A struggle that local businesses continue to struggle with is local SEO. A business can invest a ton of money into tv advertising, print, radio, etc. but if a consumer goes to the web to search for your business and they can’t find you – is it really worth it? This is not to say that using other forms of paid advertising is not advantageous for your business, but you might want to spend some time investing in the basics first.
To help boost your local SEO, the basics can begin with doing a Google search for your business. You’ll probably see a variety of business directories appear on the search engine results page. The results here could make or break your local SEO success. It’s important to click through each of the results and see what the contact information is for each. If the name, address and phone number aren’t the same on each business directory, you’ll want to spend some time updating each to make sure all of the information is consistent. This can be as small as the difference between “S” or “South” in an address. Having consistent name, address and phone numbers (NAP) for your business is the best way to show search engines accurate information for them to drive results to one place when customers are searching for you. For example, if you have two business directories and both have a different business name, Google will not understand that these are both listings for the same business. It’s basically like you’re giving search engines the opportunity to create competition against your business.
Updating these results can take time, but it’s worth your time to do this. As always, give your Marketing Specialist a call! They can be a great resource to help work your way through this process.