How To Dominate Local Listings… And Take Over The World!

Bonus Local Listing SEO tips:

• Track website visitors coming from your local listing(s).
  Consider making your website URL a UTM link so you can monitor traffic coming from your business listing in your Google Analytics reports. This will allow you to gain a deeper insight into which pages they navigate to, and you can get some actionable insights to improve the user experience for local customers.
• Smart and relevant keywords for local SEO
  Adding service-related keywords as part of your business name can help you rank higher in local search results (ONLY DO THIS IF IT MAKES SENSE FOR YOUR BUSINESS). For example, we chose to do this for one of our awesome clients, Blue Moon Rising in Deep Creek Lake, MD. We wanted them to get maximum exposure when someone searches for “Cabins on Deep Creek Lake”. Go ahead and do a search on Google and see who takes the cake as the first organically listed business for this search query. By making this simple update, we saw a great improvement on visibility with their local listing ranking position.
• Reviews do more than share opinions
  It should be no surprise that local business reviews are extremely important. Not only do potential customers read reviews before making a decision on which place to go, but they also play a role in how you rank in local searches. We’re finding that more often, people are searching for things that are the best or top-rated. People will often include a city, state or simply put “near me” to find the best closest options. For example, “best restaurant in Alexandria, VA” “top-rated steak house near me” “best dentist near me“. Google’s local search algorithm will take searcher intent into consideration when returning results to their users. This is a combination of evaluating the number of reviews for the business and the aggregate rating of those reviews. Ask your happy customers to leave you an honest review. Sounds easy, right? Not always. Let’s face it. We humans can be lazy or just too busy sometimes. Make it as easy for them as possible. Here are a few tips you could consider.
  • Does your business send customers follow-up emails? Include a direct link in the email that will take them directly to where they need to be to submit a review. Find out how!
  • Be mindful of Google’s review policy. While offering incentives may seem like a good idea, you don’t want to take away from the credibility of the reviews submitted. It is completely acceptable to ask happy customers to share their experience on Google for other potential customers to read but be wary of offering any type of monetary incentive.

Gain Insights From Your Google My Business Dashboard

Once you’ve created or claimed your local business listing on Google, you will have access to the insights tab. From here you can keep an eye on how and where people discovered your business listing through search, the actions customers take on your listing (website clicks, phone calls, and direction requests), and the amount of phone call and photo views. If these stats improve over time, you know you’re moving in the right direction!

What About Other Local Listing Sites and Voice Search?

Google is the #1, but they’re not the only one. Make sure your local listing information is consistent across all platforms – this is extremely important for voice search. Voice search is on the rise and should not be ignored.

• As of 2014, more than half of teens (13-18) and 41% of adults use voice search daily.
• Queries are used to call someone, ask for directions, and get answers
• More than half of queries will be voice search by 2020.
• There are 30x more action queries on voice search.
• 22% of voice queries in 2016 were people looking for local information

How do you get voice search to work for your local listing SEO?

• Optimize ALL local listings
• Completeness and consistency
• Cross-check your listings and see how they appear across the web and ensure there are no duplicates 
• Add structured data to your website
  • Markup helper (JSON)
  • Testing tool

Don’t Forget About The Basics of Your Online Presence

Of course, your local listing rank isn’t everything you need to consider when trying to gain new local business. Don’t forget about the basics – make sure you check all of these boxes to maximize your online potential.

• Is your website responsive/mobile friendly? Find out why your site should be responsive.
• Does your website do a good job conveying your brand and message?
• Does your online presence make you stand out from your local competition?
• Does your site structure and navigation make sense for your target audience?
• Is it easy to find your contact and business location information?
• Does your website load quickly on desktop and mobile? Find out!
• Do you have a strong Social Media presence? Are you engaging with your current and potential customers online?
• Can your current and potential customers join an email list to receive updates and special offers from your business to keep bringing them back?
• … and so, so, so much more.

Need help?

Attend or host an Ironistic workshop

Ironistic hosts a number of local educational workshops designed to help you learn about specific ways you can improve your business online. Get in touch with us to host a workshop for your organization.

Let’s join forces and TAKE OVER THE WORLD!

You don’t have to go it alone. We have a whole team of dedicated and experienced professionals that would love to work with you to achieve your business goals.