To help a new or existing website rank better with local search results, there are a few things that can be done to help the search engines. We have listed the following items in the order that we would suggest them being performed.
1) Establish Your NAP.
NAP is short for Name Address Phone. How you establish this is crucial for effective Local SEO. Your NAP needs to be CONSISTENT across the web. Listing your company name differently such as Spyridon vs Spyridon Tech vs Spyridon Technologies or the address as Proline Ct. vs Proline Court can have a huge impact. You must figure out how you are going to format your NAP and then implement it EXACTLY the same in all places like your website, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The search engines need to be able to match your NAP in all locations as the same in order to best identify your business in local search results. Your NAP should be located for sure on the main page of your website.
2) Establish A Google My Business Account.
If you haven’t already done so, go to https://www.google.com/business/ and create a new account. This service is free from Google and is crucial to having Google properly index your company / website. One of the first items to do is to VERIFY your business with Google. This involves Google sending you a postcard in the mail with a special code on it. Once you receive the code, you can enter it into your account and your business will be verified. By doing this, Google will know you are a real company and can trust your account profile. This is also the place to centrally manage your Google analytics, reviews, maps, etc.
3) Establish Local Citations.
A local citation is any mention of a business out on the web, with or without a link to your website. This is where your NAP really comes into play. You will want as many citations out on the web as possible with your consistently formatted NAP. This builds strength in the search engines ability to find your company and list it when someone does a search for a local business. For stronger Local SEO you can of course go and manually request listings on various indexing sites such as Yelp, Citysearch, Yellowpages, etc. but that can take a lot of time and effort. We offer Citation Management services to help you establish consistent listings across the web’s most important sites.
4) Encourage Your Customers To Leave Reviews.
Online reviews on services like Google or Yelp can help your Local SEO as well as provide your customers with an important purchasing decision tool.
Of course overall standard SEO practices will play a major roll in your Local SEO. You should continue to implement solid on and off site SEO practices, with the two most important SEO factors being quality content and inbound links. We would be happy to assist you with any of the above items as part of our Webmaster Services.
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