The 15 Step Local SEO Checklist [Grow Big Locally In 2021]
Making use these 15 key elements and strategies will help your company’s website build a strong SEO strategy that will actively bring in business and achieve your company’s goals.Â
About the Author:
Divia Acharya, Founder, and Managing Director at Digitallydiv strong believer and want nothing more than seeing you and your brand become amazingly victorious. With an MBA degree from Swinburne University Melbourne in tow and a great passion for digital marketing ,Social Media Marketing & Blogging, I am here to stay & grow!. I DESIRE a passion for helping people gain their confidence in Online marketing.
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Search engine optimisation (SEO) is vital to the success of your company in your target local market as a local business or company looking to create a strong local presence. Your customer is constantly searching for, and they do so through a search engine, the same type of goods and/or services that you offer. Do you want to miss out on those precious local searches that could carry consumers right through your doors or right to your website? . There are important 15 step checklist for a successful Local SEO.
1.Claim and Optimise your Google My business(GMB)
Overlooking Or even neglecting the tremendous importance of a verified, strong Google My Business(GMB) listing is one of the most common mistakes that companies seeking a strong local presence make. It takes you as a Biz Owner, less than 50 minutes to setup the GMB Listings and by doing this you can harvest a wealth of incoming website traffic, phone calls, store visits, etc. for your business and your company.
If anyone looks for a business or location near their location, they’ll find local results through Google, in places like Maps and Search. For example, if you search for “Vet Practices” from your mobile device, you will be able to find local results. Google will be trying to show you the kind of Vet Practices you’d like to find in the vicinity. To boost the local ranking of your company, use Google My Business to view and update your business information. As a small company aiming to attract local consumers, it is even more important to use GMB in a right way and on a regular basis. Make regular posts on GMB in relation to your offers and promotions. Google My Business is also highly integrated through a range of apps and features that are used by many people on their mobile devices or web browsers.
Related: How to Optimise Google my Business.
2.Make Use of SEO-Friendly URLS(slug)
When contemplating their search engine optimisation technique, several businesses ignore the URLs themselves. This can be a big error that in terms of organic search rankings it may earn, can penalise that website. Search engines appreciate and reward clean, well-written URLs that are closely connected to the subject covered by the content of the page.
For instance, compared to a URL that explains precisely what that website is about, http://www.yourwebsite.com/20.11.2019/567/contcat us would certainly not get any benefits in the eyes and rankings of search engines. Google may also mark it as a “spammy link,” leading to a possible penalty that would damage the search rankings of your blog/website.
3.Pay Attention to Technical SEO
Many business leadership does have a basic understanding of the importance of search engine optimisation in today’s world. However, they may not be aware of the emphasis put on optimising backend features of their website and how much they lead to higher search rankings.
These SEO backend elements are often referred to as tech search engine optimisation elements.  Make sure you’ve done the SEO right both On-page and Tech . This involves items like making sure your website is fast in loading, Optimising images, having a correct sitemap and have it uploaded to Google and getting the AMP sorted, SSL Certificate and so on. It also involves ensuring that all the pages are indexed on a continuous basis.
4. Outbound Links to Get Credibility
Outbound links are simply links used in the content of your website, blog, etc that guide readers to a different website/domain. Search engines give your website a higher ranking authority and more credibility when you have high-quality outbound links within your own content. It demonstrates that your website is reputable enough to source other pages and that you are “playing nice” with these high-quality websites that are likely to be part of your industry. Don’t forget that when you have an outbound link on your website, you can only link to reputable websites that are likely to have a high domain authority on their own.
5.Know Your Keywords and long tail Key words
As a local company, you need to be very knowledgeable about keywords and key phrases that you want to rate in the related searches. They should naturally be weaved into your content but do not over do it. Google rewards content that is genuine and user can understand well and not overly Keyword stuffed.Â
Don’t forget that today’s search engines are more than prepared to understand when content uses “keyword stuffing.” This is when the author or content designer actually applies a desirable keyword or key phrase to the content over and over again hoping that higher search rankings would be achieved. The reverse is true of that. Most major search engines would actually penalise your website for the “keyword stuffing” act.
6.Be Mobile friendly
Do not neglect the importance of mobile optimisation on your website when it comes to your search engine optimisation considerations. Pages that are not designed for mobile browsing on cell phones or tablets are currently highly penalised in search rankings. It is now established that if a user searches from a mobile device or tablet, the search results generated by the top search engines will rank websites that are designed for a higher mobile view.
7.Do your NAP right...
According to the Moz Local SEO Ranking Survey, NAP knowledge is the top five ranking element. It contributes to on-page signals and citation signals, all of which lead to a strong local presence.
According to Moz’s findings, only Google My Business signals (including NAP in the business profile), signal review and connection signals are more relevant for local pack rankings, with behavioural signals, social media signals and customisation all considered to be less important. Keep you NAP( Name address Phone Number)consistent across all the channels including GMB and Social media Business accounts.
8.Leverage the Power of Google Maps
Besides providing contact details on your website, it is also important that you have an actual map on your website to show your exact location. You should add a code to the contact page on your website to add a map to your premises.
In addition, some of the details mentioned below will also be very useful on your website, and in particular on the contact website
Strategy, research, and best practice are what set Sentius apart as an SEO agency
Opening and closing hours of the place of Business
Driving directions from well-known landmarks to your premises
Mobile call connections for direct calls to cell phones
Social networking connections and options for sharing
9.Use Social media to Spread the word.
You’re probably already mad at promoting your company.
Adding even more marketing tasks may seem like overkill. However, neglecting to integrate social media into your marketing strategy will cost you – not only in terms of potential new customers who don’t know you (and who your rival is able to collect!), but also in terms of maintaining your current customers. By developing a relationship with your customers, your chances of keeping them increase, and their future lifetime value increases.
Social media is now a proven tool for businesses to achieve concrete results and achieve tangible goals. Not to mention that social media also generates a wealth of SEO-friendly backlinks to your website that will only double-down on your search rankings.
10.Reach Out your Customers for Reviews
When is the last time you made a big purchase without doing a preliminary search for a product or service? When you check, how much emphasis do you put on customer reviews that are literally posted on a company website or even websites like Amazon and e-bay by a complete and utter stranger?
It’s true that your prospective target audience is actively searching the internet to learn more about your business, goods, services, or experience before opening their wallets or making a commitment. Take advantage of this by asking pleased customers, or all customers, for their feedback. You can either connect them to a specific website, use an in-mail platform to rate their experience, or have them respond directly
11.SEO Titles and Descriptions
Many times small or medium-sized businesses forget about ON-page search engine optimisation. The use of meta titles and descriptions is a crucial feature that is still in trend as 2021 rolls. Most website platforms have a dedicated tab that is reasonably easy to use. Simply put, it’s worth taking the time to compose titles and meta descriptions that are written to both search engines and the reader on your website.
On-page SEO factors:
Content of your website:
It’s important to approach this with the idea that “content is king.” You can do all the optimisation about keywords, descriptions, and internal links you want, but if the content on the website sucks, no one will visit your site.
Keywords for your services
Although keywords are less important than they were a few years ago, keyword optimisation is still the backbone of SEO today. That said the emphasis moved to longer-tail keywords that better suit the search habits of today’s Internet users. Think about your customers and the keywords they’re looking for and then build and customise the content of your website around those keywords. For Instance , If you are vet in a Melbourne Suburb, Most of your service page landing page should have Vet-Practice-(Melbourne Suburb name). Ex: Vet practice in Berwick Or #1 Vets in Berwick.
Tag Line:
The title tag refers to the title of the web page, or the main title you see in the SERP, which is one of the most significant on-page SEO factors after your actual on-page content. Keep this title down to 65 characters or less (choose your terms wisely!)
Meta Description
A meta description is a short description that appears on the search engine results page below the URL and in the social post below the headline. It explains the material on that page but more importantly, it’s written to help your web page stand out in the SERP results list. Keep a description of less than 155 characters to insure that your full description is included in the search results.
The ALT Text
Alt text refers to a term or phrase that can be applied to an image file to help insure that it is indexed, so search engines understand what it is because they can’t see images (they only see text). For example, if you use a graphic in your blog that outlines some of the injection moulding tips, you can save the old text for that image as “Automotive-Injection-Moulding-Tips,” and that graphic will start to rank for that phrase in the results of the image.
HTTPS/SSL
Page protection is more critical than ever and allowing Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security technology is key to improving your security, reliability and visibility. By allowing SSL, you increase the probability that a third party will not come between your web server and the web server of your users, ensuring that the information entered on the site is secure. Likewise, Google actually prefers sites that are SSL-enabled, making it important to increase visibility.
12.Schema Markup
Schema markup is code that helps search engines to understand your content and better represent it in the search results.
Schema markup allows rich snippets, which often have higher click-through rates than ‘regular’ search results. This means more traffic to your web.
However the primary purpose of the markup is to help search engines understand the content better.
It’s no accident that schema.org, the group behind the markup, was founded a year before the Google Knowledge Graph—the knowledge base of entities and the relationships between them—came to existence.
And you guessed it the schema markup is one of the primary sources for this data.
13.Focus on Backlinks and Referrals
Backlinks (also known as “inbound links,” “incoming links” or one way links”) are links from one website to another website. Google and other big search engines consider “votes” backlinks for a particular website. Pages with a high number of backlinks appear to have a high organic search engine rating.
Backlinks, also referred to as inbound links, are a very important part of any SEO strategy. These are the types of links that search engines position at the highest level of significance when looking at link elements as part of their ranking results. The number of websites with different domains that have some content that links people back to your website, the more importance that the top search engines give you in their ranking process. Who’s not interested in being more important to Google?
In addition, a higher volume of backlinks leads to a higher volume of forwarding traffic, creating more possible leads on your website.Â
14.Add Internal Links
Internal linking, is simply providing links within content or particular areas of sites that will carry visitors to other pages on your website. These internal links improve your SEO results by building a better site experience and customer journey for your website users, making your site look better at search engines and rank more positively.
15.Improve User Experience of your website
Finally, Last but not the least Improve your website user Experience.
There is a common misconception that SEO simply involves link building and including relevant keywords in content. While these are two important strategies, search engines consider a lot more than this when ranking websites.
Elements of user experience (UX) have been rolled into SEO practices. Is your site fast, secure and mobile-friendly? Do you have quality content that engages users and encourages them to stay on your website? Is your site quick to load and easy to navigate?
These are all elements that are considered by Google and other search engines when determining how to rank your website. With that in mind, read on to discover more about how UX fits into search engine optimisation.
Over the years, Google has improved tremendously. The search engine giant continually upgrades its algorithms to insure that users get the best results possible. Every update that Google has made has been built to produce more user-focused and user-friendly results. We’ve seen improvements to SERPs, such as information panels and rich snippets, and algorithm updates that demonstrate how important UX has become to Google. All you need to do is look at RankBrain to see that this is the case.
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Wrapping up:
When it comes to ranking your website on the search engine result pages, there is no denying that all these key factors listed above play an important factors and UX( User Experience) is one of the most critical factors. If you want to increase your online visibility and ultimately boost your conversion rate, you need to align these SEO strategy.
If you are looking to Improve LOCAL SEO of your Business to reach out for more locals , Take a look at our Local SEO Service pack Or contact us via the below form.
The 15 step Local SEO Checklist
Grow your Business big Locally in 2021.
Use of these 15 key elements and strategies will help your company’s website build a strong SEO strategy that will actively bring in business and achieve your company’s goals.
Your business can be much more
profitable!
Increase Your Local Presence!
Local SEO can set up your business as a local brand and build on its reputation. Individuals are more likely to position their trust in a brand that seems genuine. Including information on your website that demonstrates your company is tangible and local is a long way to establishing relationships.
We know SEO can take time, but don’t you worry, we’re in it for a long time to come.Â
Please call us today and have a talk with our experts. We will figure out just what it takes to get your SEO up and running!
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