-
by Lindsey Smith
Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for websites in every industry. However, businesses with brick-and-mortar locations should follow the best practices to ensure they appear in local searches. Due to the constantly changing nature of local SEO, it isn’t always easy to keep up. Make sure you aren’t making one of the four biggest mistakes in local SEO.
Bad or Unclear Location Information
For brick-and-mortar businesses, using Google My Business is a useful tool to establish your location, phone number and hours. Any incorrect information can be detrimental to your rankings on Google for too many variations of information will be deemed as inaccurate and invaluable to searchers in the eyes of Google. By keeping your information up to date, when Google indexes, you will have a reliable and valuable source of information that will rank you higher and more trustworthy.
Poor Content
Don’t write your content for Google. Write your content for your target audience in a natural voice with genuinely valuable content. Google’s algorithms are very intelligent, and while many think that just jam-packing your site with as many keywords as possible is the best strategy, it is, in fact, more useful to write for your audience. Writing as humanly as possible with detailed information that will be useful to your audience is your best bet. Consider what people looking for your product or service would search on Google and gear your content to be as relevant and comprehensive as possible. There is no need to mention the city your business is located in hundreds of times on your website – this won’t rank as high as a more natural and human-like writing approach.
Not Going Mobile
Google has announced that next year it will be ranking based on mobile indexing first. What does this mean? Google will be looking at the mobile version of your site to decide how high you should rank. Even if your desktop site is set up brilliantly, if your mobile site isn’t optimized and responsive, your rankings may drop. A recent report says 60% of search queries are made with mobile devices on-the-go, therefore you want to have to the highest ranked site to maximize Click Through Rate (CTR) and increase sales.
Generic or Irrelevant Names
Because SEO’s main purpose is to boost web pages to the top of SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), it is essential that the name of your brand is representative and relevant to what users will be searching for when looking for a product or service you offer. An irrelevant name can be a nightmare for local SEO. Whenever possible, ensure that your brand accurately describes your business type, as you’ll more easily build brand authority and enhance your local SEO.
Don’t try to navigate the tricky terrain of local SEO alone. Contact Exults for experienced organic and local SEO services and all your sponsored search needs.
