Pretty much most, if not all of you reading this, will have a website and want to be found in Google and I’m going to assume that you want to target your local demographic. For example you might want to target ‘Web Design Cheshire’.
Well, here are a few tips to help you get higher up Google and in front of your target audience.
NAP? What’s a NAP? It’s your business Name, Address and Phone number.
When setting up your social profiles (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc), in particular your Google+ business page, you need to make sure you are consistent with your NAP in terms of format, spacing and acronyms (eg; Road, Rd, Ave, Avenue, St., Street etc). A local number is always going to outperform a mobile number because Google recognises it as a locally registered number. A mobile number could be used anywhere.
Everywhere your company appears across the internet; your name, your full address and your phone number should appear exactly the same. The more it appears the same the more Google recognises it, is reaffirmed that it’s correct and gives it authority.
You will have seen G+ pages in Google search engine results (the ones that appear with a map). To be featured here you have to have a business/G+ page. I can’t stress the importance of this if you want to be found locally.
Fill out the profile with as much detail as possible. Include photos of your company, you/your staff working with clients, the building and your logos. Tip: Try and include keywords in the description field that are relevant to your business, such as, what type of business you are, what services you offer etc – but don’t spam with too much of the same or irrelevant information.
Correct business hours are also important as these will show up in Google search results.
This is extremely important when it comes to local SEO.
Ask your clients to review you/your services on Google. These will be shown in Google, if you receive bad feedback, it’s important to respond in a professional matter as these can’t be removed!
I could go really in depth here, but I’ll keep it simple.
Include your NAP on each page. Your target keyword should appear in your title tag, H1 tag and in your copy.
The format of the keyword should be ‘keyword + location’, so ‘Web Design Cheshire’.
I should add, that choosing which keywords to target is half the battle and requires research, monitoring and analysing your target demographic. You could be high up in Google for a keyword that no one searches for, which would be a waste of time. You need to target a keyword that has search volume, but also relevant to you/your business. Then multiply that with more relevant keywords.
That’s it for now. Just some basic SEO tips to help you guys out, if you need some more advanced help then don’t hesitate to ask us.
