It doesn’t matter if you’re a shoemaker, real estate agent, or restaurant owner, your website needs top-notch local SEO. Google will rank local results from a given geographical area before all the other businesses. To boost your local SEO, there are a few actions you need to take. To make sure you remember them all, we’ve come up with this handy list.
By Xavier Beaunieux
1. Boost your website’s local SEO
To ensure your website benefits from excellent local SEO, you need to follow these simple steps:
- Include your contact info (name + address + telephone number) on each page of your website.
- Systematically add your location (city, municipality, region) and activity in your keywords.
- Integrate Google Maps onto your site.
- Opt for a “responsive” site so that readers can access your content from any screen, whether they have a Smartphone, touch tablet or computer.
Handy Tips
Google’s has the following criteria for how it will locally rank businesses:
- Relevance – Your offer needs to match the Internet user’s query.
- Location – Geolocalisation is necessary. Google will give priority to businesses that are close to the Internet user.
- Popularity – The more reviews a company has, the more they’ll benefit from an excellent online reputation and the better their rankings will be.
2. Sign up for Google My Business (an absolute must for local SEO!)
Here’s how to do it:
- Create a Google account and then go to the Google My Business website and create a (free!) listing for your company.
- Integrate a map so that your clients can easily find you.
- Specify your category.
- Include your name + address + phone number.
- Fill in your hours.
- Describe your activity.
- Upload your photos. (Make sure they’re good quality!)
Handy Tip
The more complete you make your description (address, hours, activity, phone number, etc.), the better the chance that your information will match Internet users’ local queries (i.e. the location and not just the activity).
3. Generate buzz
Here’s how to generate buzz…
- Sign up for specialized directories (Yellow Pages, 411.com…), local sites (town halls, tourist offices, shopkeepers’ associations) and reviews portals (Yelp, Naomao.com…).
- And if you haven’t already, amp up your social media presence and activity (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn…).
- Try to land some “quotes” and mentions on other people’s platforms. (If other sites mention your name, address and telephone number, Google’s ranking robots will make the connection with your Google My Business account.)
- For SEO purposes, try to get some backlinks. These are links from authoritative sites that will lead readers to you. One way to score some backlinks is to write articles. You can also post on social media, create interesting content or participate on various forums.
- Try to gather some customer reviews, either directly on your Google My Business Page or via social media.
- Respond to Internet users’ comments.
Key Points to Remember:
- Do not underestimate the importance of ensuring you have NAT (Name + Address + Telephone) on your pages.
- Google My Business is an essential step.
- In local SEO, remember that quotes, as long as they are good quality, are almost as important as links that lead to your site.
- Customer reviews are an integral part of local SEO.
