10 Small Business SEO Tips for Local Optimization

Small Business SEO Tips

Fewer people look at a directory and flip through pages to look for businesses that they require the help of. With the internet closing in and making global reach possible, the majority of people instead go online and use the search engines to get results. As a small business owner, you need to make sure that your business lists among the top of the search engine results so that people will contact you first. It is safe to assume that from the people who are looking for results, a very small number actually think of going to the second page of the search results.

So how do you optimize your website to ensure that you are at the receiving end of many business calls? Here are 10 small business SEO tips:

1. Ensure that you have listed your business on sites like Bing, Google +, Yahoo Local etc. Then your business will show up when customers search for a particular service.
2. When you come across a customer that is particularly pleased, ask them to review your service across the sites mentioned above. You will obviously have to ensure that your service is of a high standard so that negative reviews are not also posted as this will be detrimental to your business. People check for positive reviews and if you have several, that is a distinct advantage to your business.
3. Make sure that people can contact you using a local telephone number. If people have to pay extra to call you, you will probably not get that call. No one wants to pay to make an inquiry.
4. Make sure that your business details are consistent and thorough. This means that the address, phone number, website address should all be the same over all listings whether in print or online. This helps to prove that your business is legitimate.
5. Update your website regularly. This doesn’t mean that you should confuse customers by changing the look of your site so that they think they are on a different site every time. Instead, this means that you need to have good content on your site that is updated frequently and keeps up with the times.
6. Write your site’s page titles such that they include important keywords for search engines to index them accurately.
7. Connect with other local businesses so that you have links to your site. This helps your site as a whole and makes it easier for customers to contact you.
8. When using keywords in your articles, keep in mind that since you are looking for local optimization you need to have your location in the keyword so that it shows up on relevant searches.
9. Do a bit of research before using keywords. Look on the internet for popular keyword searches for your business and then use the keywords in your posts so you know you are targeting the right customers.
10. Network –  Get your name out there. Use social media to advertise your website. Share your posts and articles on the blog side of your website. The more people you reach, the more likely you are to be successful.