Finding your business on search engines such as Google is key to growing it quickly. Local SEO helps your business connect with more local people faster.
As part of Local Search Marketing success, providing accurate and consistent NAPU (name, address, phone number, URL) information across key directories is crucial.
Google My Business
Google My Business (GMB) profiles offer local businesses an effective means of increasing their presence on search engines, including managing listings, responding to reviews and adding photos as well as seeing where customers are searching for you. The platform makes the experience seamless and allows businesses to easily track what customers are searching for them and when.
An effective Google My Business (GMB) strategy will also enable your business to achieve higher search ranking positions for local search terms, and become more visible on both Google Maps and Search.
Start by signing up with Google for free and filling out your business information – name, address, phone number and hours should be updated frequently.
Google Maps
Google Maps is an essential resource for local business owners looking to make their businesses easier for potential customers to locate. With features like reviews, ratings and targeted advertising – which can increase traffic and sales – Google Maps makes local business owner’s lives much simpler.
Also, this app provides helpful insights about locations – like when they tend to become busy during certain hours or how long the wait might be – providing valuable data.
As well as outdoor maps, Google Maps also features indoor directions for certain buildings such as museums, shopping malls, big-box stores and sports arenas – an invaluable feature to help people navigate and move about in a large city.
Local Listings
Local Listings are an integral component of search engine optimization for local businesses, featuring their name, address, phone number and hours of operation on websites and apps that display them for customers searching the Web to locate them.
Accurate and managed local citations can play an integral role in local SEO efforts. Yext helps local businesses effectively manage their local citations by building and monitoring them robustly for improved rankings in Google Local Pack, Maps and other search results.
Local businesses need to maintain their online reputation across review sites and social media. By monitoring incoming reviews quickly and responding accordingly, owners can protect their name while encouraging positive word of mouth reviews to spread faster.
Photo Gallery
An image gallery is an effective way of showcasing multiple photos at once and giving visitors and search engines alike an easy way to navigate your site, while giving search engines an indication of the quality of images on it.
Photo galleries can help your business rank higher in local search results and are an essential element of an overall marketing strategy. Google especially loves high-quality images that convey a real sense of your business to their search algorithms.
Instead of filling your gallery with staged, stock images, consider including real photos of your company’s products, staff members and events with captions explaining what each photo represents and weaving the images together into a narrative.
Reviews
Reviews are an integral component of Local Search Marketing and are one of the most impactful SEO factors you can leverage to increase Google rankings, as well as contribute significantly to customer engagement, brand management, and social proof.
Review quantity, diversity and quality are essential in local rankings; Google uses them as three of its criteria to assess any business’s local standing.