In a saturated market, it’s really difficult to have your business stand out among many others. However, SEO companies in Boston can help you come up with a strategy to improve your regional SERP rankings.

But keep in mind that a content strategy has an in-depth link with local SEO. If your content is not relevant or isn’t optimized properly, even the SEO companies in Boston won’t be able to help you. Thus, it’s important to ensure that your content is optimized for the keywords searched on the search engine; that’s the only way SEO experts can help you increase the traffic. 

Let’s take a look at how you can work on your content strategy to improve your rankings for the local SEO. However, before getting into details, let’s go over some important terms.

What’s Local SEO?

Local SEO is an SEO strategy that helps your business become more visible and easily findable on Google’s local search results. If your business is physically present within a geographical location, then it can benefit from local SEO.

Moreover, if the search on Google matches your keywords, local SEO services in Boston can do wonders for your business!

Why is Working on Content Strategy Important?

It requires extreme determination and high-level planning work for your website. For devising a content strategy, you can reach out to an SEO expert in Boston who’d analyze your website’s content and plan how to ensure that it appears on Google’s first page to bring more traffic, and increase sales.

Now let’s take a look at how you can plan a killer content strategy to boost your revenue!

Survey Your Website Regularly

Maintaining a check and balance can help you improve and rank better. Look for possible mistakes, and keep track of your growth. Don’t forget to watch out for these:

• Ensure there’s no plagiarized content on your website
• A slow loading speed can drive your audience away. Don’t forget to make sure that your website has a good loading speed. It’s one of the core web vitals!
• The viewers will hardly visit your website if they don’t find the content up to the mark. Pay special attention to ensure that you have top-quality content on the website!
• Again, as a part of core web vitals, you need to pay special attention to the interface of your website. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is one of the main metrics that increase your ranking on Google.

If you detect a glitch in any of these, fix it immediately. It’ll help you increase sales and the overall traffic on your website.

Find the Relevant Keywords

Keywords are indeed the key to success. Use keywords that you think can sync with users’ search on Google. For instance, if you’re writing an article on “how to get more traffic on your website?” you can add keywords like traffic, organic traffic, traffic on the website, etc. , since anyone looking for such content would look it up using these terms.

Always use location-specified keywords. You can’t be entering Indian vibing keywords if you are in the States. We can’t stress how important it is. A keyword can make a world of difference in your website’s overall experience. You can ask SEO experts to help you with it.

Focus on On-Page SEO 

After figuring out the keywords, the next thing that you need to focus on is on-page SEO. It comes in handy to optimize your website for locally identified keywords.

This also includes some further steps such as image optimization, external linking, structuring the URLs. The SEO thus increases the visibility and ranking of your webpage. It’s the best way to make your business stand out from the rest.

Create Localized Landing Pages 

Localized landing pages are made particularly to improve your rankings with the help of locally searched keywords on Google. You can find many SEO experts in Boston who have specialized in this type of job. It can truly be a game-changer for your business.

Link Building For Credibility

A link building strategy comes in handy to get more location-oriented web results for your website.

Another great tip for even better SEO is to add other business links to your website. The algorithm will work in such a way that if someone searches a keyword that matches the other business, your website will also appear on the first page of the search engine. 

It’ll not only improve your rankings but will also help you get loyal viewers. Are you wondering how that can happen? Well, by linking credible sources to your content, you signal the viewers that you’ve only added reliable information to your website. They’ll surely prefer reading your blogs and articles again.

It not only helps you build authority but also enhances your brand image.

Add a Blog Section to Appeal to the Audience

This is a great way to attract an audience to your website and increase traffic. However, don’t be mistaken that having a blog section is enough. Nope!

You need to ensure that you update it regularly too, and keep adding top-notch content according to the interest of your audience. You can write about how your services can be helpful or even about your skills; go with anything that convinces the clients to try your services!

Having a blog section is a great way to connect with your audience. Consider it like you’re having a conversation with them via your blogs.

Add the Customer Reviews to Build Credibility

A good customer review is worth a thousand words. Don’t forget the rule; the first impression is the last. If you can persuade a client just by showing them a good review, you can easily climb the ladder of success. Reviews are very important to sustain the betterment of your website. 

Adding reviews help you with online reputation management. They also help the customers get an insight regarding your services.

Reviews can only be generated organically, and if you’re faking customer reviews for your webpage, it can put the overall credibility of your website in danger. 

All these steps can only help if you’re work hard to get organic reach on your webpage. It’s essential to be genuine and ensure that your content is 100% unique and appealing to the audience. We understand that it’s difficult to make waves in the industries because the market is getting highly competitive and saturated.

However, you can truly succeed in gaining customers by strategizing your plan accordingly and reaching out to SEO expert in Boston.

The post SEO in Boston: How to Create a Content Strategy for Local SEO? appeared first on SiteProNews.

How Does Local SEO Differ From Organic SEO?

Both SEO and Local SEO aims to increase the quality and quantity of organic traffic that your website receives. However, local SEO is only a subsection of SEO. 

Local SEO mainly focuses on the geographical components of search and provides results that can be found on maps and business directories, such as Google Maps, Facebook, and Yelp. Businesses that want to focus on this subsection of SEO should turn their attention to citations, reviews, links, and keywords.

Why is Local SEO Important?

This subsection of SEO prioritizes optimization for location-specific search queries. By doing this, you will be able to take advantage of the opportunities presented whenever a person in your area searches for a term related to your business.

For example, you run a restaurant in New York. When a user enters the term “restaurants in New York” on a search engine, you will have more chances of getting the top position on the SERP because your website is optimized for local searches. This will allow you to acquire a large part of the local market and beat your competitors that do not practice local SEO.

How to Use Local SEO to Boost Your Business

You can follow various strategies to ensure that your website performs outstandingly on local searches. Here are some things you can do:

Set Up and Optimize Your Google My Business Account

Google My Business is an online tool that you can use to manage your online presence across Google, such as Search and Maps. Through GMB, your customers can find you easily, learn about your story, and view your business details.

Google has provided a set of instructions to allow you to claim or add your business on GMB. Aside from these guidelines, you should also remember to use the best possible category for your GMB listing to make sure that it applies to your business. You should also include your main keywords and area of operation in your business description. Lastly, ensure that the name, address, and contact details you input in your GMB listing matches the information available on your website and other local citations.

Encourage Your Customers to Leave Reviews

Collecting reviews from customers who have patronized your business can help boost your visibility and improve your reputation. One of the best benefits you can enjoy if your customers regularly leave reviews on your listing is an optimized GMB presence. Having this allows you to increase the chances of your GMB listing appearing in SERPs.

Additionally, the more that people see positive reviews on your listings, the more they are likely to patronize your business as well. If they see that other people had a good experience after buying a product or service from your store, they will be more enticed to try it out themselves.

This is why you should always encourage your customers to leave a review on your online listing after buying your product or paying for your service. You can ask them to provide an authentic review on various platforms like Yelp and GMB by doing the following:

• Ask your customer for a review in person after a sale.
• Send them a post-purchase email or text and ask them for a review. Make sure to approach them only after an initial survey to ensure you are not asking a dissatisfied customer.

Recalibrate Your Keywords

Since your focus is on attracting local customers, you should recalibrate your keywords to reflect the terms they are searching for on the internet. To do this, you need to conduct a local keyword search using online tools or with the help of an SEO agency. 

You should then choose relevant keywords that you think can help boost your local online presence. After doing so, take your new keywords and integrate them into your site’s metadata, body text, and URL.

Create Locally Relevant Content

Another strategy that can help boost your local SEO is to create content that your local customers can relate to. You can accomplish this by mentioning area-specific landmarks and hotspots on your blog articles and social media posts. Including relevant information based on local news and events in your content will also be helpful.

Additionally, you should edit the content on your About Us page. It is best if your content revolves around location-specific information regarding your business. 

Optimize for Voice Search

Lastly, you can optimize your website for voice search to boost your local SEO. Since voice search is a fairly new technology for most businesses, there are not a lot of players in this arena. This means that by optimizing for voice search, you can get one step ahead of your competitors.

You can optimize your website for voice search by starting with your content. When individuals use this technology, they are more likely to search using whole sentences instead of the phrases they use when typing on a search engine. For example, a person who uses voice search will say “Where is the nearest coffee shop?” instead of “coffee shops near me.”

Because of this, you should use more natural language in your content to cater to the spoken search queries. You should also include more long-tail keywords and traditional question starters—such as who, what, when, where, why, and how—to optimize for voice search.

Following these local SEO strategies will help you grab as much share of the local market as possible. Achieving this can help you attract more customers and earn more revenue, ultimately making your business more successful.

The post Local SEO Strategies to Boost Your Business appeared first on SiteProNews.

Simply put Local SEO is when your business efforts are focused on organically ranking for local searches. Local search examples include;

• ‘Car parks near me’ 
• ‘Car Parks in West London’
• ‘Long stay car park around heathrow’

This means your business can promote its products and services to consumers the very instant  they are searching for them online.  Search engines, like Google, want to verify that the business you claim to own  is authentic and actually providing customers with real time information about who you are, what you offer and where your physical address is. It is advisable to include;

• business logo
• hours of operation. 
  • Tip: If your business is affected by Covid 19, update your hours of operation or add more details to your description. The updates will show on your Business Profile on Google Search and Maps.
• acceptable payment methods, 
• product or service being offered, 
• inviting images related to your business.

Comprehensive and Updated Business Profile

The business name, address, phone number, NAP should be readily available, consistent on your website and on all third-party platforms where your business is listed or mentioned since they make up the heart of your digital presence in local search.

Having correct, comprehensive and up-to-date business information on your Google profile is vital and the most effective way to ensure the best possible ranking.

By using the Google my Business tool you can:

• Signup and review your business information
• Add or claim your business profile
• Reach more customers with an online ad

Fact: According to Google, 46% of searches have a ‘local intent’.  For mobile users the likelihood of a local search resulting in an in-store visit increases 35%.

Execute the best local SEO strategy to ensure high click through rate, delightful user experiences, high conversions and essentially top rankings! Super local user experiences entail high rankings when people search for products and services in your town or city. 

Here is a live example of local search results based on a location based query – ‘DIY stores’

For the example below, I typed in the phrase ‘tree surgeon manchester’. This is what comes up based from Google my business and what is known as a ‘map pack’.

Is your website crawlable at all times?

What good is it if Google is able to find your business but cannot actually crawl your webpages, index and rank them?  Ensure that you continue auditing and fixing crawl issues and always be ready to connect with shoppers. 

Optimize URLs, title tags, headers, meta description, meta tags, navigation and content

Localise everything! Google can be told the language that you want your content to be in using the ‘html Lang attribute’. You can also use the ‘Href Lang tag’ if you have different versions of the same page in different languages. Also use language specific URLs or domain names (IDN). 

Ensure that your domain is not ranking for wrong searches and markets. For example a user that does not speak English will bounce from your English written website causing a bad user experience. Domain Misalignments can be checked using the Ahrefs tool.

What a bad user experience it would be if potential customers visit your website and the content on the website is mentioning physical locations in America! 

Tip: Emulate any location by changing your Internet protocol (IP) address using VPN or chrome dev tools to check your SERP.

When it comes to content for local SEO, super localise! Lets face it, the hard fact is, as a small business you cannot compete with big, authoritative and trustworthy websites on a user search for ‘best running shoes’. However, you do stand a far better chance of organically ranking higher in search results if your content revolves around ‘best running shoes in Ealing’ .

Examples of content for local SEO may include:

• Specific local landing pages: city, regional, or country.
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Local Promotions and Specials 
• Local Events and Activities
• Weather updates
• Local News updates
• Customer case studies
• Stories around reviews
• Tips and guides on town or city knowledge
• ‘How to’ Videos (Recommended that videos have transcripts and discrete sections i.e. ‘before, execution and ‘after’ This in turn encourages search engines to feature snippets of the video on SERPs.

Tip: Use Google Trends and Twitter to find popular topics trending in your area that you can use for your content.

Inbound Links

Internal links are necessary because they help search engines and users determine which pages are useful and relevant. Visitors engage with your content longer and have a quality user experience.  Remember a page that isn’t linked internally will not be crawled which means the search engine won’t index or rank that page in search results.

Citations

Besides creating great content and an awesome website, get other people or local websites to mention or link with your site as a go to resource. 

Let your site be associated with a specific topic. Offsite mentions or citations from other authoritative sites in your field will breed trust and boost local search rankings.

Reviews

It is important to harness the power of authentic online reviews because these increasingly  inform a purchasing decision and  impact Google Rankings.

Encourage your customers to review your business online, respond to all reviews and comments, and share great reviews on social platforms to boost sales and gain insights. Build content through stories, videos or case studies around good reviews. Example diy.com engages its users by encouraging them to create their dream bathrooms online using  B&Q Bathroom Planner, thereby sharing in their customer journey. Great for case study content!

Ensure your website is mobile-friendly.

One of the most important google ranking factors is mobile first indexing. This means your website must be optimized for mobile users. Mobile searches have exceeded desktop searches and that means most of your local searches are from mobile phones.  

Use the Google mobile friendly test as well as the Page Speed Insights test to analyse the core working of your site on both mobile and desktop devices. When building out new sections on your site, always put mobile search first!

The post Laser focused Tactics to Dominate Local SEO Searches appeared first on SiteProNews.

How your content will rank in the search engine is all handled by Google’s mighty algorithms but as a creator, website owner or marketer, you need to make your SEO game strong so that the algorithm picks your content up. 

Some common SEO techniques involve optimization of content, including keywords, taking care of the title tags and meta descriptions and so on. SEO also involves doing things that bring traffic to your website such as social media posts, guest posts, or promoting content at other platforms. 

Now, check these best 15 game-changing rules for SEO that you must follow for guaranteed online business success.

1. BERT Update Check! 

From 2013 when the Hummingbird update was rolled out, Google has been trying to focus more upon the ‘conversational’ attribute of search queries. The BERT update focused the same and is here for a long haul. So, if you want your website to rank, you have to play by the rules of this algorithm. 

There is nothing that you can do to optimize for BERT except focusing on content. Make sure the content you are creating is relevant, useful and matches the intent of the user. 

2. Join The Local SEO Game 

Many don’t realise that local SEO is quite important for your business. You need to make sure that you are appearing in the location-based searches done by people that are around you. In a study conducted by Forbes, it was found that location-based searches play a major role in attracting potential customers. This can be simply because it helps local customers recognise your business. It also provides them with more information about your facilities, hours and working days. So, if anyone wants to visit you or enquire about your services on the phone, they can do that immediately. 

3. It’s Time – Optimize for Voice Search 

Do you know it has been projected that by 2020 almost 30% – 50% of all searches will be voice searches? So it is high time that you optimize your content for the voice search revolution. A few rules for that would be increasing the speed of your website, focusing on answering questions, updating your content and creating compelling questions related to your business. 

4. Length of Content Matters for SEO

It has been proven over and over that websites with longer content rank better. However, the content of such sites is not the only factor that enhances their ranking, but it has been seen that most highly ranked sites are the ones that have longer content. It could be because longer content tends to earn more backlinks. It also establishes expertise and authority for the domain which tends to attract more people and enables more conversions. All these factors overshadow the benefits of short content pieces and hence must be considered. 

5. Optimize for Featured Snippets

A featured snippet is mostly the exact answer for a google search query. It is often called  position ‘0’. There are all kinds of featured snippets shown by Google like paragraphs, lists and tables. So the type of content does not matter. What matters is that your content should be the exact answer to a query. 

So, to make your SEO game strong, you need to create content that answers search engine queries exactly. You can also pick up questions from the ‘people ask for’ section of the search engine results and try answering those questions properly to get featured. You should also note that a featured snippet is generally 40-50 words. 

6. Schema Markup & Its Effect 

A schema markup represents the semantic vocabulary of a website. Schema markup can be added to your HTML pages and allows search engines to read your pages in a better way. This means that you are providing the correct information about your pages to the search engine so that the search engine can better understand your content, its purpose, the keywords you are using and can easily match it up based on the user’s query.

7. Learn All About Google Actions 

Google Actions are a step ahead of voice searches and yes you must prepare your website for them. Google Actions are basically used in Google Assistant and allow third parties to create their own actions. By creating google actions for your brand you can encourage your users to interact with your website or your app. You can give them information using Google actions. This is an interesting way to attract customers into using your products and services. 

8. It’s True! Influencer Marketing Impacts SEO

Influencer marketing has been a popular strategy used by many businesses to establish their identity, expertise and find new customers. But have you ever thought that influencers can help in boosting your rankings on the search engines?

Influencers can provide high-quality backlinks for your website. Influencers will likely produce high-quality content that is shareable and Google considers this factor for deciding ranking. 

Ask influencers to create sponsored content on your behalf or have them create a hashtag and ask their followers to create and post content with that hashtag. This will not only increase your brand awareness but also your rankings. 

9. Putting UX and SEO Together

All of us already understand how valuable user experience (UX) is for our websites. Now we need to understand that it greatly impacts SEO. This means that you need to create a website that engages your audience, is secure, fast and eye-catching. 

Duke marketing experts suggest that one can enhance the UX of their site by simply using headings. Headings not only make it easier for visitors to read the content but also for search engine bots. Easy navigation and a clear site structure are also important. Lastly, you should always optimize your site for mobile experience since most users are searching from their smartphones. 

10. Video Content is a Yes-Yes! 

Videos are the new favourite of all. The best thing about videos is that you can convey your message in as short as ten seconds. Videos are a great tool for storytelling. Moreover, people tend to remember the content they see and hear rather than the content that they read. Videos also enhance UX! They can boost your backlinks, enhance your click-throughs and build your overall visibility. So say yes to video content and start creating some for your site. 

11. Enhance SEO by Enhancing Readability 

Readability of your content is again a part of the UX but is essential to take into account. Readability is not just about using headings and paragraphs. There is a lot more. For instance, the right font, the right colour combinations, short sentences, small paragraphs, images, infographics and other things that would make your visitors want to stop by and read what you are offering them. The more readable or easy to understand your website is, the easier it will be for Google to rank it. 

12. Optimizing for Mobile is a Must! 

This rule is not new, but it is often overlooked. More than 85% of internet users today use mobile phones to search for content. 

Therefore, you need to focus on this huge category of users first. If you are optimising your site for voice search, google actions and videos, it is likely that you are covering mobile SEO. 

13. Quality of Content Always Matters 

We have already talked about content length and readability, but you must also focus on content quality if you want to win the SEO game. By content, we mean text, videos, images and animations. By quality, we mean content that is relevant, unique and valuable to users. Content should be to the point, provide the necessary  information and focus exclusively on the topic. Including facts and presenting grammatically correct content can also help boost your rankings. Moreover, it is your content that will provide a call to action to users. 

14. Keep the Knowledge Panel Up-To-Date

A knowledge panel is another amazing feature by Google that enables you to get showcased on the right side of the search engine results page. This is just like featured snippets but with the aim of providing more authoritative and reliable answers. You might have noticed many Wikipedia pages being featured in the knowledge panel. 

One of the marketing analytics experts at MyAssignmentAssitance, Michel, suggested a few tips to optimize the knowledge panel. He said that you need to create a schema markup, optimize your Google business listings, create social media handles, optimize your Wikipedia page and suggest edit changes so that Google can update your knowledge graph and then  display it in the knowledge panel. 

15. Think of Information Structure on Your Website 

The last SEO rule that you need to master is creating an optimized site structure. It not only enhances the UX but also the performance of your website. For instance, you might have noticed that some search results include sitelinks. That’s an indication of a great site structure. 

You can start enhancing your site structure by creating a hierarchy of your site. This means having some main categories and then sub-categories. Enhance your internal linking and ensure that you are displaying a navigation panel on your site displaying all your main categories. All this makes it easier for bots to crawl your site and hence can improve your rankings. 

Do Keywords Still Matter? 

You might have noticed that I have not mentioned the importance of keywords anywhere in these 15 rules of SEO. Well, it is because keywords are implicitly a part of SEO and yes, they still matter despite the many innovations in SEO. But you may not use keywords as you did in the past.  

You need to find a balance between intent and keyword usage. If you don’t use keywords at all, then it might be difficult for search engines to understand what your content is about. If you don’t create content that is based on user intent, they might not stay on your website for long. So, in either case, you would lose rankings. Finding a balance is the best option! 

That’s all for now. See how many of the 15 SEO game-changing rules your website abides by and what new things you can implement to make your SEO game strong.

The post 15 Game-Changing Rules for SEO appeared first on SiteProNews.

To be visible and rank higher in local listings, here are a few local SEO tips that are trending.

Google Maps Business Listing

If you are looking for local visibility, a Google My Business (GMB) listing is the place to be for you. Since Google dominates local SEO, you should be on this local business listing platform for sure. Being there brightens your chances of coming up in Google’s Local Pack. Make sure to give your complete business info, including business’ name, address, phone number and website information in the listing. Add a map, nearest landmark, some description and photos of your business to make the listings more appealing.

Google creates knowledge panels based on the information provided by you for your listing. These knowledge panels are highly visible boxes that come up when someone tries to look for an exact match. No one can apply to be featured in these panels. It’s the information you provide in the listing that helps you in getting featured, so the more elaborate and precise you are, the better your chances to get featured. 

Categorize the Business

If you are opting for Google Maps Business Listing, categorizing the business is very important. This can be done by adding the primary category that describes your niche. You can add up to five additional categories to give a detailed description. This is something that not many are aware of. The primary description gives the main classification, while the additional categories that you have added focus on detailing. You should take maximum advantage of the detailing options available; don’t just leave by adding a primary category.

Optimize Business-Related Information

Your website is your most important and valuable asset online. It is basically the face of your business which makes a first and lasting impact when someone lands on it. Thus, it should be properly optimized to make a positive impact. You are catering to the local market and hence a mention of location in the domain name matters. 

Choose a domain name that not only reflects your business but also the place where you are present. This helps users in getting a complete picture at a glance. Next comes the page titles that should have the most searched keywords related to both your location and business. Make sure your web pages contain details like address, contact number etc. and it should be easily visible. To make it easier for people to reach you, also include area landmarks on your webpages.

Create Content Appealing to the Local Audience

A good SEO services company like Techmagnate understands the difference between creating quality content for a regular website and content that is focused on the local market. To create content that appeals to the local audience, you need to focus on topics that have relevance locally. They should appeal to and attract the local crowd.

Add Location Pages

If you are operating from more than one store or place in the city, create location pages. Each of these location pages should contain details like NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number), store hours and landmarks. The other details that are very much required in these location pages are parking information and testimonials from your satisfied customers.

Enable Voice Search

Voice assistants like Alexa and Siri are addicting people to voice searches. Millennials, in fact, hate to type and prefer using voice search. This is more convenient too because you can search even if you are busy with other chores like driving, exercising or cooking. These voice searches impact SEO because speaking people are more likely to talk in a natural way. They won’t be using conventional keywords and hence you need to optimize your content accordingly. One way to do this is to use the featured snippets that are used for voice search by Google.

SEO is a serious business because it is your doorway to be visible to your targeted audience. The tips used for local SEO are a little different from those used otherwise. The link building, the content posted, the data used – everything is based on appealing to the local audience. 

SEO professionals that you have hired for the job should understand this difference and do it perfectly.

The post What You Need to Know About the Latest Local SEO Trends? appeared first on SiteProNews.

With that in mind, here is everything you should consider when attempting to enter the 3-pack listings for your local area and grow your local SEO presence.

What is Google 3-Pack?

This is a fairly simple aspect of search, where if you Google something there will be a full page of results but the top of the page will list a map and three local businesses on that map. Being included in that list of 3 is the key to good local SEO efforts and is the hallowed ‘3-pack’.

Optimise Google My Business

The first step when it comes to potentially achieving better local and 3-pack rankings is to ensure your Google My Business page is well optimised. And, despite what you may fear, this is often just a case of making sure you fill out all of the various sections correctly. Important things to remember for good optimisation includes:

• Claim the Page – this is easy and is just to make sure Google knows your business is real and located in the world, rather than just online. They’ll send you a postcard and it’s as easy as that!
• Update Regularly – update all of your information on a regular basis and make sure it’s all current.
• Photos – good quality photos are vitally important for a good GMB listing.
• Use Compelling Copy – the GMB copy that fills out the page can be very basic, or you can use it to actually benefit your business.
• Post! – GMB posts aren’t exactly going to get you a lot of exposure as they might on Facebook, Twitter or elsewhere. But, they’re certainly a good way to boost the content of your GMB profile and let people know you’re active!
• Fill Out Q&A’s – the Q&A function of your GMB page can actually be really useful when it comes to user engagement and potential click-through rates because, if you answer someone’s questions even before they land on your site, you may be able to achieve an instant conversion.

Remember the Importance of NAP

Local SEO is dependent on a number of factors linking the site to your local area. The most important way you can do this, from a Google perspective, is to ensure your site has a good NAP signal. Here’s what NAP stands for:

N(ame) A(ddress) P(hone number)

The best way to verify this across the web and ensure Google registers that this is correct from numerous sources is via citations. These are listings on various websites and directories which list your name, address and phone number. The more citations you have, the better your local SEO and 3-pack chances will be; so get to work on them!

Optimise Your Site

Of course, a good Google My Business page and citations aren’t the be-all and end-all of your optimisation efforts. You also need to consider your site optimisation because without a good base, the cherry on top that is your GMB page won’t be as effective.

Having independent local pages if you are targeting separate locations can also be important, especially if you want to rank locally in multiple areas. If you have good optimisation for different locations, then it is possible to appear in relevant, close-by, 3-packs for the most part. Obviously, if you are trying to appear in a London 3-pack whilst based in Scotland that isn’t likely to work. But, a small 5-mile radius is possible (say if you want to rank for the next town over).

If you have separate locations, for example in London and Scotland, then it is important to set up individual Google My Business pages in order to try and rank your 3-pack separately. Having a dedicated page for these locations is then an obvious next step for this. This could be something like:

https://yourbusinessname.com/london/

https://yourbusinessname.com/scotland/

Continue with Traditional SEO

Backlinks, mobile-friendliness, ensuring your pages are easy to crawl and dictate a strong site hierarchy to Google; all of these things still matter. Even when you are looking to achieve more local rankings it is important to consider and work towards these cornerstones of SEO.

The fact is that without targeting traditional SEO efforts as part of your regular site workload, you will not be able to achieve long-term overall or local rankings. If your site has no authority, no organic growth through the months etc., then you will find achieving any rankings quite difficult in the long-term. Concentrate on these efforts alongside everything else and you should be able to have your SEO cake and eat your local SEO too.

Seek Google Reviews

Reviews are one of the biggest indicators of quality from a user perspective. An item or service with poor reviews is something to be avoided, after all. But it can also be a big help from an SEO perspective as well.

Google reviews aren’t quick to obtain in many cases and they may not always be positive. But, it is important to actually gain these organically because requesting reviews in return for anything, as part of email follow-ups, etc. can sometimes be viewed as spammy by your users/customers and may result in fewer reviews in the long term. For that reason, you should simply put it out there that you would like reviews, but don’t outright demand them.

Avoid Keyword Stuffing

This is a simple but important point to make. Some companies achieve instant success when it comes to GMB and the local 3-pack as they put the keywords they are looking to rank for in the listing title itself. But, this is extremely frowned upon by Google. And, if reported, it will be removed and you could lose valuable organic rankings outside of this as a result. For that reason, it is best to avoid this tactic. It can be more damaging than it is worth.

Final Thoughts

And there you have it! Everything you need in order to potentially bring yourself to a good local keyword position or bring your site into the hallowed 3-pack listing. Once there, you should see an uptake in local traffic and not have as much trouble maintaining a constant stream of traffic on a monthly basis. Getting there is just a case of continuous and good optimisation efforts, so make sure you do the basics.

The post How to Achieve 3-Pack Rankings in Local SEO appeared first on SiteProNews.

Smarter Crawlers

Web crawlers are now getting smarter and will be capable of more accurately identifying smart information. Pages should include more than a few meta tags and script tags, or the search engine will think that the page is blank. Experts recommend adding new keywords and keeping everything fresh which the crawlers will recognize. Links will also be recognized, which makes it necessary to link to a higher-ranking website to boost the value of your own site. Crawlers now have the ability to render the page and are gaining a more programmatic understanding to emulate the user better.

Voice Search

An increasing number of people are relying on voice search to look up information on the internet, whether through their home assistant or their smartphone device. Websites need to accommodate voice searches by including natural keywords that are longer. SEO experts will begin to rework content to make it sound like it was entered verbally. It’s important to begin brainstorming the type of questions that visitors will ask and these should become page headings on the website. The content should be brief and utilize lists and bullet points, which will be easier for users to digest.

Website Speed

Google and other search engines will begin to rank websites higher if they load quickly and improve the user experience. Keep in mind that most people will move on to another website if yours takes more than a few seconds to load. You’ll want to make sure that there aren’t too many elements on your homepage that cause it to load slowly, like uncompressed photos. Internet users prefer to explore websites quickly and having a fast loading site will keep them reading your content for a longer period of time. 

Quality Content

Quality content will continue to influence how high websites rank and how much time visitors are likely to spend browsing your pages. The content should not include any filler and should be informative to ensure the audience walks away learning something new. Updating content weekly will be necessary to ensure that your readers continue to visit the website regularly, which can also generate more brand queries.

Local SEO Will Grow

It’s important for businesses to be more specific about their exact location. Instead of communicating an area where they’re located, it’s essential to add cross streets to make the business easier to find for those who are conducting searches throughout the city. Online reviews heavily impact local SEO which will change the demographics of the people visiting your page.

Mobile Optimization

Smartphones are now being used more than computers to perform searches which will make mobile optimization an SEO trend in the coming years. Smartphones are portable and faster, which makes them ideal to use for performing searches while on the go anywhere in the world. Google and similar search engines are making mobile indexing more of a priority. Although sites lacking an isolated mobile version won’t be penalized, you have a better chance of ranking higher if your website is quick to load on smartphones thus ensuring that more people spend time reviewing your content. Web developers are now creating more phone-friendly websites to adapt to this change in device usage. At this time, more research is needed to determine the type of keywords users are typing in on their smartphones.

Videos

More people are watching videos online which makes it necessary to include more videos and multimedia on your website, if you want to rank higher while incorporating SEO. Videos should be relevant to your product or the industry you’re in to ensure they enhance the quality of your website and provide visitors with new information that is easy to retain. Videos can even be shared if they contain valuable info which will allow more people to be exposed to your website through your readers. 

Understanding what the future of SEO holds can allow you to make the necessary changes to your website and ensure that you continue to stand out on the internet and are easy to find for those who are conducting searches each day. Staying updated on the latest algorithms and trends is key to succeeding and attracting more visitors to your page.

The post What Will the Future of SEO Look Like? appeared first on SiteProNews.

It’s important to be displayed on the first page of the search results for a good number of people to find your page online. This is how you can increase your online sales. SEO strategies help achieve this goal. If you’re new to the concept of SEO, the tips provided below will help you optimize your website without bringing up complicated, technical terms. 

Understand your target audience

Your business significantly depends on your target audience. So, it’s important to know what they are looking for. Google strives to provide people with the most useful information when they search for something. This means, you have to know what terms, related to your industry, people search for and what are the most searched topics. 

When you know your target audience and what they look for, it becomes easier to come up with strategies to provide them with what they want and keep them satisfied. This also significantly matters if you’re selling products since more people visiting your website means increased chances of online sales. 

Analyze your competitors

Now that you know what your target audience looks for, you have to see what are the top results for their queries, and understand your competitors. Once you do that, analyze your competitors’ websites and see how they provide information. This should give you a fair idea about what your website lacks so you can work on it. 

Furthermore, when you analyze a few websites in your niche, you can note down what you think each website lacks. After that, you can work hard to come up with content that provides your target audience with a unique as well as a more complete solution. 

Basic SEO

It might seem intimidating to take up the responsibility of optimizing your website all by yourself. Whether you decide to optimize your website or get someone else to do it, knowing the basics will help you identify problems and troubleshoot when needed. Sure, it looks like a lot to comprehend, but once you read the below-mentioned points carefully, you shouldn’t find it so complicated. 

Keyword research

Keywords are a set of words that a user would type into the search bar of a search engine. For instance, if you want to look for recipes for kale, you would most probably type ‘kale recipes’. For every industry or niche, there would be a set of keywords that are searched more than others. So, the first step you need to take is conducting keyword research to find out what keywords you can rank for and be displayed for on the first page. 

Don’t select keywords that are most searched and have too much competition. This will require much hard work. Instead, for starters, look for low competition and high search rate keywords in your field. Use tools, like Google Keyword Planner to look for the most suitable keywords. These tools help find keywords that signify a gap in the market that you can fill in and rank for. 

Mobile friendly website

These days, most people use their smartphones to access different websites. So, Google has made mobile-friendliness a major ranking factor. This correlates with the bounce rate. Bounce rate means a user entering your website and quickly exiting. This happens when the user is not happy with the provided information found on the website. 

Likewise, if your website is not mobile-friendly, users have to wait for a while for the page to load, and then turn the horizontal mode on. Instead of putting up with this, users will exit your website and visit some other website, which can be a loss for you. This is why you should make sure your website is optimized for mobile users. 

Other factors

Besides these two factors, you should also focus on other basic factors to make sure your site is optimized for Google searches. Here are some points to keep in mind when optimizing your website. 

1. The title of your articles should be between 60 to 70 characters. Include the focus keyword at the beginning of the title and use words like best, amazing, top, etc. in the title. 
2. The meta description should have the focus keyword in it. Don’t ever leave the space for meta description empty. 
3. The focus keyword should not be overstuffed. However, including it in the first 100 words of your article helps. Use a variety of LSI keywords. 
4. Optimize images by adding the focus keyword in the ALT TEXT box. 
5. Make sure the URL is short and makes sense. Add the focus keyword in the URL as well. 
6. It’s recommended that content be over 1000 words, since Google prefers long form content. 

Blog posting for linking

If you want to increase the authority of your website, you should consider posting blogs on websites with more authority. All you have to do is send an email to the webmaster asking if he would allow you to write a guest post. Websites that accept guest posts usually let you add 2 links to your website, which helps in building links and ranking your website better. Make sure you post blogs on websites that are relevant to your niche and have good domain authority. 

Local SEO

Local SEO helps you increase your visibility when a person makes a location specific search. This means, when people find you in the search results, you have more chances of customers visiting your store. Here are some ways of optimizing your website for better local searches.  

Google My Business

To create a Google My Business account, you need to sign up. You’re also required to provide the address of your store. When you do that, a verification code is sent to your store via mail. When you receive the code and enter it, you then have a Google My Business account. On Google My Business you can provide all the details about your business and choose a specific category. This will help you show up in the local search results, like ‘Turkish restaurant near me’. 

Google Maps

Claiming your business by providing your address on Google Maps is also quite important these days. If you have an offline business, people will try to find a way to you through Google Maps. If your address is not available on Google Maps, you can lose many potential customers. 

Other local websites

Getting your website listed on various other local websites also helps more people reach you. For instance, if you run a restaurant, getting listed on Zomato is a good idea. 

Google Search Console 

If you want a tool that helps you analyze the performance of your website for free, you should know about Google Search Console. Google Search Console provides information about well-ranked keywords that are relevant for you and addresses many other issues. 

These are some of the SEO tips that small businesses can start following in order to rank better in Google’s Search Results Pages. If you still find these tips tricky, it isn’t a bad idea to hire an SEO agency. In fact, these tips will even help you better understand what the SEO agency does for your website.

The post 6 SEO Tips for Small Business appeared first on SiteProNews.

The internet is used by many people every day, especially to shop. Last year around $2.3 trillion was generated in online sales, and this number is expected to hit $4.5 trillion per year by 2021. So there is a lot of competition. Great SEO gives you the best chance possible to ensure that your products and services are seen, or more poignantly, found by the people who are looking for them.

What exactly is SEO?

Search engine optimization or SEO is the rules by which you optimize your website to improve search engine rankings. They are also a way to make your site more user- friendly and easier to navigate.

There are a number of rules or guidelines that fall under SEO, and they are constantly evolving, meaning you need to keep your finger on the pulse or enlist the help of someone who can to ensure your site is correctly optimized.

The importance of SEO

When someone is looking for something or has a question, they usually hit the search engines. Millions of potential customers use them per day, and SEO will help your business utilize this tool.

Search engine optimization will:

• Help your rankings. The majority of search engines users click on the top 5 suggestions in the search results pages 
• Improve the user experience of your site
• Establish trust with the consumer. People listen to search recommendations
• Help the social promotion of your website. Good word of mouth spills over to social media platforms
• Put you ahead of the competition

Where to start

The order of results in a Google search is based on a series of algorithms which consider a number of factors. Optimizing your website increases your chances to rank higher via three main stages:

1. Technical SEO
2. On-site SEO
3. Off-site SEO

Technical SEO

Technical SEO relates to the settings of your website as opposed to the content. Technical SEO is the one aspect of SEO which is somewhat set and forget. This encompasses things like crawling and indexing which can negatively impact your rankings.

On-site SEO

This element is more content focused, aimed at providing search engine crawlers with ways to understand your content. This is where site structure, keywords, headings, internal links, images, and various other techniques come into play.

On-site SEO will improve usability and encompasses content optimization.

Off-site SEO

More commonly known as link building, off-site SEO is a form of promotion for your site. Search engine algorithms look for the best pages by relevance to the initial search. The best options appear in the first positions, and good options are determined partly by the number of incoming links, known as backlinks.

Backlinks are like a badge of trust if coming from well-known and trusted sites. The flip side of this being that paid links have an adverse effect as they violate the Google guidelines.

How to obtain more backlinks

The creation of good quality content is always your best bet, across all SEO rules. Good content leads to natural links which is followed by high rankings and greater traffic.

Learning the skill of SEO

Once you understand the different concepts of SEO, trial and error is the best way forward. You will need to apply various techniques to your website and monitor your rankings.

There are a range of sources to assist, especially at beginner levels, and you may wish to use an SEO Checklist to ensure that you have optimized all necessary elements.

Local SEO

If you have noticed businesses that rank high in the Google search with an address and star rating, this is as a result of local SEO via the Google My Business page.

The best way to maximise the Google My Business page is by doing the following:

• Keep business information consistent (name, contact details)
• Have up to date photos
• Be proactive with reviews
• Activate the messaging feature so customers can easily contact you
• Align your primary category with the products or services you offer

It is also a good idea to utilize the insights section which reports on the impressions and clicks that your Google My Business page generates. This is no different to how you should approach all reporting, with close monitoring to be able to tweak and improve your strategies and metrics.

Is SEO marketing?

The answer is essentially yes; however, it should be noted that SEO is a part of your inbound marketing strategy. It works in conjunction with things like social media promotion, content strategy, and other elements.

Once again, it all boils down to good content, SEO and other inbound marketing approaches are basically worthless if the content is terrible. SEO is the boost.

If you aren’t using SEO, start now

Search engine optimization or SEO is vital for success in the online world. Search engines and high rankings should be your best friend. The difference they will make to the visibility, and in turn, the success of your business is staggering.

A good SEO approach will drive more traffic to your website, blog or store gaining more customers, converting leads to sales and helping your business to grow, which should be the goal of every company.

The post The Importance of Understanding the Purpose of SEO appeared first on SiteProNews.

Hence, it is important to pay attention to the feedback given by customers. Monitoring online reviews can help to improve your services. Though it may appear that online reviews are a very small part of your online presence, many shoppers rely on website reviews while shopping online. 

Customers buying decisions get influenced a lot by reading online reviews in this digital age.  

Thus, online reviews are crucial for a plethora of reasons and have major consequences due to their ability to affect:

• Purchasing decisions of customers
• Website ranking in local search engines
• Search results that actually get viewed and clicked on etc. 

Overall, online reviews are as important building citations and optimizing your SEO strategy. 

How Consumers Use Online Reviews?

So, let’s see how online reviews have an impact on customer purchases. Reviews are important for any business especially when they fit perfectly into the purchasing cycle of your services and products. 

When people start reading reviews, they have already figured out what they need. Customers have tendency to immediately take decisions after reading some reviews. Hence, for small business, online reputation can influence their bottom line directly. 

How Many People Read Online Review?

Almost 84% of customers trust online reviews. So, the next question is how many reviews exactly do they read? About 68% of shoppers who read online reviews read at least 4 or more reviews before taking any decision or trusting any online business. 

However, shoppers keep changing their habits and even after reading a positive review, they do not directly visit your website. This definitely affects e-commerce traffic. But they now often get in touch via email or phone, or may even visit your business in person.

Why Online Reviews Matter for SEO Locally? 

Review business websites offer the most accurate information to customers. This helps  shoppers to discover, predict and make decisions about their purchases in future. Search engines like Google decide to rank search results on the basis of different variables which include:

• Page signals
• Review signals
• On –page signals
• Link signals
• Behavioral signals etc. 

Online reviews make up around 10% of how the search engines will rank. 

Crafting a Review Acquisition Strategy:

Now, it is clear that online reviews are very important. The next step is to craft a review acquisition strategy and check how you can manage your online reputation proactively:  

Right Review Websites: Before creating any review acquisition strategy for small business, it is best to think about the right review platforms and websites which would work great for you. 

Begin with simple online research and check the results. Another thing you can do is to look for a ‘Knowledge Panel’ for the business and check the websites listed under ‘more reviews’. 

What is a Review Website’s Posting Policies?

To gain more reviews, it is important to understand the different review policies of each platform. 

Tips to Get Customer Reviews: 

Here are some more tips to help you get customer reviews:

• Use Whitespark and Phil Rozek’s ‘Review Handout Generator’. It is designed to create handouts for customers. It offers clear-cut instructions which help customers to leave a review on Google for you.
• Provide a link to your review profiles on an e-commerce website.
• Generate print materials with a list of all the websites customers can use to review you.
• If you don’t have the Yelp sticker, request a ‘Find Us on Yelp’.

Online Reputation Management:

Management of online reputation becomes fundamental once customers offer their feedback through reviews. Set up a service like Google Alerts to make sure you do not miss the feedback. This service notifies you every time your business is mentioned online. With this, you can always follow a proactive approach to maintain online reputation.

It is important to note both positive and negative reviews. Don’t panic when negative opinion about your business is shared. Don’t be tempted to contact the review platform and ask them to take the negative review down. 

Instead, take a deep breath, and deal like a boss with negative online reviews. Offer to make up for any inconvenience or dissatisfaction. Whenever possible, highlight the positive and take steps to improve the reasons for the negative criticism. 

Surely, if reviews are taken in the right way, they will help to improve your business.

The post How Online Reviews Impact Local SEO and Your Bottom Line appeared first on SiteProNews.

Some people want to manage their own website. I get that. Maybe you have had some negative experiences with outside “expertise” in this department in the past and you don’t trust anyone else to do the job now. Again, I sympathize.

So if you are going to go it alone and do your own SEO then let me lend a hand with some helpful advice. If there is one mistake that I see website owners make that pains me more than any other it is this: Buying Links

This is my advice on how to buy links. Don’t….not ever. Never, nada, no damn way. And here is why. Because this is one sure way to get your website a penalty. Unless you have been schooled in SEO and link building it is almost a guarantee that you are going to buy something harmful. It’s just the nature of what you are buying.

Guaranteed to get a Penguin Penalty

There are many places that you can buy links online, and they are going to have 5-star ratings and 300 positive reviews which appears encouraging to those who do not understand a good link from a bad one. And honestly, I could not give someone enough instruction in 100 articles like this one that would give you the knowledge to make correct choices in this regard.

So you must be wondering how these vendors get so many positive reviews for their link building service when I am warning you not to ever go there? How can people just keep buying this service and not eventually either get bad reviews and/or run out of potential customers after enough get stung by their bad links?

The answer is somewhat complex but I will simplify it by saying that SEO has a dark side. Some call it “black hat” SEO after Matt Cutts called it that in an interview once. I guess it’s a cool name.

The fact is, there are some types of web properties that you can point these kinds of “bad” links to and it is actually an effective tactic to get them to rank higher. You can point them at properties that you do not own such as your Facebook page or a Youtube video. Often this will help those pages rank higher just like a quality link can help your main website rank higher.

However, there are so many other factors besides just having a link pointing to your website than just the link itself. And these factors do not each contribute to the cause in isolation. Each factor about the link is interconnected to every other factor. For example, the anchor text of the link is a very critical element of the link. Anchor text is the words the clickable link is embedded in, meaning the word or series of words that you actually click on to move to the other website.

But again, the anchor text of the link you just acquired has to be weighed in combination with all other anchors of every other link that is pointing at your website currently. Yes…..Google looks at the entirety of all anchors pointing at your site, not just the individual one you just built. So, as you might imagine, not having access to SEO tools that can measure and scan this information is alone a serious setback to the person “ just wanting to get some links” because some SEO dude on Youtube said it would help and, after all, the guy selling them on Fiverr has 300 positive reviews and those SEO guys are so freaking expensive….I mean really…..how hard can this SEO thing be anyway????

Ah……….it’s hard enough let me tell you.

All links and all the anchor combinations of all the links pointing to your site are just one factor in this equation. The entirety of all SEO factors, as they pertain to the position that your site ranks is so far beyond the scope of this article it is laughable to think that someone from John or Jane Q Public could just spend $20 on Fiverr and replace all the time I have spent ( literally 1000’s of hours) and get the same results as any competent SEO practitioner would get with this amount of training.

It is actually not laughable since the damage I have seen it do on several occasions is quite severe and ultimately avoidable if people would, at the very least, consult with someone in my field before proceeding down the road to link building disaster.

But people like to save money. If only it were this simple!

But I sympathize. It is hard to trust something that is little understood. Not to mention there are no central authorities that train or license those in the SEO field that you can call and no diplomas on the wall to create some trust for those who pay for our services either. That’s a tough situation.

My advice…..use some common sense first. If you are thinking about either doing your own SEO vs not doing it at all….. don’t do it at all. Seriously. It was one of the hardest things I ever learned and it is still ever evolving and I am having to learn new aspects of it every week. A business owner is far better off to concentrate on their craft and earn the money to hire a pro than create an even bigger mess for that pro to have to inevitably clean up after the damage is done.

In fact, I know people in my field that won’t even take on someone who has messed up their site with bad links because it is so much of a setback to future progress and you can only guess who gets blamed when things don’t go perfectly in the cleanup phase when the White Night SEO Squad comes in with all their link detox tools to the rescue.

It’s just a whole lot easier to go get a client without that kind of baggage. This is why the people who specialize in fixing these kinds of link building disasters are so damned expensive. Trust me…some of them are $2000 just to do the analysis before they even agree to do the job. Personally, I hire the job out to people who specialize in fixing these kinds of problems. They are more qualified to do the job. This should be a clue to website owners who want to DIY their way to the top. I am wise enough to hire my betters even though I could probably do a link cleanup gig just fine. I know when not to!

So what does a website owner do to assure they are hiring someone who is competent in the SEO field?

1) Ask them for a few references. It’s common in many fields and if an SEO person doesn’t have a few people that you can talk to regarding their success then they are not very smart business people. It’s kind of standard practice in any field where trust is hard to come by via traditional standards like credentials and licenses. Not that diplomas and pieces of stamped government paper are any kind of guarantee mind you. They are illusory comfort elements at best.

2) Ask them to do some small tasks for small money and see how they treat you during this time. Get them to build out a few social profiles or a Google My Business page for $30 and see what kind of job they do. Get them to do a small on-screen video showing the steps they took while they explain each step to you. You will get a feel for their attitude and skill level through this.

Really, you are going to have to narrow down the choice of who to hire for this job and eventually make a leap of faith over the void of uncertainty which will inevitably be awaiting you near the decision point. You can never remove all risk from a decision like this. You just have to remove as many risk variables as humanly possible.

3) So now that I have seemingly told you not to do your own SEO let me tell you some things that you can do as a website owner.

Do your on-page SEO. Make sure your site title is filled out fully and don’t repeat your business name in the title. This is a waste of an opportunity to place a keyword or phrase in the title. This is a strong cue to Google as to what you want to rank for. If your business is plumbing in Chicago then you may want to make your site title ” Plumbers Chicago | Chicago Plumbing Contractors ” so as to take advantage of that search. So often I do an analysis of a potential client and find that their website name is joesplumbing.ca and their site title is Joe’s Plumbing. Such a waste of an opportunity.

I have started with clients that are stuck on page 2 for all their keywords, changed their site title to a keyword phrase and within a week they pop up to the bottom of page 1. Amazing what a simple change can make sometimes.

Build your citations. Citations are free directories that you can use to put your name, address, and phone number plus a naked URL link to your website. They are critical for ranking in the Google Map Pack. They are a small pain in the ass to fill out and a bit time consuming but they are worth your time. Make sure your name, address and phone # are identical to your Google My Business page info. How do you find your citations? Simply place your competition’s web address in a search query like this “competitor.com” and look at the search results for their citations. The top ranking competitors will most assuredly have filled out citations.

Build out your social profiles. Obviously, you should already have a youtube channel, Facebook Page, Pinterest, Linkedin, and Twitter but there are many other lesser known social profiles that you can fill out that also lend authority to your web domain. You can go to “knowem.com” and find a list of available sites there. There are literally hundreds of these available to you. This is a standard part of the service we provide for our clients.

Build up some videos of some aspect of your business and put them on Youtube. I know, I know….. you are camera shy. Tough…. If you want to be successful then suck it up and get the camera rolling. If, for example, you are an HVAC pro, do a few videos of yourself on the job and talk about what problem you are solving as you work at the task. You will probably be thinking through the steps as you work anyway so just speak them out as if you are teaching an apprentice and record that. You could probably do 20 of these little 2-5 minute videos in a week and put them on Youtube. You would be amazed how many people I know in various industries that have pulled in business with Youtube. And it’s FREE!!!!!

Facebook….don’t waste your time. Facebook has become the domain of advertising and that’s the final word on that. Spend your time elsewhere.

These tasks will keep you busy for a while and in many cases, will bring you some results. If you are in a competitive niche, then don’t expect massive success. You will need a pro for that.

The post DIY SEO Tip… Don’t DO This! Please! appeared first on SiteProNews.

The peculiarity of local SEO is that when Google detects some local indicators like: geographic keywords, location data provided by your phone, or the “near me” phrase, it uses a separate algorithm to supply you with three most relevant location- wise results. The whole point is that all links are relevant until they are local (come from the same geographical area as you). What is more, according to the latest interview with Greg Gifford, the Director of Search and Social at DealerOn, it doesn’t really matter if the source of a link is unrelated to your business. However, if a link is local, relevant to your business industry, drives relevant traffic to your site, and builds your brand’s reputation, it’s also a great addition to your local SEO. 

So, now that we know that geographical factor is the core one, let me introduce you to some powerful local link building strategies that I personally find essential for growing local business.

1. Competition research

Spying on competitors is a good idea mostly for two things: you can get an instant overview of their backlink profiles and also borrow some ideas for new backlink opportunities. By the way, SEO SpyGlass can offer you a helping hand with that. Just enter your competitor’s URL and then you’ll be supplied with everything you need to know about your competitor’s backlink profile (the percentage of dofollow backlinks, the total number of links, the backlinks’ IP diversity, and the number of linking domains).

2. Guest posting for local websites

Guest posting can be a very powerful and mutually beneficial strategy if implemented right. The thing with guest posting is that you can not only gain links and visibility, but also attract a new audience accompanied with website traffic. Since we are talking about local link building, it’s only right to find some local blogs or newspapers and offer them your content. The fastest way to find some guest blogging opportunities is by using a correspondent search method in LinkAssistant.

After picking Guest Posting as a research method, specify the keywords, and in a couple of moments the whole list of guest blogging opportunities accompanied with contact emails will be there for you.

What I want to drive your attention to specifically is choosing the right topic for your guest post. It’s crucial, because this is basically what your success depends on. I would highly suggest keeping in mind these 4 things while picking the topic:

1. Try to pick a more or less relevant and trending topic to your host site’s content.
2. It’s only good when the topic adds some value to the host site.
3. Have a look at what your competitors are writing about.
4. Make sure there were no similar posts lately. 

Now that you’ve decided on potential host sites and chose the topic, it’s time for pitching your guest post. Put yourself in the shoes of your potential publisher and write a personalized and standing out from the crowd e-mail. 

3. Find unlinked mentions

Sadly enough, the majority of mentions a brand gets are unlinked. The good news is that the situation might be improved, because Awario is there for you to save your mentions. There you can comfortably keep track of all your mentions be it your business name, a site, a certain competitor, or even a hashtag. After you have entered the keywords you want to get mentions of, and the tool has supplied you with the full list of mentions, the only thing left to do is go through them to spot those that are without a link. Then get in touch with the website owners and ask them nicely to add one.

4. Local influencers

It doesn’t matter where you are located in the world, there are most likely to be some local influencers like: government websites, local news media, or influential bloggers in your area. I would highly suggest going niche-specific in that case. If you are a local bakery, it would be only right and logical to find some sites that overview local restaurants, for instance. Things become a tiny bit easier when it comes to bloggers, because you can offer them collaboration. If you are a local book store, you can offer a couple of your books to a book blogger for linking to you in the next review. But you can also go another way. Once you’ve formed the list of influencers you are willing to collaborate with, search for some events or conferences they are hosting in the near future. Attend the event, exchange contact information, and share your thoughts of how you can help each other. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up becoming friends with a member of the local media.

5. Local business directories

Citation building is another great way to win local links. In a nutshell, citation occurs when your business name, address, and telephone number are listed together. So, the easiest way to carry out citation building is through local business directories, which, as a rule, vary according to location or industry. Almost every city has its small directories, so it’s not going to be difficult for you to spot them and get your business listed. The easiest way to find business directories that would suit your location and business is by typing into Google the search queries below:

Location “recommended links”

Location “add your site”

Location “add your business”

Location * directory

6. Creating a local resource page

This is another win-win strategy that has proved its effectiveness for lots of local website owners. I’m sure that you’ve come across some sites with a couple of pages devoted to so-called “additional resources”. As a rule, those pages are stuffed with some useful information and links to other related sites. This is what SEOs call a resource page. Basically, it can touch upon any topic of your liking from “the best coffee spots” to “where to repair a car”. Just think of what suits your niche the best and make it useful for the people in your area. For instance, if you are a local children’s clothing store, you can consider creating a list of the best restaurants for children in your area. Once a resource page is created, make sure you didn’t forget to inform everyone you’ve included in a list and ask them politely for mentioning you on their resource pages as well.

7. Local press mentions

Beyond any shadow of a doubt, getting local press mentions is always pleasant. However, if you are a small business owner, there’s not much chance of local newspaper representatives queuing up at your door. So, the initiative should come from you. 

Naturally, the first step to being mentioned by local press is to find local newspapers that you find worth cooperating with. If you live in the US, I highly suggest using the US Newspaper List (USNPL), which sorts newspapers by states and cities. Depending on the nature and the size of your business, you may also want to get in touch with some local college or small neighborhood papers. Of course, this can take more time, but could be of great help if the audience or the newspaper matches your targeted area. 

Now that you have a list of newspapers to contact, it’s time to pick the exact person that could be potentially interested in covering your story. Instead of mass emailing to a bunch of journalists, I would suggest a personalized approach. Reach out to a person who typically covers stories somehow related to your business or location. By doing that, you are significantly increasing the chance of getting your desired local press mention.

8. Visiting your prospect’s location

Although the process of local link building is far from easy, quite often a high quality link can be earned through human relationships and interaction. What I mean here is that the better relationships you have within your community, the greater your chances are to earn backlinks. Contacting people not via email but in person will give you more points with those that can potentially link to you. So, come out of the shell and tell them about your business.

Here is a list of places where you can acquire some profitable connections:

• Local meetups
• Conferences and tradeshows
• Suppliers
• Manufacturers
• Networking events
• Associations
• Chamber of commerce / Rotary clubs

9. Hosting a community event

If there’s ever a sure-fire way to earn offline visibility, tons of new links, mentions, and citations, that would definitely be community event hosting. The only condition is that it needs to be done right. First of all, you should decide on the nature of your event. For instance, if you are a local flower shop, you can make a workshop on floristry. Even if you run a plumbing business, you can consider organizing an Easter egg hunt for children in your neighborhood. What is more, I would highly suggest organizing an event at your location. This will help you to promote your business name, location and telephone number to many outside sources and is a ready-made citation. Another thing to consider is an event #hashtag. Add it to all marketing promotions for your event so that people can use it to share photos and tag you. This is how you can get social media mentions. Make sure to create a details page on your website and contact your town’s websites for placing your contact info.

10. Providing a scholarship 

If you have a school or a university in your neighborhood, offering a scholarship would be another link building strategy to go for. Providing even a two hundred dollar scholarship to local students can be extremely rewarding both for your organization’s reputation and SEO. The point is that the majority of schools and universities have separate scholarship pages on their websites that link to external websites offering scholarships. 

What is more, scholarship opportunities are extremely easy to find. You can either contact schools or universities directly or type “school name” + scholarship into Google.

I decided to leave this strategy to the end because obviously it may not suit everyone. But still, if you have some budget to spend on providing a scholarship, the strategy is worth implementing.

Conclusion

Although quality link building takes time and effort, the outcome is worth it. What is more, local link building has a lot of pluses which you can wisely use for your own advantage. By implementing at least some of the above listed link building strategies for local SEO, you can grow your business immensely as well as earn lots of useful connections and authority in your area. 

Please feel free to share your favorite link building tips and experience with local SEO.

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