In the past decade, the digital marketing has gained robust attention due to the evolution of search engines. The search queries were the act of novelty, which has become an essential act in our daily lives. Almost all businesses own some online appearance.
While having a conversation with a digital marketing expert from Edigitalmarketing.in, an SEO company in Bangalore, he said, for every search query, the mega companies always come on top of the search engine result pages. They deserve it after years of hard work, online presence, unlimited inbound links and progressive user base.
It does not mean that small businesses do not stand a chance. That is why Search Engine Optimization came into being. SEO is not about high volume or domain age. It is all about bringing the web page for the relevant query.
Here, you will learn about smart SEO techniques for small businessmen that will earn you edge over bigger competition:
Effective Targeted Keyword Research
The entire building of SEO is residing on keyword research. Keyword research plays the vital role in both organic and local SEO. Identification of keywords that drive massive traffic is easy. But the key element is picking right keywords for your small business to drive right traffic. We are doing local SEO to convert online users into the actual sale. That’s why effective targeted keyword research is mandatory. In market plenty of keyword research tools are available like Google Keyword Planner, Long Tail Pro, Ubersuggest, and SEMrush. With these tools, you can have clear cut about specific keywords as per trends and geographical location.
Niche Specialization
For the small business, nothing is more effective than niche specialization. It is human instinct to master all areas of specialization for better online visibility. As a result, you will rank for each related keyword. Honestly, you may appear for all keywords, but your relevance to each keyword will be low. For local business, touching all areas of expertise is not a good idea. Instead, you should pool all your effort in one expertise or bunch of keywords for higher online appearance!
Niche Specific Influencers
Niche Specific Influencer is a new and trendy term. Most people have no idea about it. These people have connections with targeted readers. They pass on the relevant information to readers who don’t want to check industry atmosphere. Establishing such influencers will be in the interest of your small business. To do this, you may contribute to their blogs regularly. You can offer outbound links to their sites in return. The target prospects will trust such links over sponsored posts. Because they trust influencer already for the relative niche. Secondly, regular insights will show the compassion towards them.
Local Partnerships
Local business always addresses a limited number of people in the specific location. In that location, businesses other than yours are also serving. Formation of partnerships with local firms or communities is a great marketing opportunity. This will earn you backlinks from their official websites. Always aim for locally based businesses and franchises instead of mega corporations. Contribution to their blogs is the most convenient way to earn a backlink. Apart from businesses, you should opt for clubs and official communities blogs that offer guest posting.
Resource Page
Based on your geographical location, you may create a resource page on your website. People are always open to useful information that can save their time & energy. If your resource page is filled with beneficial information, other business will connect to your website. For free, you will earn backlinks from the relevant site. To explain this, suppose you are running a Clothing retailer business in New York. Your resource page should consist of list of trusted wholesalers and clothing manufacturers in that locality. Reach out to them and let them know about it. Also request them to share the content on their social media accounts. This can really give you a lot of social boost.
Local Business Page for Search Engines
Everyone seeks help from Google or any other search engine for queries. For instance, the user wants to find a restaurant nearby. Google will be the first thing for this query. When search engines have a huge impact, you should create the local business page for Google and other search engines. At least, your business must own listing in Google, Bing and Yahoo. You just have to provide correct information and verify them for your business! That’s it!
Local Reviews
The review is an honest feedback from the customer about the experience with a product. Nothing has more leverage than a customer review. For local SEO, local reviews have become mandatory. Directory sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor are the best platforms for local reviews. As per latest Google’s algorithm update, local reviews have the huge impact on ranking. This update brings new SEO opportunity for businesses. Now, you don’t have to produce content for SEO. Instead, you must work on the product to cultivate positive customer reviews.
Social Engagement
People like when they get heard. Today, big businesses have this lack of personal engagement. Although, they own significant visibility on social media. But they don’t get personalized with each customer or user. Here, you already have an edge. Get more active and provide humanized experience on social media to attract more followers! In the end, it will improve your online appearance!
Advanced Tip: Try to follow people in your niche who are having a lot of followers on Social media. Let us take an example of Twitter. Find out the people from your industry who are having a lot of Twitter followers. Follow them. Retweet them. Create a healthy relationship with the influencer. Write about them on your blog/website and send him the link. Also, give him an option to share and it is seen that in most of the cases they would share the content since you have written good things about him. Repeat the same with as many Twitter followers you can. And yes, no one is stopping you to follow the same technique in case of other social networking sites too. I hope you have got my point by now.
Image SEO – Addition Of Photos
This point is associated with the local listing, but applicable for all tools. Whether you are optimizing local business page or social media profile or website! Don’t forget to provide high-quality photos. You must add photos of your building inside & out, products and team. Earning an online presence is harder than offline. With SEO we make users trust your brand before even going there. That is why quality photos on your website and profiles are essential! There is a very good post on Search Engine Journal about importance of images for image SEO, which you can read it here.
Optimized Website
Let me take you through the website optimization. The website is the main part of the online appearance for any business. If it is not optimized, everything else will go in vain. You are not confined to local listing or pages. You must add proper and correct contact information on your website. Especially, phone number and address. To make a user happy, the addition of location of Google map will be great. That way, they can see where you are residing on a map. You can use relevant local keywords in your content to reach out more people.
Responsive Website
Mobile and local SEO has the close relationship. Answer this; you want to find the best local restaurant nearby. How will you find it? For sure, you will search on your mobile. If the business lacks a responsive website, the user can never land happily on that website. Mobile friendly websites catch the tremendous amount of attention than static designs. After 2015, responsive design has become the norm instead of an exception!
Final Thoughts!
Small businesses cannot survive without local SEO. Traditional marketing strategies fail if they lack local SEO perspective. Above cited strategies are the practical options to increase the visibility of the local business.
