Did you know that 97% of consumers use the internet when researching local products or services (BrightLocal)?
If your online presence isn’t well-groomed, you may end up leaving a lot of money on the table. Worse, you could end up sending a lot of potential customers over to your competitors.
The importance of SEO for local businesses cannot be overstated. The challenging part is in knowing what to do. If you aren’t doing the right things, your SEO efforts aren’t going to yield the kind of results you’re looking for.
Here are five SEO mistakes local business often make, and how to correct them.
- Failing To Build A Website
It may seem crazy or absurd – but there are many small businesses that set up home on a site like Facebook or Blogger instead of building their own website.
Social media profiles are perfect complements to a website, but they aren’t a great substitute.
Using a free subdomain or social media site as your home isn’t going to do you much good, as it will nullify your link building efforts. As more sites link to yours, your ranking will begin to increase. But if you end up needing to move your content off of someone else’s platform, you’re going to lose out on all of the link juice you’ve built.
If SEO is a priority, make sure to build a dedicated website for your local business.
- Failing To Localize Your Online Presence
There are an increasing number of searches connected to location. Local searches lead 50% of mobile visitors to visit stores within one day (Search Engine Land). Therefore, you need to make sure your online presence is localized.
This means making sure that your website includes your contact information, including your email address, phone number, and street address. This means using keywords and phrases that are relevant to your locality and taking advantage of geotagging.
Also make sure to claim any listings that already exist on online directories. The information may be inaccurate or insufficient, and by correcting this, you can ensure that more people are directed to your business.
- Publishing Low Quality Content
Thin, outdated, irrelevant, and low quality content isn’t going to support your business in any way. Google is very clear on this.
Conduct a content audit on your website and make a decision as to whether you will update, consolidate, or delete any content that doesn’t help with your SEO efforts.
Also make a plan as to how you’re going to roll out quality content in the future. Without a proper strategy and procedure, you risk repeating past mistakes.
- Ignoring Or Failing At Link-Building
When it comes to building links, the biggest mistake you can make is giving up on your initiative altogether. The second biggest mistake is using improper or low quality links via black hat SEO practices.
The best idea is to earn links from reputable websites. Buying and exchanging links is not recommended.
Link-building isn’t necessarily easy. But it’s important to see it as a long-term strategy and to continue to invest in it instead of giving up arbitrarily.
- Not Using Analytics
Are you tracking and analyzing your SEO efforts? Many businesses aren’t. Pretty surprising when you consider the fact that Google Analytics is free to use.
This isn’t to suggest that Google Analytics is the only tool worth using, or even that it’s the best one for your business. The key thing here is to start tracking. Only then can you determine what’s working and further optimize your overall strategy.
You don’t want to be in the dark about key metrics, so start tracking and analyzing your SEO efforts right away. Then you can begin to make better decisions for your online presence.
Final Thoughts
The worst thing you can do is quit on your SEO initiative entirely. Recognize that it can take time for you to see results from your efforts, and you have to make sure you’re investing in the right areas if you want to see any kind of payoff.
Are you looking for help with your website? Then make sure to take a moment to learn more about our web development services, as well as our SEO and SEM services so you can get your website in ship shape.
