Local SEO is a potent way to drive people to your physical business location. It also helps ensure that your business appears real, legitimate, and authoritative within the Google search results of nearby potential customers.

Consider these 5 things when optimizing your website for Local SEO in 2022:

Local SEO Thing #1: Optimize For Voice Search

No one thinks that customers always and only search for things with their voice (although 41% of users now search using their voice once per day). However, we strongly suspect that the way your customers search for your product or services is closer to the way they speak; people tend to search with natural language (phrases or meaningful sentence fragments) more so than with the keyword-only searches typical in the past.

When someone is out on the town and feeling hungry for pizza, they do not typically Google “Pizza.”

Instead, they will look for ‘Pizza Near Me’ or ‘Best Pizza In [CITY NAME].’

Optimizing your site and content for the way people actually look for things online will help you rank better for these localized searches. It will also futureproof your site for the continual growth of voice assistants.

For more talk on voice search, check out How to Optimize for Voice Search.

Local SEO Thing #2: Be Consistently Consistent

The little details matter when it comes to Local SEO. Presenting your business information consistently—especially the physical address—is crucial because Google assesses your legitimacy through such consistency.

It may sound like nitpicking, but if your business is located at 123 North Christmas Ave, then you should always refer to it as such—and never 123 N. Christmas Ave. Be consistent with your location information because it helps reduce issues with local listings, and it shows the bots you care about your local business data.

Local SEO Thing #3: Actually, this is Hyperlocal SEO

You don’t just live in your city, you live in a neighborhood. So do your customers.

When optimizing your content for hyperlocal SEO, make sure you include the neighborhood you are located in and also the locations your customers may live, work, or shop in. This helps drive local searches including those specific keywords, as the algorithms will understand the local nature of your content and deliver it to local searchers.

If you have a business in Bushwick, Brooklyn, your business is located THERE—not just the more general New York City. Optimizing for all three—Bushwick, Brooklyn, and New York City—will net you the best possible ranking potential.

Thing #4: Own Your Listing

Your Google Business Profile listing is one of the most important tools in driving local traffic online. Make full use of it.

If you haven’t already claimed your listing, do so. If you have, then optimize! Here are five easy to complete areas you can use to improve your Google Business Profile listing.

1. Flesh out your business description to include language that will drive a user to want to engage with your business.
2. Showcase your products directly within your listing.
3. Add photos. Photos help boost engagement on your local listings.
4. Use the Posts functionality of Google Business Profile; it’s like a micro-blog for your local listing page that gives information to users directly within the search results and allows you to promote sales and products to local searchers.
5. When it comes to your Primary Category within GMB make sure you choose wisely. If you are a pizza place, make sure you choose the category Pizza Restaurant and not just Restaurant. This attention to detail is necessary for Google to understand when to show your business over another location.

The more you put care into your business information online, the better it will likely perform in search.

Thing #5: Show Authority

It’s not enough just to rank locally. If potential customers have doubts that you are a reputable business, they are not likely to spend their money on your goods or services. To satisfy the need for credibility, you need a local review strategy.

Encourage your customers to leave 5-star reviews when they are satisfied with your business. Whether this is via a card you hand out to a customer or through a follow-up email, reviews are a major factor in convincing a local customer to make a purchase. They will have a big impact on your local performance.

Once you have reviews, show them off. Use plugins to feature the reviews on your website, and share every good review you get on social media. Respond to the reviews you get from customers on Google and Facebook. It is this attention to detail and care that may sway another customer to your side. And it shows local searchers that you are to be trusted.

When it comes to local SEO, no one of these tactics alone will bring your business success within the search engines; rather, a finely optimized and cultivated combination of the 5 areas above can help drive traffic with higher buyer intent.

At DOM, we’re local SEO wizards and more than ready to get you optimized for local traffic. Feel free to reach out today and let’s put together a plan that works for your SEO needs.

The post How to Do Local SEO in 2024 appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

This time, we are excited to announce that we will be attending the Google-hosted, Let’s Put Charleston, WV on the Map this Wednesday, September 2nd at the Clay Center.

We certainly are not the only ones that see the importance of this to West Virginia business owners, as Senator Shelley Moore Capito has partnered with Google.

The event will open to the public at 9 a.m. and conclude about 12 p.m. There will be 3 sessions:

• Get Found on Google Search & Maps (30 mins)
• Grow Your Business Online (1 hr)
• Build Your Free Website (1.5 hrs)

Register and find further details on the Charleston GYBO Event page.

What is GYBO?

Simply put, GYBO is Google’s initiative to get every business (large or small) online, and to make doing so fast, free, and easy. The program rolled out back in 2011, and Google has since traveled to all 50 states and helped thousands of businesses claim their local listings and establish a web presence.

What if my business doesn’t have a website?

To address small local businesses that don’t have a website, Google partnered with StartLogic to provide one along with a domain name and hosting for one year. Once you have signed up and chosen a template, it’s as simple as a drop and a drag to set up; most websites are online in less than an hour.

We’ll see you in Charleston!

We will be present during the presentations to assist with any questions. We will have a table set up, so please make sure to stop by and say hello! If you are unable to attend but know of some businesses in Charleston, WV that would benefit from this awesome event, please be sure to pass this on!

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as Google Partners before you reach out.

The post Hey Charleston, WV…It’s Your Turn to GYBO! appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Far from it – we just get the lowest common denominator TV that we want, when we want it.

With PlayOn we have streaming Hulu to our TV via Xbox and with a UK VPN service, we can get live UK TV plus as much catch-up as you’d want via any computer and streamed through our Xbox extender.

The only live American TV that ever gets an airing is that there American Idol.

It’s the wife, honest.

After Idol we normally have the pleasure of our weekly foray into the local frolicking fun that is Fox 8 News (Cleveland, that is). What’s beginning to astonish me isn’t the fact that local news actually accounts for 0.84% of the broadcast, but their insistence on running some bizarre Internet story every time I tune in – namely Wednesday or Thursday. They could run them every day of the week for all I know, but I can’t be bothered putting in that kind of phenomenological groundwork to make a point.

More often than not the story involves scaring everybody witless regarding Facebook. Still, far be it from me to channel my cynicism with Fox owner, Rupert Murdoch, also owning MySpace. I also can’t verify if similar stories are run through all local Fox networks around the country. And if they aren’t claiming Facebook will eat your children, they’re reporting tales of the Internet in such a way that would keep Spock with a permanently raised eyebrow – like he was on a Botox IV drip or something.

“Really, Captain.”

For example, this week we had the tale of some local Cleveland faith healer healing folks over the Internet on his laptop. For me, that wasn’t the weirdness in the story. Half the story revolved around him using Skype and how everybody involved in the online healing process emitted a unique hum (sound, not smell) through his laptop speakers. When contacted, Skype offered a rather sedate sound bite about its ability to send crystal clear audio and video calls over the Web.

Betwixt and between Fox 8’s Fortean Times / scare reporting on all things Internet, they had, of all things, an hour-long Blogapalooza a couple of weeks ago in order to get folks to sign up and start using their new Website. The cameras were behind the scenes as all the local news dignitaries tapped merrily away writing blog posts and adding content to the site along with – hopefully – some local viewers.

Their goal was 200 and they got somewhere near; and boy, were they loving the Internet that night.

You have to give them some serious props for embracing their viewers in this way, apart from the fact they spend the rest of the time pointing out how the rest of the Interwebs is some circus sideshow tearing asunder the very fabric of society.

All very passive/aggressive.

But, this love/hate relationship with the Web is easily fostered in anybody. Just sit in front of an average Twitter stream for ten minutes and you’ll soon know what I’m talking about. But, these head-slapping moments tend to always come with context – you can follow links, search, and participate in the wider conversation surrounding any given story.

Fox 8 still did a great thing trying to kick some life into their new site by getting viewers to set up blogs and contribute other content. You see, they’re a local news station for local people, and to have whoever from Mayfield Heights or ‘disgruntled’ from Avon write about their local areas can work wonders in terms of long tail local keywords – [keyword] + location.

And this is something any local business can do. Incorporate a business blog that not only talks about your core services or products but also with a local slant. As wonderfully ego-fluffing it might be to claim you rank on the first page for whatever term in Ghana, there’s nothing quite like somebody from within walking distance getting in touch or popping in actually spending a dollar or three.

The post Business Blogging: Be a Local Vocal Yokel. appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.