Five Reasons Your Local SEO Strategy Isn’t Working
Local business SEO is increasingly becoming a commonplace term. Unfortunately, a lot of people think they have a good handle on what is needed for a successful local SEO strategy, but there are a few elements that can be easily overlooked. Let us break down some of what we usually come across with our clients. Here are five reasons why your current setup may not be working.
1. Key for Local SEO: Your Google My Business Page Is Not Updated
One of the first things that we will tell anyone to always make sure of is that their Google My Business listing is up-to-date. For example, if clients have multiple locations, many ask us, should we or shouldn’t we set up locations? The answer is always ‘yes’. Each of your business locations needs to be fully set up in Google My Business to rank highly on Google. If you just have one company page with one address attached, the other locations will fall behind in ranking.
2. You Don’t Use Social Media for Your Business
The thing is, getting the right social media setup for a business is often over-thought about. To benefit local SEO strategy, at a bare minimum, all you will need is to make sure you set those pages up! You will need to set those pages up with your contact information, and a good description to show who you are and what you are selling (whether it’s products and/or services).
Your Local SEO Strategy Needs Social Media
All business needs to be on social media for a good local SEO strategy. That includes any B2C and B2B business. Even if your target market is absolutely not on Facebook, for example, Facebook consistently ranks high on search engines, so you’ll want your business to be there. Facebook users often use this platform to interact with businesses in some way, like finding your address, commenting on your post, or writing a review. Even if you don’t update consistently, make sure that you have your profile set up to be searchable. We would recommend tackling some of the more popular social media sites, including:
Remember, you don’t have to set up ALL of these social platforms. However, if you’re looking for a good place to start with social media, start small and work your way up.
We Always Recommend LinkedIn
LinkedIn not only ranks high in search, but it is the social media site for business. Making sure that you have a fully-set-up LinkedIn page increases your visibility and makes your business look more viable, overall. As a business owner, you can even use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website.
3. You Have Duplicate Listings
When creating listings, make sure that there all duplicate listings are cleaned up. If you have multiple locations, you are going to want to make sure that you have only one listing or profile per location, per listing website or social media website. Also, if you have one physical location but have multiple business listings…that could be hurting you as it could be seen as cheating the system.
4. You’re Following Older Local SEO Guidelines
It is now easier than ever to find exactly what you need with a search engine, and that’s because SEO guidelines have improved over the years. IT IS SO INTUITIVE! In the past, anyone could easily rank highly in search engines through now frowned-upon practices like repeating and hiding keywords throughout a website in order to force that website to rank. Anyone still doing this has experienced penalties on Google and other search engines, forcing their website to fall far behind in search results. If you’re not sure, please ask – we are more than happy to tell you what you may be doing wrong and how you can course correct to be on the best path possible. Oftentimes, our clients are not aware that they are doing something that isn’t best practice.
5. You Haven’t Checked For Google Updates
Organic updates have more to do with local SEO than you may think. You can keep on top of Google forums, or you can hire marketing professionals that can get the right thing done for your business, and quickly. For example, is your address in the footer of your website? Do you have a solid contact page? Is it easy to contact you within one click of any given page on your website?
Check Your Website
With over 600 algorithm changes per year—it is more vital than ever to pay close attention to the technical health of your website.
Launch our Site Checker and conduct your free Technical SEO Audit to find out what you should be focusing on first.
Your Local SEO Strategy
Hiring a marketing professional will keep you most up-to-date. We know it takes more than a few simple keyword phrases to increase rankings. It takes a team and a strategic approach to your marketing. We can help!
Very useful information on local SEO strategy.
@Alan Thanks! The most important point here is to make sure your Google My Business listing is as updated as possible and follows Google’s myriad of best practices. 🙂