Tesharn, Author at Improve My Search Ranking https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/author/tesharn/ Improve My Search Ranking Wed, 16 Oct 2024 15:16:53 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 A beginner’s guide to organic lead generation for local businesses https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/a-beginners-guide-to-organic-lead-generation-for-local-businesses/ Wed, 15 Feb 2023 09:00:23 +0000 https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/?p=21702 Generating leads is an essential aspect of any business, and local lead generation is no exception. In today’s digital age, businesses can leverage various digital marketing strategies to reach potential customers and generate leads within their local area. This beginner’s guide will provide local businesses with a comprehensive understanding of the local lead generation and […]

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Generating leads is an essential aspect of any business, and local lead generation is no exception. In today’s digital age, businesses can leverage various digital marketing strategies to reach potential customers and generate leads within their local area.

This beginner’s guide will provide local businesses with a comprehensive understanding of the local lead generation and the tactics you can implement to drive leads for your business.

What is organic lead generation for local businesses?

Local lead generation refers to the process of attracting potential customers in your local area who are interested in your products or services.

The goal of local lead generation is to increase brand awareness, engage with your target audience, and drive sales for your business through non-paid, organic mediums, such as social media, online content, and search engine optimisation.

The importance of local lead generation

Local lead generation is crucial for businesses that operate in a specific geographic area. By focusing on generating leads within your local area, you can improve your chances of converting those leads into paying customers. Additionally, local lead generation can help you to build relationships with your customers, establish a strong reputation in your local community, and increase brand loyalty.

Strategies for effective local lead generation

Optimize your website for local search engines: Ensure that your website is optimized for local search engines, including Google Business Profile, Bing Places, and Yahoo Local. This will help your business to appear at the top of local search results, making it easier for potential customers to find you.

beginner-guide-local-businesses

Here are a few tips that can help local businesses get started with organic lead generation:

1. Utilize social media

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can be effective for reaching potential customers in your local area. By creating a strong presence on these platforms and engaging with your audience, you can increase brand awareness and drive leads.

2. Leverage local directories and listings

List your business on local directories and listings such as Yelp, Foursquare, and Yellow Pages. This will increase your visibility in your local area and help you to reach potential customers who are searching for businesses like yours.

3. Publish high-quality and SEO-friendly content

Creating high-quality content for local organic lead generation is an essential part of any successful digital marketing strategy. Quality content not only helps to create trust and build relationships with local customers, but it also helps to increase visibility and generate leads.

Local organic lead generation occurs when people in a specific geographic area find and interact with your business through organic search engine results. Quality content is the key to getting noticed in organic search engine results. To ensure your content stands out, it should be well-researched, relevant, accurate, and memorable.

When developing content for local organic lead generation, it is important to focus on keywords that are relevant to your target audience. Keywords should be incorporated into the content naturally, as this will help to increase its visibility in organic search engine results. Additionally, content should be tailored to the local audience, as this will help to establish a connection and resonate with them.

4. Optimise your website for search engines

Optimizing your website for SEO is another important way to increase visibility and generate leads from local organic search engine results. SEO involves optimizing your website content, structure, and other elements to make it more visible and appealing to search engine algorithms.

This includes making sure your website is mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. The user experience on your website also matters a lot, and so does the loading speed of your website.

5. Offer special promotions and discounts

Offering special promotions and discounts to customers in your local area can be an effective way to drive leads. By incentivizing customers to try your products or services, you can increase the likelihood of them becoming paying customers.

Unless you’re advertising to promote discount offers, using special promotions can be another organic way to increase lead generation.

Conclusion

Local lead generation is a crucial aspect of any business that operates in a specific geographic area. By implementing the strategies outlined in this guide, you can effectively reach potential customers in your local area, increase brand awareness, and drive leads for your business. With a strong local lead generation strategy, you can grow your business and succeed in today’s competitive market.

 

Related articles

 

Need help with your Local Business SEO?

SEO Company for Small Businesses

 

Local SEO by Location

London SEO Agency

 

UK SEO Agency

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9 beginner keyword research, SEO, and content marketing tips for new businesses https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/9-beginner-keyword-research-seo-and-content-marketing-tips-for-new-businesses/ Tue, 14 Feb 2023 09:00:13 +0000 https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/?p=21695 Search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing are essential tactics for helping local business websites increase search traffic and visibility. Implementing the right keyword research, SEO, and content marketing strategies can help you maximize your website’s reach and visibility in local search engine results. In this post, we’ll provide 9 tips to help you get […]

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Search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing are essential tactics for helping local business websites increase search traffic and visibility. Implementing the right keyword research, SEO, and content marketing strategies can help you maximize your website’s reach and visibility in local search engine results.

In this post, we’ll provide 9 tips to help you get started with keyword research, SEO, and content marketing.

Tip 1: Use search engine suggestions to find keyword ideas

One of the best ways to find keyword ideas for your website is to use search engine suggestions. As you start typing a keyword or phrase into the search engine, you’ll be presented with a list of related keywords and phrases to consider. These search engine suggestions can help you find keywords that you may not have thought of.

Here is an example.

keyword-research-research

Tip 2: Use keyword research tools

In addition to using search engine suggestions, you can also use keyword research tools to find related keywords and phrases. These tools can help you identify which keywords have the most search volume and which are the most competitive. They can also provide additional information, such as search trends and related topics.

Some popular keyword research tools are:

Tip 3: Analyze your competitors

Analyzing your competitors’ websites can provide valuable insights into the keywords and content they’re targeting. This can help you identify opportunities to differentiate your content and optimize for the right keywords.  It can also help you stay up-to-date on the latest SEO and content marketing strategies your competitors are using.

Monitor their websites and social media channels to stay informed of any changes they make, and use this information to inform your own strategy. Some of the most popular competitor comparison tools include:

Additionally, use tools like Google Alerts to track any mentions of your competitors online and stay ahead of the competition.

Tip 4: Target long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are phrases that are more specific and usually have lower search volumes. While they may not get as much traffic as more general keywords, they can be easier to rank for and can help you target more niche audiences.

When optimizing for local SEO, it’s important to focus on long-tail keywords that are relevant to your local area.

Tip 5: Optimize on-page elements

On-page optimization is an important part of SEO. Make sure you’re optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, headings, images, and other elements to ensure that your content is SEO-friendly. This will help your content rank higher in search engine results and attract more organic traffic.

If you have a WordPress website, you can use one of the following two plugins to optimize on-page SEO elements easily:

Tip 6: Create high-quality content

Creating high-quality content is essential for SEO success. Make sure that you’re creating content that’s informative, engaging, and relevant to the keywords you’re targeting. This will help you rank higher in search engine results and attract more organic traffic.

Tip 7: Promote your content

Promoting your content is essential for generating more search engine traffic. Share it on social media, reach out to influencers, and use other tactics to maximize your content’s reach and visibility.

BuzzSumo is an excellent tool that can help you identify content that’s popular on social media. The more popular a piece of content is, the easier it may be to promote it. In addition, BuzzSumo can also help you identify influencers that can help you promote your content online.

Tip 8: Monitor your performance

Monitoring your performance is key to understanding which content and keywords are driving the most traffic. Use analytics tools to track your website’s performance and identify opportunities for improvement.

We recommend using a combination of Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor key metrics. You may also need a tool like SEMRush to keep an eye on keyword rankings and performance, in addition to other technical SEO issues.

Tip 9: Update and refresh old content

Updating and refreshing old content is a great way to improve your rankings and attract more search engine traffic. Revisit older posts and update them with fresh content to keep them relevant and increase their visibility.

You can also use this opportunity to optimize for new keywords and improve the user experience.

Conclusion

By following these tips, you can effectively optimize your website for local SEO and content marketing. Additionally, make sure to update and refresh old content to keep it relevant and increase its visibility, and monitor your competitors to stay informed of any changes they make.

 

 

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3 organic opportunities for local business SEO https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/3-organic-opportunities-for-local-business-seo/ Mon, 13 Feb 2023 14:43:50 +0000 https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/?p=21690 As a local business, it’s important to have a strong online presence to reach potential customers in your area. One way to do this is through search engine optimization (SEO), which can help your website and online profiles rank higher in search results. In this article, we’ll explore three organic opportunities for local business SEO […]

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As a local business, it’s important to have a strong online presence to reach potential customers in your area. One way to do this is through search engine optimization (SEO), which can help your website and online profiles rank higher in search results. In this article, we’ll explore three organic opportunities for local business SEO that can help to improve your visibility and attract more customers.

These include:

  • Creating and optimizing a Google My Business profile,
  • Claiming and verifying business profiles in local directories, and
  • Implementing a local keyword strategy.

By taking advantage of these opportunities, you can improve your online presence and reach more potential customers in your area.

1. Optimizing the Google Business profile

A Google My Business (GMB) profile can help with local SEO by providing accurate and up-to-date information about a business to Google, which can then be displayed in search results and on Google Maps.

Having a completed and verified GMB profile can improve a business’s visibility in local search results, as it allows the business to appear in the “Google Maps” section of the search results.

This can increase the chances of being seen by people searching for businesses in the area, and can also help to improve the overall online presence of the business. Additionally, GMB allows posting updates, photos, and special offers to the profile, which will help to keep the information fresh and attract more customers.

A word of caution, however.

You have to be targeted and specific when optimizing your Google Business profile. Otherwise, it’s easy to get carried away.

One example of that would be the inclusion of categories.

You should include only relevant categories that best define your local business. Adding too many and/or irrelevant categories will lead to negative results, as Darren Shaw, founder of WhiteSpark, highlights.

https://twitter.com/DarrenShaw_/status/1089919297432969216

3-organic-opportunities-local-business

2. Claim your business profile everywhere else

Claiming business profiles in local directories, such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Yellow Pages, can also help with local SEO. By claiming and verifying these profiles, businesses can ensure that their information is accurate and up-to-date across multiple platforms.

This can improve the visibility of the business in local search results, as these directories often appear high in search results for local businesses. Additionally, having a presence on these directories can increase the chances of receiving positive reviews and ratings, which can also improve visibility and credibility in local search results.

It’s important to note that it’s also beneficial to keep the information consistent across different directories, including the business name, address, phone number, website, and hours of operation. This will help to create a coherent and consistent online presence for the business, which can improve its visibility in local search results.

Read more about the importance of NAP consistency across the web and why it is important for local SEO.

3. Use a local keyword strategy to guide your content and SEO efforts

A local keyword strategy is a method for identifying and targeting keywords that are relevant to a specific geographic location. It can help businesses to improve their visibility in local search results by making sure that their website and online profiles are optimized for the keywords that people in their area are searching for.

There are a few key steps to creating a local keyword strategy:

  • Research: Identify the keywords and phrases relevant to your business and the local area. This can be done using tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs.
  • Identify local keyword variations: Identify variations of keywords that include the name of the city, state, or region you are targeting. For example, “pizza delivery in Bristol” or “best Chinese restaurant in Lancashire”.
  • Optimize your website: Use the keywords you’ve identified in your website’s title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and throughout the content on your site.
  • Monitor and adjust: Monitor your website’s performance in local search results and adjust as needed.

By implementing a local keyword strategy, businesses can improve their visibility in local search results and attract more customers in their area.

 

Related articles

 

Need help with your Local Business SEO?

SEO Company for Small Businesses

 

Local SEO by Location

London SEO Agency

 

UK SEO Agency

Essex SEO Agency | Kent SEO Agency | Sussex SEO Agency | Surrey SEO Agency

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A 10-Point local SEO content checklist to increase traffic and sales https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/a-10-point-local-seo-content-checklist-to-increase-traffic-and-sales/ Tue, 11 Oct 2022 08:00:21 +0000 https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/?p=21226 How do you make sure that each web page you publish on your local business website is perfectly optimized for organic traffic and sales? We’ve got you covered. Here is a 10-point local SEO content checklist that will help you increase traffic and sales by keeping you on the right track. 1. Primary keyword research […]

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How do you make sure that each web page you publish on your local business website is perfectly optimized for organic traffic and sales?

We’ve got you covered.

Here is a 10-point local SEO content checklist that will help you increase traffic and sales by keeping you on the right track.

1. Primary keyword research

High-quality and helpful content begins with thorough keyword research. Before you start writing online content, you need to understand the following:

  • What are people in your niche searching for online?
  • Which keywords are they using in search engines?
  • What is their search intent for each search query?

We can divide local keyword research into two parts: primary keywords and secondary keywords.

By primary keyword research, we mean the main keyword phrase that each web page on your local business site will target. It’s important that each page on your website targets a unique keyword phrase with different search intent. Otherwise, you may end up with keyword cannibalization.

The easiest way to do primary keyword research is by analyzing content gaps between your and your competitor’s websites.

2. Secondary keyword research

Once you have identified the main keyword that you want to target with your web page, the next step is to shortlist a list of secondary keywords. These secondary keywords are semantically related keywords (or LSI keywords) that add context to your web page for readers and search engine crawlers.

Additionally, you can also rank for these secondary keywords and increase the total traffic potential of each page you publish.

For local SEO content, it is also important to find and include geo-specific keywords. For example, your main keyword might be “plumbing services”. But a geo-specific secondary keyword could be “plumbing services in London”.

3. Meta title

Each web page should have a unique meta title. It is an important search engine ranking factor. The meta title should be keyword-rich and accurately explain the contents of the page. 

Make sure that the meta title you write isn’t too long or too short. ~50-55 characters is considered the ideal length.

4. Meta description

Although meta description is not a direct search engine ranking factor anymore, it is still an important part of the puzzle.

Well-written meta descriptions encourage more search engine users to click on your web page. A higher click-through rate (CTR) not only brings additional organic traffic but can also play a crucial role in improving your search engine rankings.

Use a tool like our SERP snippet tool to preview how your meta title and meta description look before you publish your web page.

5. Images

A good content piece has useful images that add value to readers. For local businesses, it may include customer testimonials, photos of the business location, or product shots.

Here are a few tips when it comes to adding images to web content:

  • Make sure to add a few images. They make your content less monotonous and more engaging.
  • The images should be SEO-friendly. Add relevant keywords in the file name and alt text descriptions.
  • Make sure the images are all web-friendly, compressed, and small in size. Images that are too big in size can slow down your web page and negatively affect search engine rankings.

6. Internal links

Internal links play an extremely important role in search engine optimization.

Before you publish your new web page, make sure it has contextual, helpful links to other pages on your website.

After publishing, find other thematically related pages (ideally, the pages with high page authority) and build relevant links to the new page you just published.

This will help Google bots and your website visitors find the new page easily. In addition, these internal links will also pass valuable link equity that will help the newly published page in search engine rankings.

7. Outbound links

Outbound links are links to external websites. Do-follow outbound links can pass link equity outside of your website, but that shouldn’t be the main concern.

The main goal is to make your web page the best possible resource for readers — even if that means including relevant and helpful outbound links.

Google judges a page’s worth by the value it adds, and outbound links can add value to readers.

8. Readability

The content must be easily readable. 

Use bullet points, images, shorter sentences and paragraphs, and a well-structured outline to create a pleasant reading experience. You can use free tools like Hemingway to see how easy-to-read your content is. Aim for a score of less than 8.

In addition, the design of your web page also plays a big role.

9. Website speed and user experience

The longer your web page takes to load, the tougher it’ll be for your page to rank on Google’s first page.

Check out our free guide on how to increase the website loading speed.

10. Call-to-action

Last but not least, the goal of a local business web page is not just to drive traffic. It is to drive sales and revenue.

And that happens when you include a powerful call-to-action that is in line with the search intent of the user.

 

Related articles

 

Need help with your Local Business SEO?

SEO Company for Small Businesses

 

Local SEO by Location

London SEO Agency

 

UK SEO Agency

Essex SEO Agency | Kent SEO Agency | Sussex SEO Agency | Surrey SEO Agency

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Google allows businesses to set auto responses to common questions https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/google-allows-businesses-to-set-auto-responses-to-common-questions/ Tue, 02 Aug 2022 08:53:57 +0000 https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/?p=20953 A new Google Business Profile feature now allows GBP managers to set up automated responses to questions that customers and prospects frequently ask. With this new feature, Google Business profile managers will be able to do two things: Similar to how chatbots usually work on business websites, you can suggest questions for people to ask […]

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Google-allows-businessA new Google Business Profile feature now allows GBP managers to set up automated responses to questions that customers and prospects frequently ask.

With this new feature, Google Business profile managers will be able to do two things:

  1. Similar to how chatbots usually work on business websites, you can suggest questions for people to ask when they are about to send a message to your business.
  2. In addition, you can also set up automated responses to frequently asked questions.

The maximum character count for suggested questions would be 40 characters, while automated answers can be up to 500 characters. Google would allow businesses to create up to 10 frequently asked questions (FAQs).

One of the best parts of this new feature is that businesses can add links to their answers. That’d be an excellent way to redirect prospects and customers to pages that contain detailed information on a topic.how-to-enable-automated-faqs

How to enable automated FAQs

Follow these steps to automate FAQs for your Google Business Profile.

  1. Search for your business on Google.
  2. Click Customers.
  3. Click on Messages.
  4. Click on the Menu.
  5. Browse to Message Settings.
  6. There you’ll see an option for ‘Manage frequently asked questions.’
  7. Click +Add a question.

To learn more about these new features, refer to the text and instructions on Google support pages.

Takeaway

This feature is a welcome addition as it will allow business managers to automatically respond to frequently asked questions. More responsiveness can lead to better engagement, better user experience, and higher sales and revenue potential.

If you have not activated automated FAQs yet, we highly recommend that you do so. Responding to frequently asked questions would be automated (and easier), and you can also initiate the conversation with customers the right way by presenting the right questions upfront.

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Google My Business mobile app has been shut down https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/google-my-business-mobile-app-has-been-shut-down/ Tue, 19 Jul 2022 10:31:41 +0000 https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/?p=20933 Last year in November, Google announced that it would retire the Google My Business app in 2022. At that time, Google also rebranded from Google My Business to Google Business Profile. Well, now is the time. Google has officially pulled the plug on the Google My Business mobile app, and it is now no longer […]

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Last year in November, Google announced that it would retire the Google My Business app in 2022. At that time, Google also rebranded from Google My Business to Google Business Profile.

Well, now is the time.

GMBGoogle has officially pulled the plug on the Google My Business mobile app, and it is now no longer functioning.

The Google My Business mobile app was available for Android and iOS mobile devices. It allowed business owners and managers to see various insights and metrics and communicate with customers

The Google My Business mobile app was available for Android and iOS mobile devices. It allowed business owners and managers to see various insights and metrics and communicate with customers.

The Google My Business mobile app was available for Android and iOS mobile devices. It allowed business owners and managers to see various insights and metrics and communicate with customers.

What’s next?

Google now expects local business owners to use the Google Maps app or Google Search for managing their businesses.

Make sure that you have the latest version of the Google Maps app installed on your mobile device and are logged in with your Business Profile. That’d allow you to receive notifications directly from the app.

This news would not come as a surprise for many business owners because Google had announced that this was coming. In addition to the original announcement, Google also emailed businesses earlier this week, reminding them to replace the now defunct Google My Business app with the Google Maps or Search mobile app for their local business management.

Here are the contents of the email:

“Beginning July 2022, the Google My Business mobile app will no longer be available, and the Google Maps app will be the best place for replying to customer messages on mobile. Turn on your notifications to ensure you’re notified by email and Google Maps push notifications for new incoming messages. You can also respond to messages from your Business Profile on Google Search.”

What to do?

If you have been using the Google My Business app to communicate with customers, view insights, and manage your business listing, you need to switch to Google Maps or Search.

There may be a very small learning curve, so it’s best to get started as soon as possible.

Google-My-Business-Mobile

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Google Updates Indexation Policy; Limits Crawler To 15 MB HTML Content https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/google-updates-indexation-policy-limits-crawler-to-15-mb-html-content/ Tue, 12 Jul 2022 08:25:07 +0000 https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/?p=20874 In a surprising development, Google has updated its Googebot’s help document and announced that the Googlebot would crawl only the first 15 MB of a web page. It means that anything on the web page beyond that 15 MB cut-off point will not be crawled, indexed, or included in search engine rankings calculations. Here is […]

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In a surprising development, Google has updated its Googebot’s help document and announced that the Googlebot would crawl only the first 15 MB of a web page. It means that anything on the web page beyond that 15 MB cut-off point will not be crawled, indexed, or included in search engine rankings calculations.

Here is what Google’s updated help document states:

“Any resources referenced in the HTML such as images, videos, CSS, and JavaScript are fetched separately. After the first 15 MB of the file, Googlebot stops crawling and only considers the first 15 MB of the file for indexing. The file size limit is applied on the uncompressed data.”

Google’s John Mueller briefly elaborated on this change and confirmed that this change would only apply to the HTML file itself.

“It’s specific to the HTML file itself like it’s written. Embedded resources/content pulled in with IMG tags is not a part of the HTML file,” clarified John Mueller on Twitter.

What is the potential impact of this change?

Theoretically, this change should not affect a large majority of websites. That is because the best SEO practices recommend keeping HTML pages to 100 KB or less. If a website has been following the recommended SEO practices, and the HTML file size is around that 100 KB mark, it should be completely fine and unaffected by this change.

However, not all websites follow the recommended practices to a T. If you potentially have some important content on a web page beyond the 15 MB cut-off point, it will likely be affected.

Besides, it may sound theoretically worrisome, but 15 MB is a reasonably big size limit. So most websites should be fine.

Google PageSpeed Insights

Google-Pagespeed-insighta

The easiest way to identify if this is going to be an issue for you or not is to use a free tool like Google PageSpeed Insights and check the HTML size of your web pages.

What SEOs and webmasters could do

SEO-Webmasters

There isn’t much to do except follow the best SEO practices that keep the page size as small as possible.

If you run into the aforementioned issue, there are two steps you can take:

  1. First, make sure that all the important content that you want Google to crawl and index is included near the top of the web page.
  2. Second, do not encode images and videos directly into the HTML. That’s because, as John Mueller clarified, embedded content that is pulled in with IMG tags wouldn’t be a part of the HTML file and, therefore, won’t be counted when calculating the 15 MB HTML file.

If you have any questions about this update or how you ensure your website is in proper shape for the best possible SEO results, feel free to contact us.

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How Small Businesses Can Increase Local SEO Visibility https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/how-small-businesses-can-increase-local-seo-visibility/ Mon, 11 Jul 2022 15:27:49 +0000 https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/?p=20881 Is your local business website not getting enough impressions and struggling in search engines? Don’t worry. Here are six tips on how small businesses can increase local SEO visibility (and, therefore, traffic and revenue). 1. Find and fix technical SEO issues Sometimes, a website is dragged down in search rankings because of technical SEO issues. […]

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Is your local business website not getting enough impressions and struggling in search engines?

Don’t worry. Here are six tips on how small businesses can increase local SEO visibility (and, therefore, traffic and revenue).

1. Find and fix technical SEO issues

Sometimes, a website is dragged down in search rankings because of technical SEO issues. By fixing those issues, you can easily eliminate that problem and enable your site’s pages to rank higher on the SERPs.

Google does not want to send traffic to a website that is plagued with technical, structural, and UX-related issues. Therefore, if you want to increase search visibility in a relatively shorter period, start by fixing technical SEO problems.

You can use a tool like SEMRush or Ahrefs that offers very comprehensive site audit features. Even a free trial can give you enough time to find and fix the issues.

Here are some of the many common issues you should find and fix during this step:

  • Crawling errors
  • Indexing errors
  • Broken pages
  • Canonical tag issues
  • Orphan pages
  • Missing or duplicate H1s
  • Missing or duplicate meta titles Etc.

2. Establish relevant backlinks

SEO-Backlinks

Sometimes, you will notice that you have the perfect web page that may even be better than your competitors’ pages in many ways. But it is still not outranking them on the SERPs.

And the reason could be backlinks — or the lack thereof.

Generally, if two pages are of the same quality and relevance, the web page with a higher number of relevant backlinks will rank higher in search engines.

Therefore, establish more relevant backlinks to your site and different web pages if you want to increase local SEO visibility.

You can use the broken-link technique or the tried-and-tested guest-posting method to increase the number of backlinks to your website.

We also recommend incorporating local link building into your SEO strategy. Links demonstrate trust and credibility, and relevant local links can help build the required level of endorsement and trust that Google needs.

3. Optimise your Google Business Profile

optimise-google-business-profile

One of the most important things you can do to increase local SEO visibility is to optimise and improve your Google Business profile.

Over the years, the Google Business Profile has become more comprehensive, interactive, and richer. Make sure that you are utilizing all the available elements and attributes to make your business profile as useful as possible for local searchers.

Today, optimising the Google Business Profile is just about providing the basic business information such as the address and phone number, but it is also about helping local searchers by showcasing new offers and events, uploading photos and videos of your business, interacting with them via Messaging, by responding to reviews, and displaying the relevant health-, safety-, and payment-related information.

Make sure that you are offering local searchers the full experience with a business profile that is 100% complete.

4. Optimise for voice search

Voice-Search-SEO

Voice searches have become very common — and they are expected to become even more popular in the future.

Local SEO, in particular, is greatly influenced by voice searches. Over 50 percent of consumers use voice search to find a local business. And nearly 50 percent of voice searches pull information from featured snippets.

If you can optimise your local business website and content for voice search, you can become a part of that traffic share. It can dramatically improve the search engine visibility of your local business website.

5. Leverage structured data

SEO-Structured-Data

Structured data is super important for local businesses that want to improve search engine visibility and drive more traffic to their websites by increasing the organic click-through rate (CTR).

Using structured data may lead to richer search engine results — which can help you occupy a larger space in search results (increasing your site’s visibility on the SERPs) and drive a higher organic click-through rate (increasing organic website traffic).

Learn more about structured data and schema in this post.

6. Plug the gap in your content strategy

Content-Marketing-Strategy

One of the biggest reasons why you do not have a lot of search engine visibility may be because you are not competing for enough keywords in your niche.

If that is the case, it’s time to revisit your SEO and content strategy and plug all the gaps.

The easiest way to identify if that is the issue is by using a tool like SEMRush and Ahrefs to see how many keywords your website is ranking for vs. how many keywords your direct competitors are ranking for.

Both these tools also allow you to export a list of all the keywords that you are not targeting, but your competitors are.

By expanding the scope of your SEO content strategy and targeting those keywords, you can significantly increase search engine visibility for your local business website.

If you want more tips on improving local SEO, check out our most comprehensive local SEO guide (2022 edition). And if you need any help, give us a call.

 

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Google Search Console to have a new report for indexed videos https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/google-search-console-to-have-a-new-report-for-indexed-videos/ Wed, 18 May 2022 13:40:34 +0000 https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/?p=20718 At Google’s annual I/O conference, the company announced that they would soon add a new report to Google Search Console. This new report will provide more information and data regarding the indexing status of videos that a website may have. The current state of video reporting in Google Search Console Currently, the video reporting in […]

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At Google’s annual I/O conference, the company announced that they would soon add a new report to Google Search Console. This new report will provide more information and data regarding the indexing status of videos that a website may have.

The current state of video reporting in Google Search Console

Currently, the video reporting in Google Search Console is fairly limited. If published videos on your website have structured data markup, Google Search Console has options to check the validity of that markup and show the impressions those videos receive.

What’s new?

Google search console indexed videos

Once the new report is added, you will be able to also check the indexing status of videos on your website as well as the landing pages those videos appear on.

The new video page indexing report in Google Search Console will provide a rundown — a summary — of all the indexed pages on your website that has videos on them. In this report, you will also be able to find if all the videos were indexed or not by Google.

Like with most other Google Search Console reports, you will have the option to notify Google of issues that have been resolved by you via a Validate Fix button.

Here is a snapshot of what the video page indexing report may look like.

Google Video Indexing

 

 

Video indexing

Video indexing status

In addition, you will also have the ability to check the indexing status of your videos by entering the URL of the landing page in the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console.

This report will quickly provide information on the indexing status of the video as well as the web page the video is on.

Why local businesses should care about this report

Local SEO

Video is important for any online business — especially for local businesses that can use videos to showcase their business, business location, neighbourhood, and products.

With this new report, local businesses will have much more control over the videos on their website and if Google is indexing those videos or not.

With these new additions to Google Search Console, you will be able to see how many web pages on your site have videos, how many of those videos Google has indexed, examine the reasons for unindexed videos, debug and fix issues, initiate re-crawling of affected URLs and videos, and more.

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Google updates its Google Ads 3-strike policy before its June 2022 implementation date https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/google-updates-its-google-ads-3-strike-policy-before-its-june-2022-implementation-date/ Wed, 04 May 2022 08:10:26 +0000 https://www.improvemysearchranking.com/?p=20670 Almost one year ago, in June 2021, Google announced its new three-strike Google Ads policy. The policy was based on a “three strikes, and you are out” policy system. Last week, Google announced new updates to the policy — just before its implementation begins in June 2022.   What’s the three-strike policy? According to the […]

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Almost one year ago, in June 2021, Google announced its new three-strike Google Ads policy. The policy was based on a “three strikes, and you are out” policy system.

Last week, Google announced new updates to the policy — just before its implementation begins in June 2022.

 

What’s the three-strike policy?

three-strike-policy

According to the new policy by Google, Google will issue strikes against your Google Ads account when you have recorded multiple violations of Google’s policies.

Before this update, the strikes were limited to enabling dishonest behaviour, unapproved substances, and dangerous products or services policies. Now Google has added nine additional policies to the three-strike system.

Here are the nine new policies that will now be applicable from June 2022:

  1. Compensated sexual acts
  2. Mail-order brides
  3. Clickbait
  4. Misleading ad design
  5. Bail bond services
  6. Call directories, forwarding services
  7. Credit repair services
  8. Binary options
  9. Personal loans

How will the new system work?

Google-system

After the first violation, a strike will be issued by Google against your Google Ads account. The owner of the Google Ads account will be notified about the strike via an in-account notification and email.

According to Google, a Google Ads account can receive a maximum of one warning and three strikes per policy violation.

  • Warning. As per Google, mistakes can happen. Therefore, your first violation will be treated as a mistake, and a warning will be issued against it.  But there cannot be a second warning.
  • First strike. If you violate a policy for the second time, you will earn your first strike. As a result, your account will be put in a temporary hold state for three days. If you do not take any action — acknowledge or appeal the strike — the continue will continue in this state. It is important to note that when an account is in a temporary hold state, it cannot run any ads. You will be able to access the reporting function, however.
  • Second strike. If you violate the same policy again within 90 days of receiving your first strike, you will earn a second strike that will serve as a final notice and put your account on a temporary hold for seven days.
  • Third strike. If you violate the same policy for the third time within 90 days, your Google Ads account will be suspended.

What should local business advertisers do?

Local-Business

If you have a local business that relies on Google Ads for traffic, sales, and revenue, we recommend that you audit and review all your ads before June 2022.

Carefully read all Google’s policies and make sure your business does not violate any. We also recommend reviewing all the old policy violation alerts and emails that you may have received in the past. While those violation alerts won’t result in a warning or strike, they can give you insights into some of the common mistakes you frequently make.

Suspension of a Google Ads account for a local business can be devastating — especially if you rely on automated bidding policies. Even if you create a new Google Ads account, it will take a long time for Google to learn about your ads and audiences again to get you the same CPC and CPA.

On top of that, the operational disturbance can be disastrous for businesses.

Work on your SEO strategy

SEO MArketing

In the meantime, we also recommend working on a robust SEO strategy in case you haven’t been working on it already.

Relying on Google Ads for instant traffic and sales is a good idea, but ultimately you want to rank for important keywords organically, so you can cut down on advertisement costs and increase your ROI.

If you want to work on your SEO strategy and need help, give us a call.

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