Take advantage of your locality by having your business rank in search results for your area – this is called local SEO. If you offer a service or product from a bricks and mortar location, consider the geographical location of your business as a veritable and potential customer base. By tweaking your SEO to take into account various local factors and stipulations, you can position yourself as the preferred provider in your immediate business jurisdiction. Here’s what we suggest:
The Google Suite
As you know, Google has a range of features that your business could and should avail of. Register your business with Google and you can then create a Google My Business profile (formerly called Google Places). This profile is a snapshot of your business information and highlights your location, opening hours and contact details prominently on Google search result pages. With this profile also, Google allows you to place a pin at your business location on Google Maps so that you can be searched for and found on Google Maps and your business can be used as a GPS destination with its own dedicated set of to and from directions.
Local Listing and Comparison Sites
If applicable to your business, get listed on any local information sites and also on comparison websites. When looking to spend money on a product or service, people usually research a few different options (i.e. your competitors) before making their final decision. They can do this by either looking for something specifically local to them (on a local listing site) or by the particular product/service they need (on comparison sites).
Having a presence on these websites where your business is backed up by positive testimonials can sway the potential customer in your favour as they will see a reputable business in their local that provides what they are looking for.
Local Keywords
By simply adding your business location into your keywords, you instantly localise the search results so that those who browse online by location such as ‘Italian restaurant Kilkenny city’ are directed to your website. If this Italian restaurant based in Kilkenny focused on keywords that did not feature location such as ‘fresh pasta dishes’ and ‘Italian restaurant with vegetarian options’; it would be lost in the sea of numerous Italian restaurants that populate the search results page.
Location Information on Website
While this may seem the most obvious avenue, it is important to remember to clearly show on your website the location or locations of your business. Whether based in a central or more remote location, it is essential that your website details maps and locations to your premises. Do not make potential customers have to seek out this information which should be clear to them. If they cannot find it, they run the risk of leaving your website altogether due to confusion over whether you are based in their locale.
Take advantage of local SEO to tap into the potential customers that are close by to you and your premises. Here at Ireland Website Design, we design fully responsive websites that are optimised for search engines. Our SEO experts can of course optimise this to suit your locale and before we even design your website, we can give you a free SEO report of your current website if you would like to see where changes and improvements can be made.
