People believe SEO is useful only to those who have online businesses or who provide online services. However, offline business – local businesses – can benefit from online presence. To make that online presence strategic, local businesses, too, need Search Engine Optimisation. Today customers research online before buying ANY product. So, it is necessary for the offline stores to have an online presence. If I don’t know that you sell my required products, why would I come to your store? It is necessary for the offline stores to showcase its products just as an ecommerce site would do.
Online Presence Is Not Enough – SEO Is A Must For Local Business
Anybody who owns a local business can set up a website (or free blog if you want to save money) and claim that his business has an online presence. But in reality, just setting up a website will do nothing. You have to add content, images, videos to the website. These contents should be written and formatted in such a way that they are relevant to Google. Your local business website has to assure Google that the website is relevant to the people searching for a particular term. And the work of this assurance is done by SEO optimized contents. Only when Google thinks that your website has relevant and dependable content, will it let the website rank higher.
SEO Checklist For Local Business
According to a local SEO company in Melbourne, SEO for local businesses is slightly different from the SEO meant for online services. Here are the major SEO tips that will help your local be found online so that your business flourish offline.
Google Maps
Google Maps plays an important role for the local businesses. Your physical business must have a presence on Google Maps. Without that, local residents and people who come to the vicinity of your store will not be able to see online that you have a store in that place.
Google My Business
Integrated tightly with Google Maps is Google My Business. Anybody who wants to be seen on Google Maps gets onboarded on Google My Business too. With Google My Business you can showcase your products directly on Google Maps. Google My Business also helps you list these products on the search results too.
Dedicated Website
Although Google My Business offers a free website, the functionality of the website is not that great. There is no blog post feature. If you want your business to stand out, you must have a dedicated website. Today setting up a website has become very easy. With the help of strategic blog posts, you can rank high on the Google search results page. Blog posts are essential if you want your business to be seen by many people.
Keywords Keywords Everywhere, Not A Word To Waste
Now that you have a website and you are writing blogs; you need to make sure that your blogs are ranking higher on the search engine results page. How to do that? You have to include keywords relevant to your business while writing blogs. Suppose you sell sports kits. You have to write blogs about the products you sell. You have to talk about bats, gloves, racquets etc. Not only that, you have to mention where you are located. Only then, when a person searches for ‘where to buy tennis racquet in abc town’ will your store show up in the search result.
Authority
Even if you go on adding relevant keywords to your blog, your website might not be able to rank higher. Why? Because there are already many helpful contents on these topics. So if you are a sports kit seller, your website should be updated with facts and news about the sports. The more informative your posts are the more likely it is going to be shared. The more likely your informative blog posts are going to be linked by other websites. Without such external links, your website cannot gain authority. Guest posts can also help in this regard.
Youtube Videos
Suppose you have a smartphone store. You can easily start a Youtube channel and post unboxing videos and product reviews. If you remain sincere and dedicated, your Youtube channel can grow impressively. You can then leverage this media to advertise your store and products.
Social Media Marketing
Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter are the goldine of potential customers. Creating a Facebook page with your business name is a must. With the help of social media you can reach and engage with potential customers in a much more intimate way.
Paid Advertising
Sometimes you have to eat vitamin C pills instead of oranges to get faster results. With paid ads, your business can reach potential customers in a comprehensive and sure-shot way. The best thing about paid advertising is the ability to target. For example, if you have an apparel store, you might want to reach ‘women who are 25 to 30 years old, live in abc town and have jobs.’ With paid advertising you can achieve this granularity.
Bottomline
Local business isn’t going anywhere. You have to change your game plan. Use these SEO tips or contact a local SEO company and see your business flourish.
