Over time, Google realized that for a large number of searches, especially mobile searches, users were attempting to find businesses or information near to them. If a user searches for “dentists” in New York, finding a really high quality dentist in California doesn’t help them. Because of this, Google attached significant value to local search results and the metrics that influence them. To help your local presence:
Google My Business Profile
Your Google Listing is the first thing that most people will see when searching for your business name or seeing your business appear in the maps search. It identifies the name, location, contact, and service area of your business and serves as a foundation for Local SEO.
Action Items: Set up or claim your Google My Business profile and add as much content as possible to it, describing your business, setting up hours and more.
Local Listings
Locally-focused sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor help to provide backlinks and create listings for you online, helping you to be found by more local searchers. These can be created automatically, or through a software service such as MozLocal.
Action Items: Set up and optimize (add content to) local profiles, or use MozLocal to add to the top 12 local profiles at once.
So, there you have it. A high level look at the importance of SEO and the tactics used to improve ranking on Google and other search engines. This is the first of a series of articles we’ll be doing on Digital Marketing tactics and trends. Stay tuned for more information on Social Media Marketing, deep dives into Local SEO, and a look at emerging social platforms like LinkedIn (What? LinkedIn as an emerging platform?). Let us know if there’s anything in particular that you’d like to hear more about!
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