Local SEO For Small Business

Five Simple Tips To Dominate Local SEO For Small Business Operations

If there’s one constant in the world of search engine optimization (SEO) it would have to be that NOTHING is ever constant in the world of SEO!

The landscape of search engine optimization changes on an almost daily basis, and sometimes even more frequently than that. Google and the other major search engines are always tinkering with their search engine algorithms, which inevitably turns a powerfully effective tool for boosting rankings into an almost useless strategy overnight more often than not.

Thankfully though, with the help of the right local SEO professionals, you should be able to knock your local SEO for small business operations right out of the park by leveraging the five simple tips we highlight below.

Let’s dive right in!

Title and Meta-Tags Make a Difference

On page optimization is still the name of the game when it comes to fundamental local SEO for small business success, and you are going to want to make sure that your titles and your meta-tags are crafted with local search engine optimization in mind.

Google recently increased the overall width of the main search area results to 600 pixels, which now allows for title tags to encompass between 50 and 60 characters. Description tag scan utilize between 160 and 200 characters, and you’d be foolish not to make the most of all that available space to boost your results.

Online Directories and Citations Are a Big Boost

Google is used by four out of every five online searchers to conduct local searches, but for one reason or another a lot of small businesses do not have their websites or their business information listed with Google – let alone any of the other major online directories and citation websites.

Take advantage of this gap in the competition and get yourself listed by Google as well as as many of the other online directories and citation sites around and your local SEO for small business results will shoot right through the roof!

Claim and Optimize Your Google My Business (GMB) Directory Listing

Perhaps the most important of all the online directories, your GMB listing is going to add a tremendous amount of “link juice” to your local SEO for small business results and you’d have to be at least a little bit crazy not to take advantage of it.

Claim your listing through Google (it’s 100% free to do) and optimize your listing with as much information as possible and you stand a great chance of reaching the Three Pack in Google – maybe the most valuable real estate in local search engine optimization.

Online Reviews Are Huge

According to industry research, 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much – if not even more – than in person reviews from friends and family. You’ll want to be sure that you aren’t just using online review services to boost your credibility and your advertising and marketing results, but you’ll also want to make sure that these review sites have your business listed properly to get “link juice” from them as well.

Structured Data Markup Makes a Search Engine Spider’s Life Easy

Local Search Engine Marketing

Only about 31.3% of all websites are using Structured Data Markup tools or technology to hide code in your website that provides search engine spiders with effortless access to critical information about your business is, the products and services you offer, reviews that have been left for your business, and a whole host of other details that will make your local SEO for small business results improve almost immediately.

Take advantage of the free tools out there to implement this kind of data in the code of your website (it won’t ever be visible to regular visitors) and watch as your search engine rankings shoot right through the roof!