Your Small Business Needs
A Strong Local SEO Strategy
Try Our FREE Local SEO Audit
How does your online presence rank? If you want your target audience to find your business on the interwebs, you need solid SEO. Especially if you're a small, local business!!
Our free Local SEO Audit analyzes four key local SEO factors in one report, enabling you to see how your website ranks on search engines like Google and Bing, what keywords your audience is using to find services or products like yours, where your competitors are ranking, and so much more.
The bottom line? It shows you EXACTLY what local SEO areas you need to improve in order to rank higher on search engines and gain more digital exposure among your target demographic.
All at the click of a button...
What's in a local SEO audit?
On-Page Local SEO
Gain insight into On-Page SEO factors that influence your ranking for local searches on search engines like Google and Bing.
Local Rank Checker
Discover the position (ranking) where Google and Bing's local search platforms display your business or website for your keywords.
Google My Business
Google's business listings are crucial to local business success. Learn where your business lies compared to the top 10 ranked businesses in your area.
Links & Authority
Understand your domain authority by seeing how many links and backlinks your domain has compared to your competitors.
...and more!
Why is local SEO important?
You're a local business with a brick and mortar location. Maybe you sell some of your products and services online, maybe you don't. You have bills to pay, inventory & supplies to order, and payroll to cover, among other things. So what's the point of spending time, effort, and money on improving your SEO strategy when the big chains have a leg up on grabbing that top organic ranking spot anyway? Why not play the shorter game and nudge out the competition with a high-quality search ad? Or maybe your strengths lie in curating an awesome social media community, so why not rely on your Instagram feed and social shares to bring the customers in? Those activities contribute to your overall search engine optimization, sure, but there's a lot more to optimizing your local SEO under the surface.
Listen up. You NEED to have a solid local search engine optimization strategy. Here's why:
Let's walk through a quick example. Say you're in a new city and looking for a cup of coffee. What do you do? Chances are you'll open up a search engine like Google and type in "coffee shops near me". First of all, take a look at what happens when we type that into Google. See all those long-tail local keywords that pop up? Yeah, people are actually searching for those things, and pretty often too. They want these things, right now. And provided Google knows where THEY are, where YOU are, and what you OFFER, there's potential for a match made in local business heaven.
Now, here's another quick SEO tip, just because we love to help small businesses edge out the big guys...😉
Since we've determined that all those suggested searches that Google shows us when we type in "coffee shops near me" are things people are really searching for on a regular basis, why not use that to beef up your on-page SEO strategy? If you're not already using Google's suggested searches to help you with your keyword research, this is the sign you've been looking for to start doing that. After all, Google kind of knows what they're talking about when it comes to what the people are searching for!
Alright, so we've done our search for "coffee shops near me" and within seconds we're presented with the results. When your audience is doing a local search like this, they're presented with something along the lines of what you see in this next screenshot. So a map with some hot spots, and usually three top local search rankings for what they're looking for.
In this instance (and for most other local searches) the searcher is not going to click "More places". Meaning if you don't show in those top three hits, they're going to pass you over. Enter the importance of having an optimized local SEO strategy.
In our example, two of the three results that appeared are indeed for big chain coffee shops. However, the other result, The WoodRack Café, is an independent, locally-owned small business. And they're outranking Starbucks in this case, which is no small feat! This means that the WoodRack Café has put in the work to earn that local search ranking, and the fruits of their labour will certainly be an influx of customers walking through their doors to pick up a locally brewed cup of joe. To really drive the point home, the closest coffee shop to the location this search was done from is actually none of the three results that showed up. So the bottom line? Local SEO, while certainly a long game, is worth your time, effort, and money.
What's the first step to a strong local SEO strategy?
Knowing where you stand right now.
You've heard it before and you'll hear it again: you can't improve what you don't measure, and you can't measure what you don't know. So get in the know!! SEO can be overwhelming, we get it. But trust us when we say you need to understand where you are right now if you ever want to start taking steps to improve. And we've seen above that strong local SEO means more visibility which means more customers.
We've made it easy to get started with the click of a button. Simply try out our free local SEO audit, no strings attached! You'll get a report with information about your link and domain authority, your Google My Business rankings, your overall search engine rankings for top keywords, and the state of your on-page SEO.
And if you ever have questions about your report or need help figuring out the next steps, we're here for you, just get in touch!
Still not sure? Check out these local SEO stats.
(They might just blow your mind)
During a local search
92% of people will select a business that appears on page 1. So if you're on page 2, you're likely not getting that customer.
Mobile local searches
lead to the searcher visiting a brick and mortar business and making an in-person purchase 78% of the time.
Of all Google searches
46% of them (for context, that equals about 1.75 billion searches per day) are for local businesses.
See what some of our AWESOME clients have to say about working with us!
Shannon Routley
Corporate Designer, Disbrand
Dragan Marjanovic
CEO, Mediashaker
