Local SEO Explained

How To Do Local SEO

Transcript from the video:

This is Your Marketing Minute from Forward Push and welcome to SEO Explained! it is one of the top questions I get all the time is “what is SEO” and “how do I even know if I’m doing it on my website?” We’ll let’s take a look and answer some of the questions you might have about what is SEO? Let’s start off right here with the basics. We need to set a benchmark. So you actually have some idea of if your SEO – if you’re doing it, or maybe you’re not, is working, but you’re gonna wanna have a benchmark. So we need three things to make sure that you’ve got a benchmark going. And I want you to grab a pen and paper and write these down.

The first question that I want you to ask yourself and put down the answer is, “How long has your domain been around?” The second question I want you to ask is “How many pages has Google indexed of your website versus how many pages of your top competitors?” And the third thing I want you to answer is “How many domains are linking to your website versus that competitors that we just checked. That’s gonna be our benchmark report.

The second thing, when it comes to local SEO is figuring out How do you rank? And it’s not just in Google. You’ve got to remember there’s Google Maps. There’s Google images. There’s Bing. There’s Bing Places. So yes, while Google is primarily where everyone does search, there are other opportunities to rank where your customers are looking and where you can be found.

That is a part of SEO as well. So now that you have an idea of how you rank, what we need to do is figure out how are you going to rank better? One of the ways to do that is through backlinks. It’s getting people to link to your website. Here’s a little pro tip, I like to do is set up community partnerships. So here’s an example. If you are a auto shop right where people come and they get their car fixed, and instead of waiting in your lobby, they go across the street to the coffee shop, why not work with that coffee shop to create some kind of special for your customers and have them talk about it on their website, linking back to your website and you can do the same for them. That is a great community partnership.

The second thing that you can do to improve your websites ranking is blogging. Are you putting content on your website that answers the questions, your perspective, customers are searching for so one you can answer their questions and two they can know about you. The third way that you could help improve your local rankings is through reviews. Are you asking every customer to leave a review on Google, on Facebook, on Yelp? Or maybe there’s a specialty directory where your types of businesses can be found. You’ve got to get reviews there.

The next thing that you can do when it comes to local SEO is making sure that your NAP is complete. NAP – N, A, P – name, address, phone. You want to make sure that it’s the same across the Internet. Why confuse the Internet because it’s going to confuse customers? It’s a signal to Google and the other search engines that you’ve got it together, so make sure that your name is always correct and is exactly the same, your address and your phone. That is a pro tip that I hope you can follow.

And the last thing that I wanted to share with you about local SEO is making sure one, I already told you about reviews, but are you getting photos? So if you know a customer is gonna leave your review before they walk out of your store, get a photo with them and upload that to your Google My business page, to your yelp profile, to your social media profiles. Make sure you’re taking advantage of the customer in a goodwill way so that you can help increase your local rankings.

So there you go some pro tips for you on how you can increase your local SEO rankings and also what is local SEO? My name is Marc Apple, this is Your Marketing Minute from Forward Push. I hope you learned something today and I’ll talk to you next week. Thanks.

Marc Apple

Marc Apple

Digital Strategist

I like inbound marketing strategy, creative design, website development, analytics, and organic and paid search. That's what I write about.