and compelling, you have to include suitable images and videos. With this, the customers can easily relate to it, and make it easier for them to make a purchase.

Here’s an example

6. Conclude With A Call To Action

Adding CTA buttons can really help you in conversions. This is what turns into actual SALES. 

The most crucial thing to remember is to use a CTA, whether it’s to instill urgency or point the user in the right direction. Ignoring it is a mistake that could cause a sharp decline in your numbers.

Here are a few examples of CTA buttons

• Share Now
• Share Us on (Social Media Websites)
• Claim Now
• Get A Free Trail
• Send A Message 
• Call Us

And look at the image below…

Can you see, how I provided a CTA button for my clients to Book a free SEO strategy session

And this is how you should structure your content properly to increase rankings on SERPs, which can further drive more traffic and generate high revenues.

Conclusion

Here you have, A Comprehensive Guide To Local SEO For Small Businesses.

By now, you must have got to know that, as a small business owner, it takes hard work and dedication to grow your business. The same stands for local SEO for small businesses.

Though it is a time-consuming process, the results are much more positive in a long run.

With the above-listed small business local SEO tips, you can drive better results.

So do follow these tips, starting from listing on Google My Business to creating the content and making the required changes today itself to drive the desired results.

And if you are ready to get started with it, Incremetors is always there for you.

With Incrementors, you can successfully optimize for LOCAL SEO and get more shoppers and sales.

FAQs

1. How Local SEO helps small businesses?

Some benefits of local SEO for small businesses are:

• Reaching More Audience
• Increases Sales
• Identifying customers Looking for your products
• Increased Traffic
• More Conversions
• Bypassing your competitors
• Creating brand awareness
• Promoting your brand in the local market

2. Is SEO worth it for small businesses?

If you have a solid plan in place and collaborate with a partner who knows how to achieve results, SEO is worthwhile. 

About 93% of online experiences start with a search engine, and SEO leads have a much higher close rate than leads from conventional marketing. Consequently, SEO offers a remarkable return on investment (ROI). This explains that SEO is worth doing for small businesses.

3. How long does it take for local SEO to work?

With only a few minor changes and adjustments, local SEO is said to only take 4 to 8 weeks before results are seen, especially if you have already claimed your Google listings. You have the right categories and keywords set up, and your website will also have some authority.