3 Local SEO Tips To Boost Traffic

As the algorithms for Google and other search engines continue to evolve to provide more accurate results for visitors, brands are becoming increasingly concerned with having a leg up on the competition. The simple solution: local SEO.

With new developments in search engines, establishing a strong local SEO value in multiple locations is more important than ever. That's why we're sharing local SEO tips to help drive more traffic to both your online and physical store.

3 Local SEO Tips

Now is the time to focus your efforts on driving customers to your store. Get started by following these local SEO tips:

• Establish a unified NAP - name, address and phone number
• Claim your local business listings
• Maintain your citations

1. Establish A Unified NAP - Name, Address and Phone Number

It's critical for companies and websites with a local presence to include name, address and phone number (NAP) information on their sites, within their page titles, and on other onsite SEO.

This easily accessible and visible information places a higher emphasis on your business's location. Search engines take into consideration the location of your stores in relation to the geography of the city and distance to the center of the city.

Having this NAP information unified in one place and throughout your website will help improve your local citations as well as organic rankings.

2. Claim Your Local Business Listings

Although there may be more important SEO factors, Google and other search engines still emphasize and consider local business listing claims. Claiming all of your local business listings verifies that:

• You own a valid business
• You're permitted to sustain its online presence

It's important to note that when claiming your listings, use only your business's account. Though it's safe to have a staff member or third-party specialist claim these listings for you, it's unsafe to have another company do this. If the relationship between you and the other company ends, you may not have control of your own local business listings and therefore, are unable to manage them.

3. Maintain Your Citations

Once you've claimed your listings, it's equally as important to update and maintain them. Displaying consistent information on the citations across the Internet plays a huge role in your local rankings.

Search engines cross-reference your NAP information to help validate the legitimacy of your business. That's why it's vital for your listings to be consistent across different channels.

For example, you wouldn't want your Yelp page to have one company address, while Foursquare has a completely separate location. Not only will this confuse shoppers who have never physically been to your store, but it will also hurt your local SEO.

Claiming and maintaining every citation across the entire Internet can take a lot of time and effort. That's why using tools, like Yext and Moz Local, are helpful in claiming and keeping citations accurate.

Yext

Yext has partnered with over 50 citation websites so that you can update all 50+ citations with the click of a button. Additional features - like adding calendar events, bios and products - come with a Yext subscription.

You can even scan your listings to see how your business currently appears across the internet. It shows you the information that is provided for each listing and tells of any inconsistencies.

Moz Local

Moz Local does something similar by sending your company’s information to the big data aggregators, who then distribute the information to different citations.

Both of these tools are great options to help improve not only the presence of your citations, but also boost your website’s visibility.

Conclusion

Now you have the knowledge and tools to start optimizing local SEO for your business! We hope these 3 local SEO tips help to drive more traffic to your store and increase your online presence.

Interested in learning how Groove can help improve your local SEO? Contact us through the form below with any questions or concerns, and our team will be happy to help!