Once you have a website and begin to build your online presence, it’s time to use it to your advantage. SEO, or search engine optimization, makes your business easier to find in Google (or Bing, or Yahoo, or any other search engine).
Half of visitors who conduct a local search on their phone visited the store within a day (34% of computer and tablet users did the same). This is why it’s so important that your business is searchable, and findable, on the web. If those visitors aren’t finding you, they’re finding your competitor.
Elevate your business above the competition and attract more business with these SEO tips.
Correct your data
It’s imperative that your name, address, and phone number are correct on all local listings and directories. You never want someone to be unable to find you or call you because your info was listed incorrectly. It’s an easily avoidable mistake, as long as you pay attention.
This is especially true if you’ve acquired another company. You’ll want to take over their listings to minimize confusion.
Claim your Google listing
When you search for a business on Google, a company listing will show up in the right column. This will have the address, phone number, reviews, hours, images, and more. Surprisingly, only a fraction of local businesses have claimed their Google listing. Claiming your listing gives you more power over the data, and it gives you the ability to add your own photos and to update hours when needed. To claim your listing, Google requires an easy verification process, requiring either a phone call or postcard with a verification code.
Use location-specific pages
Search engines use the pages on your site to decide who you are and where you should rank. To help your business appear in local searches, use location-specific landing pages and optimize the metadata, tags, titles, and descriptions. Add your address, a map, and local phone number. If you have family entertainment centers in 10 locations, create a landing page for each location. You can also add geotargeting to the landing pages, which targets visitors based on their IP location. This helps your site rank when searchers are nearby.
Generate Online Reviews
One study found that 67% of consumers are influenced by online reviews. In other words, they are very, very important.
Customers are turning to review sites like Yelp, Google Reviews, Facebook, etc. to determine whether or not they’ll visit your business. What will they see when they get there? We recommend asking happy customers to give you reviews in order to set a baseline. If potential customers see no reviews, they might pass you up for someone else with a reputation. To combat negative reviews, we suggest using a review monitoring platform to funnel reviews to a manager for quick responses and follow up. Address the problem quickly and follow through with it.