Making sure that your business website is properly optimized is very important for successfully marketing your products and services online, but many people overlook one specific aspect of optimization: good local SEO. Whether or not you are a brick and mortar business, targeting local customers can add a nice, lucrative boost to your already existing customer base. Why? Because people like the idea of supporting local businesses.

To help your business become that local go-to spot that everybody in your town knows, loves and recommends whenever they get the chance, here are a few tips on boosting your local SEO efforts:

Create a Yelp for Business Account

This is a simple task to do if you haven’t already and it’s a bit of a no-brainer. A great majority of people these days consult the Yelp search engine whenever they’re looking to find a new restaurant, shoe store, hair salon, etc. If a business has a fully completed profile in Yelp plus some positive reviews, people tend to trust that it’s worth visiting.

Claim Your Business on Google

Of course, another thing that people have routinely come to rely on to find news, information, products or services is to simply “google” it. Having a well optimized profile on a Google business page makes it easier to for customers to find you and it gives your business an appearance of legitimacy and professionalism. You’ll also want to make sure that your business appears in the Google Maps search because customers who are out and about will often just search for business through the Map feature on their mobile devices.

Post Local Content

Most business owners these days understand how valuable writing and regularly updating a blog can be for their business. What some are slower to understand is that just posting any old content is not nearly good enough. In addition to using your keywords and otherwise optimizing your website with photos and tags, good local SEO requires that you post content that’s specifically relevant to the area you’re targeting. Coming up with interesting, useful local content on a regular basis is not easy and does take some effort, but the result you’ll get in terms of good local SEO are definitely worth the investment of time and/or money. Some examples of local-themed content you could use on your blog include:

  • Event listings
  • Local business reviews
  • A local resource directory
  • Interviews with local business owners
  • Content feeds from other local businesses

Ask to Join Local Resource Directories

Building good local content also means bolstering your reputation among other local business owners in addition to optimizing your website. This is basically a local version of your  offsite marketing strategy, where you’re increasing your local influence and authority by getting other business owners to endorse you. Except in this case, you don’t need to spend tons of time doing a bunch of guest posts on other people’s blogs. If any local businesses have a website where they list nearby resources, simply ask to be added to that list, perhaps in exchange for adding them to a resource list on your site or some similar type of incentive.

Support Local Charities

This is a great way to serve your community and build local good will as well as good local SEO. Think about charities or good causes you already support or admire and reach out to them to volunteer your time or donate money. At the very least, you can reach out to them to let them know that you plan to spread the word about their efforts. Then, simply write articles and post graphics on your blog that promotes the charities’ local events and fund drives.

Cover Local Holiday Celebrations and Traditions

This could be a very useful resource for customers, especially if you live in a town with lots of tourist attractions that gets lots of visitors. Locals also love to keep abreast of what’s happening in their town so they can have a ready list of things to do when their family or friends come for a visit. Posting regular listing of holiday and traditional celebrations will be greatly appreciated by your customers.

Ask for Reviews

It’s great if you’ve got a Google and Yelp page all set up, but it’s exponentially better if those pages have some reviews listed on them. Encourage your customers to leave reviews by offering incentives while they’re in your store, such as a coupon for a freebie on their next visit or placing a “Review Me” button in a prominently visible place on your website.

Looking for more ways to boost your Local SEO efforts, get in touch with us and we’ll add even more ideas to this list.