A Critical Guide to Local SEO in 2020
This critical guide to local SEO in 2020 is intended to drive your local business success. While some of the tips are one-off activities where you can set it and forget it (e. G. Making sure your nap is clearly written on your site), other tasks, such as building reviews and publishing locally relevant content, is an activity your organization needs to do on an ongoing basis for long-term local SEO success. Another powerful tool that will serve your business well is press releases. Keep both in mind as you work toward better online visibility and we look forward to seeing you on the first page of google!.
We’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg on what local SEO is.
Local SEO & overall organic SEO is incredibly important to the success of your online marketing efforts. Because of this, a lot of marketers implement various SEO tools including local SEO tools, some of which can be found for free, in order to track, measure and analyze their SEO efforts. You may already even be using some of the top local SEO tools, such as google analytics. However, it’s important that you don’t forget about your local SEO efforts as well. There are two tools in particular which you can look into further and research. The tools are Local Viking & Local Falcon.
Best Practice Local SEO Tactics
Doing your own local SEO is possible with some basic web design and technical knowledge, but there are more complex areas that “do-it-yourselfers” probably won’t be able to handle. Technical SEO updates like schema markup / json-ld, website speed, and design optimization require a deeper understanding of SEO and web design practices. High-level SEO tactics like robots. Txt, link building and link disavow can result in lost rankings or google penalties, when not implemented by a knowledgeable, white-hat SEO team.
Now that you’re officially set up on google my business, let’s move on to some quick local SEO best practice tactics for your website.
Optimize for Google My Business
At the very least, you should apply local business schema , or structured data markup to every web page to optimize your website for local SEO. It’s near impossible to get into the infamous google local pack without this. Local schema is additional code that you can add to the pages of your website to make it easier for search engines to understand who you are, what you do, where you’re located and how you may be relevant to people who might be searching for your type of products or services.
You also need to at least cover the basics when getting things set up on Google My Business. You must fill out as much of the info page inside your GMB dashboard. This includes adding a keywords sparingly throughout the business description. It will serve you well to include at least 300-350 words at a minimum.
Be sure to also properly optimize at least 12 photos that have been geo tagged and uploaded on to your pc. You should also always include NAP metadata in your exif photo files. This is a coveted secret in the SEO community.
Lastly, you will need to also ensure that you select the appropriate main category and especially alternative categories in your specific industry. Many marketers miss out on just how important it is of a ranking factor. You must go onto a site such as PlePer.com to research the best categories selection for your specific industry.
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