Small businesses should have proper strategies in place for local SEO unlike organizations, which are operating at a larger scale. Local SEO gives preference to feature on the result pages of a search engine in a particular locality. On the other hand, national SEO is more into appearing across country-level searches. The aim of Google local SEO is to focus on marketing the brand and its services and products to local consumers.
Small businesses can reap different kinds of benefits by optimizing their local SEO. These include more leads, conversions, and an increase in website traffic. That is because this type of strategy is more suitable for the local customer base.
Small businesses in Maryland can use such a focused strategy for competing against bigger and more popular brands operating at the national level having abundant resources to spend. Here are some of the top ways to strategize local SEO for Maryland small businesses:
1. Encourage Happy Customers to Post Reviews
If you own a small business in Maryland, you should encourage your satisfied customers to post their reviews regularly on the website. Positive reviews will encourage more consumers in the locality to purchase your products or services. Many surveys have revealed that most customers trust online reviews and treat them at par with personal recommendations.
2. Create a Mobile-Friendly Website
Do you know that a majority of mobile searches are local? It is because of this reason that ease of mobile accessibility plays an important role in local SEO. Is your mobile website not responsive or takes a lot of time to load properly? If that is the case, many of your potential customers may not like to visit the site and you can lose a large volume of sales. It is not tough to design a mobile-friendly site to promote your business. A proper responsive WordPress theme can be selected to make sure that your website content can be read properly on mobile phone screens.
You may also take the help of a 3rd-party plugin like WPtouch to create a mobile-friendly website for your small business to boost traffic and conversions.
3. Create a Business Account on Google With the Local Address
If you want a higher ranking in local results of Google Search, you need to optimize your business profile on Google. You can opt for a Google My Business account to optimize your Google listing. First, you have to submit all the required details in the dashboard of your Google My Business account. All those details will be included in your Business Profile that features in the local result of Google Search.
4. Take Help of Online Business Directories
There are many popular online business directories. Websites such as MapQuest, Yellow Pages, Foursquare, and Yelp among others are good examples of online directories. You can take the help of any of these business directories to improve your local SEO. You can also add your business details including the name of the business, contact numbers, and address into these online directories to improve brand visibility.
5. Create Local Content
When your website relates to local issues, it can grab the attention of your local customers faster. So, make sure to include more blogs focusing on local news or subjects.
Check out some of these useful strategies:
- Set up web pages specific to locations and include quality local content on your business website in case your business caters to various parts of a particular region
- You can also shoot videos on various local causes, which are supported by your business
- You may also write blogs covering local events, activities, or stories
6. Upload Quality Images
Whenever people search for local businesses, they are also keen to see pictures. Many local accounts such as Google+ Local enable you to post a minimum of 10 images. You should make an attempt to upload at least the minimum number of photos on your business website. Try not only to click and upload pictures of your products but also of your office building. It helps your business when you post your company building’s image as the main photo.
7. Take Help from an SEO Company
An expert’s help can always come in handy. You can choose one of the affordable SEO packages for small businesses to strategize your local SEO and thus boost your profits and sale.
Do you own a small business in Maryland or Baltimore? Are you looking for expert assistance to strategize your local SEO? Get in touch with an experienced Maryland Search engine optimization company or Baltimore SEO company and opt for one of their small business SEO packages.