If the term Local SEO looks familiar it should! We’ve covered it before in a previous episode and thought it was the #1 Mistake Small Business Owners Make (Episode 5). Today we’re going to go back to that topic but look at from our 2018 lens of lead generation. We’ll cover how to set up your google my business page and how to rank so you can actually generate new opportunities with it!
Show Outline: Lead Generation with Local SEO
- What is Local SEO – Map Search basically.
- Setup – Go to Google.com/business and just sign up. It’s free.
- NAP – Name, Address and Phone number – should be consistent all over the internet. So if your business name is “Atlanta’s Top Financial Advisor – ABC Financial” on Google My Business then it should be that way on all your online stuff.
- Website – Ask yourself, does my website reflect my “locality?” To rank you need to make sure your site has your “NAP” on it but also reflects some locality. More on this later.
- Google will want to verify your location by mailing you a letter or postcard. Do you want your business location public?
- Posts – new to 2017 is the ability for business owners to use Posts to help drive business, announce events, or do simple notifications. Make sure that any promotion you do elsewhere is present in the posts.
- How to Rank on Local SEO – remember the rule, “all things being equal.” Each item isn’t important by itself but taken together it’s what causes you to be able to “beat” a competitor.
- Proximity – Unfortunately, this is a big factor. If you want to rank locally, you’ll need a less crowded area or a location near where you want business.
- Reviews – getting more reviews isn’t just good for ranking purposes but it’s also good for humans. Not only reviews, but how you respond to your reviews. When getting reviews, choose Google first, facebook second and if you’re paying for a service that one 3rd.
- Links – In SEO it’s geting links is one of the, if not THE most important thing you can do to boost your page. Links come in different forms.
- Backlinks from directories – These give you a bonus of a NAP and a link.
- Social Profile Links – Google thinks that most businesses should have a facebook, twitter and google+ account. So at least set those up and point a link to your site.
- Social Signals – This could be brand searches so in our example, how many people are typing in “Atlanta’s Top Financial Advisor – ABC Financial” and other social signals are things like check-ins. One “hack” is to ask your customers to search for you on google and then check in.
[bctt tweet=”One #leadgenertion #growthhack is to ask your customers to search for you on google & then check in, for #localseo.” username=”@jarvisteam, @4rdmarketing”] - Landing Page Relevance – Remember what we said at the top. One idea here is to think about how different your area is (the physical location) relative to a broader sense. For example, in Buford, the demographics are small business owners and families concerned about the local schools. While that sounds generic, the demographics in parts of Atlanta are single, “professionals” that tend to be younger and/or with less familial obligations. This is of course stereotyping but it should help you craft a page that caters to your audience which is both human and google.
