A Beginners Guide To Local Search Marketing

A Beginners Guide To Local Search Marketing

STUDENTS

arnold on Mar 03, 2019

***Updated 7/5/2020***

Local Search Marketing:

When planning a digital marketing strategy, it is important to consider local search marketing.

Most companies focus on the organic results, which is the biggest component of the search engine results page. However, if your business has a storefront or physical location, then the local search results need to be a top priority for your strategy.

Local search results are search results from Google for brick and mortar businesses that have a storefront or physical location in order to serve their customers in person. Local search results typically appear when people search for businesses and places near their location.  You can see local results in the image below.

Local Search Results Page

 

Local search results are very important for storefront businesses because they appear before the organic results.  Most people looking for a local business will look for it in the local search results rather than going to the organic results.

In order to have a better chance of coming up in the local search results, businesses need to do a couple things. We are going to discuss briefly how we can appear and climb to the top of Local search results.

1) Claim Google My Business Listing

The first thing you should do as a business owner is to claim and verify your listing in Google. This will make sure that your business is listed correctly and that you’re able to manage your listing.

***If you are my in my Digital Marketing Class, skip this step***

https://www.google.com/business

Once you get signed in, perform a search for your business. If it has been around for a while Google will have a record of it. If it is brand new, then you will enter the information about the business. Either way, Google will mail a card to the business address that has a code on it. Use this code to verify that you are in fact the owner of the address and that you do have a physical storefront.

2) Completely Update Your Google My Business Listing

Make sure all the information in your listing is filled out. Use relevant keywords in your business name, address, and phone number (NAP). Google will always suggest the most relevant business in the local search results. If you only provide partial information then Google will not present your business in the local search results.  It isn’t an overwhelming task, so make sure you enter every piece of information that Google asks for and take the time to upload nice photos into your listing

Here is a screenshot from inside a Google My Business account:

Google My Business example

 

3) Things that a business owner can do on a weekly basis in their Google Business Profile to rank higher in Google Maps:

  • Keep your information up-to-date. Make sure that your business information is up-to-date, including your name, address, phone number, hours of operation, and website.
  • Add photos and videos. Photos and videos can help to make your listing more visually appealing and informative. Be sure to add high-quality photos and videos that show off your business and its products or services.
  • Get reviews. Positive reviews from customers can help to improve your ranking in Google Maps. Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your listing.
  • Post regularly. You can post updates, photos, and videos to your Google Business Profile to keep your customers engaged. This can also help to improve your ranking in Google Maps.
  • Respond to reviews. When customers leave reviews, be sure to respond promptly and professionally. This shows that you care about your customers and their feedback.
  • Promote your listing. Share your Google Business Profile link on your website, social media, and other marketing materials. This will help to drive more traffic to your listing.

By following these tips, you can improve your Google Business Profile and rank higher in Google Maps. This can help you to attract more customers and grow your business.

4) Citations and NAP-W consistency

With organic search engine optimization we were concerned with links back to our website. With local search marketing we are concerned with what is called citations. A local citation is any mention of your business in a web directory and is any combination of your company name, address, phone number (NAP) and website address. Citations are a key factor in improving your local search results.

To keep it simple, we are most concerned with structured citations which come from business listing directories.  With sites such as YELP, Yellowpages, Facebook, Superpages, Mapquest, etc., we can enter our information to get us a citation.

Here is an example of a structured citation:

structured citation example

 

The only Caveat with this is that you must keep your business name, address, phone number and website exactly the same everywhere it is posted.  If your address has a suite number and you have 5 citations using SUITE in the address and 5 citation that use STE., then you only are only getting 5 citations.

This is generally referred to as NAP consistency. You must decide on the exact NAP information for your business and make sure it is always presented that way online and offline, 100% of the time.

You will need to do searches for your business and make sure all available information is NAP consistent. There are tools that help us with, which we will preview below. Additionally, you need to make sure there are no duplicate citations in directories as these become troublesome for Google in recognizing your business.

Listed below are the 10 biggest directory websites you should be concerned with on day one. When working on local search marketing it is common to seek out and find hundreds of directories to update your information. This can obviously take a lot of time.

  • Acxiom
  • Apple Maps
  • Bing
  • Citygrid
  • Facebook
  • Factual
  • Foursquare
  • Infogroup/ExpressUpdate
  • Localeze
  • Superpages
  • Yahoo!*
  • YP
  • Yelp

4) Local search marketing tool:

One tool we can use to help check our local search marketing efforts is:

HOTH Citation Scan Tool

https://www.thehoth.com/local-seo-tool/

Once you get to this page you can enter information about your company.  I will use JAX as an example again.

Incomplete Citations Moz

 

This will give you an analysis of the top 60 directories and show you missing listings or inconsistent listings.

jax Moz citation problems

 

You can use this tool to fix your listings or HOTH will do it for a one-time fee of about $350.

 

If you would like to learn a little more about local search marketing you can check out the following resources.

How To Improve Your Local Ranking According To Google:

Comprehensive List of Local Search Result Tools:

 

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