How Small Business Can Take Advantage Of Local SEO?

Small businesses cannot hope to compete with large corporations when it comes to search engine page rank. It's just not feasible unless the small business is in a niche market where few large companies are competing. However, small businesses can make some significant advances in their ranking with local SEO.

Search engines and mobile technology often tailor their results based on the user's IP address or location. Local businesses will likely rank highly based on these considerations. That is what defines it as a local search. Local search results are promoted by search engines like Google as a way to present those people doing the searching with more relevant, local results. All of the major search engines account for the fact that people searching for a service or product would prefer local results.

Here's how a small business can implement local SEO and improve their business' chances of turning up in search results.

Site Design and Layout

The fundamentals of SEO still apply and any website should be configured with search engine optimization in mind. This means that the sitemap should be accurate and logical. There should be a blog or some form of Internet Marketing that incorporates keyword usage. And there should be plenty of social media links and opportunities for visitors to share content. The use of images and media is another way to boost SEO and traffic.

Local Search Business Sites

Local businesses should take the time to register across a host of business directory sites like Yellow Pages, Google, Yahoo, Merchant Circle, Yelp, Bing, and many others. Registering with these sites not only gets sites in front of their users, but they are taken into account by the search engines in local ranking too. The real challenge here is maintaining the contact information and making sure any changes get made across all sites.

Keyword Usage

Identifying both the target audience and the keywords they'll be using is of paramount importance in any Local SEO campaign. Businesses should use Google Keyword and other tools to help find the applicable keywords and then make sure they are adding the local component.

Contact Information Consistency

As mentioned earlier, any changes to your contact information should be updated across all the local directories for which the business has been registered. Search engines rely on a variety of sites to present the contact information and just because it's been updated on the main website, does not mean that's what will display in the search results.

Use/Promote Social Media Sharing

Social media continues to play a larger and larger role in search engine optimization. Engaging local customers through social media using tweets, posts, blogs, news articles and the like will create a local buzz around your business. Not only will people be promoting the business in their social media circles, but the organic traffic this produces will boost local search rankings.

The search engines want nothing more than to present users with the most relevant search results. Nothing could be more relevant than local area businesses. The steps highlighted above will help any business rank highly. Small business owners want to rank highly for local search, the search engines want local businesses to rank highly, and users want local options to rank highly. The small business owner just needs to make sure they are taking steps to get to the top of the local results.