10 steps for better search results local businesses – Part 2

In the first instalment of optimising your website for a local audience, we looked at 5 steps: keywords, optimisation, Google Local, local business listing websites and consistency.

Get these 5 steps right and in place, and your website could feature more prominently in local search engine results, perfect if people through the door is part of your business.

Is buying local becoming more important?

Buying locally source food is something that, in recent years, has become not only trendy but also more genuine; consumers are realising that food that has not been in plastic packaging on a plane for 13 hours before it hits the supermarkets, is not the only good quality, well-priced produce on offer.

And it seems that consumers are not just looking at local food but local retailers of other items too. Finally, it seems, we are getting fed up of the ‘same old-same old’ from the hyper stores, and once again looking for the unique, quality items are a great price from local businesses.

And so yes, NOW is the time, with campaigns like ‘small business Saturday’, to trade on the local-ness of your business. You could gain more customers, more fans. more shares, more success – and we all want and need a bit of this kind of action.

Like everything, it takes effort and a smattering of know-how, this in this instalment we cover from steps 6 to 10, the remaining 5 steps that consolidate your presence online, in a local sense.

Step 6: ‘genuine’ reviews

We hinted at this with the local website listings etc. as some of these sites will be review based. However, to expand this point a little further, Google along with other major search engines have hinted in the long and distant past, that genuine reviews are welcome, forming a positive basis for some nice social signals.

However, bribery is not a good idea. On your website, simply ask people to ‘tell us what you think’ or rate it with stars. For WordPress, there are all kinds of review plug-ins and what-not that make it easy for customers to leave a review. If you think people can’t or won’t be bothered (because you can’t be when you shop!), then you really need to change this view.

We are all connected, every second of the day (or so it seems) with the online world, thus people can and do leave reviews, good ones as well as the not so good. So, ask people to rate their shopping experience etc. – if nothing else, it proves your website is alive!

Step 7: social profiles

We have talked about social media a lot, and how, if done right and used well can add value to your website. But, you need to make sure you are not only taking full advantage of them but have also created the right kind of social profile.

What can happen, is that we are faced with “yet another” profile form to fill in; bit bored of writing the same stuff, we skip a few boxes, promising that we will come back and fill them in… but we never do.

So, you know the ‘edit profile’ tab on various platforms? Go back NOW, and open it and fill it in and remember: complete the bit that says where your business is. For those that are on the high street, naming the village/town/city is an obvious one to complete.

(And don’t forget step 5 Consistency)

Step 8: start building local links

Before you scuttle off and buy links, you need to know this is no-no. It is such as a no-no, it deserves to be shouted from the tallest building in your town – do NOT do it. Search engines can spot them a mile off, sniff them as soon as they hit your pages and your website is blacklisted, doomed to the bin from which it is very, very difficult to escape.

In this sense, we are talking about building local links. A great way of doing this is to get involved in some of the local groups of social media, as well as other similar businesses.

If you have great content on your website, that you are updating regularly, and that it of interest to them, then you could have a fruitful relationship beginning to form.

Try this: type in {your location} + blog, and you will have a list of blogs all linked to your town or local area. This could be a great start to some local links…

Step 9: Go mobile!

This doesn’t mean hitching up a caravan on going on tour but, is something we have talked about many times before… and we think it is worth going over old ground. It really is that important.

There are 1 million more mobile devices activated EVERY DAY across the world than there are babies born. This may seem an unbelievable statistic and we have no idea where it came – genuinely, we found it on the internet, so it must be true – but, regardless of its authenticity, it does spell out something we have long suspected: more people are using smart phones and other mobile devices, and this figure is growing.

Whether mobile phone ownership gazumps the daily birth rate is neither here nor there. If your website is NOT mobile ready, then you are missing a huge chunk of the population…

If you are already mobile-optimised, then take another look and make sure all those local contact details are obvious; pay close attention to the ‘contact us’ page.

Step 10: get analysing

Now that you have done all this, you need to monitor, assess and review if this is having an impact and, if so, how much. Of course, being flooded with more enquiries and an increase in custom is all well and good, but as with all things internet, the effects are not always immediate or obvious.

When we are busy, the hard/boring/uninteresting stuff can be shoved aside. We all do it, with different things.

Analysing who is coming to your website and from where, along with other useful information is not too difficult to come by, providing you know what you are looking at, once you have the data in front of you. No one is an expert on everything, so if you need help, just ask.

There are various options online, as you would expect, some that you pay for and some that are free. You can also take advantage of Google Analytics, but again, it all seems a little complicated. However, once you become accustomed to it, know what you are looking at (sort of), what you are looking to see improve (sort of), Google Analytics can be quite helpful.

Paid for software can be easier to fathom, but when money is tight, you may not want an additional monthly fee.

And so there we are, 10 steps to making your website appear in local listings, near the top. For many businesses, this is important to them and, increasingly for customers, it seems that local is beginning to outweigh ‘cheapness’ too, with more people taking time to find the right product at the right price… and if it is just down the road, all the better.

Let us know how you get on… hello@locally.co.uk

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