Do you have a business with a local website? We believe businesses with great reputations deserve to outsmart the big guys online so they can make an impact and grow. The best way for a business to grow and increase local website traffic is to have a strong foundation of local SEO.
You can increase local website traffic with 2 easy strategies:
- Google My Business
- Blogging
Google My Business
Let’s talk about how important it is to show up on Google. According to stats listed on Backlinko, the #1 result in Google gets approximately 32% of all clicks. In addition, Google currently has 86.86% of the search engine market. That’s most of the pie. You want a piece of that pie. So, how do you get there?
Google My Business (GMB) is a fantastic tool that you need to use if you want to increase local website traffic, thereby increasing your local customer base. Plus, it’s free, so why wouldn’t you?
First, let’s talk about the features you’ll be able to take advantage of with Google My Business.
- This is a business listing that will allow you to connect more easily with your ideal local customers using their search tool as well as the map feature.
- By optimizing your business profile, you’ll be able to zone in on your ideal customer. This feature will allow you to customize your profile with photos and special offers that are unique to your business and service.
- Your Google My Business profile will offer your ideal customer the opportunity to connect with your business in multiple ways. When your customers have more ways to get in touch with you, your business will grow.
- Track your engagement with stats. It used to be that you could tell how happy or fulfilled a customer was as they left your establishment because you were actually engaging with them in person. If they were smiling as they handed you a check for your service, you knew you had nailed it.
No more! So, since you’re not making eye contact with people as much these days (and their smile is likely covered with a mask; thanks ‘rona’), a tool to know exactly how engaged customers are is exactly what you need. If you know how many clicks you’re getting per website visit, you’ll be better equipped to make decisions about what you’re offering and how you’re doing overall.
It’s like watching a hockey game. If one team has three goals and the other has two, but the one with three has sixteen shots on goal while the one with two has ten shots on goal, you know a little bit more about which one is actually performing better. Information is POWER!
You’ll need to identify your type of business while you’re completing your profile. For more on that, follow the link to our blog Doing Local SEO For Small Business. It will explain the different types of business listings.
The most important ranking factor for local SEO is your proximity to the business when you search from your phone or computer. This is why it’s imperative that you complete your Google My Business profile 100%.
So, in summary, it’s important that you have a profile on Google My Business and it’s equally important that you completely fill out your profile. This will drive local business to you, no question.
According to a stat listed on Oberlo, there are 30.7 million small businesses in the US. This is a stunning statistic. The same article mentions that over 90% of the business population represents small and medium-sized businesses, which translates to being major drivers of global economic growth. This is a big deal these days. I think we can all agree on how important it is to boost the economy in any way we can.
You can get yourself a piece of that local pie and help rebuild our larger economy if you know how to use Google Maps properly. In order to rank in Google Maps, you need to work on your SEO.
The same blog I mentioned above from RebelFishLocal for identifying your business type also lists 10 steps to onboarding your business to Google Maps.
Let’s move on to the second easy strategy for increasing local website traffic.
Blogging
Before I knew about blogging and what really goes into it, I would have called it writing. However, it’s so much more than just writing. While you should be able to write, at least well enough for people to want to read, blogging is so much more than just writing. There are many technical steps you need to be aware of in order to check off the boxes that will make your blog visible and what google refers to as ‘rankable’. Let’s talk about some of those things.
Keyword Research
While there are tools you can use to do keyword research, you can also start with using Google.
The ABC method can get you off to a good start. Watch the RebelFishLocalYouTubeVideo we made to see how to apply this method.
While you’re doing your keyword research, you’ll see ‘related searches’ listed on the google search results page. This will give you clues to what other people are searching for as it relates to your specific keywords and subject.
YOAST has a great blog about Rich Snippets which should help you understand these more in detail. Basically, rich snippets offer you additional information which will generally lead you to click for the ‘extra’.
Rebel Fish Local uses these tools for more focused and complete keyword research.
Mangools is great as it will tell you how steep the competition is for the keywords, thereby giving you more confidence in the keywords you decide to use in your blogs.
Interested in knowing some of the tools our agency uses for our research? Follow this link for a list of the local SEO marketing tools we use.
Here are some other great insights I have from my time in the blogging world. I’ll specifically be focusing on WordPress for this one.
I’m a fan. It’s as simple as that. WordPress has some great backend features that make it easy to format blogs in addition to tools that will provide helpful insight regarding your SEO score. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the driving force behind making your blogs rank on Google, therefore making your business visible to your customers.
We’ve covered enough about the basics of keywords. Now let’s talk about some of the WordPress features you can use to get that visibility up and drive local business to your doorstep.
Questions, Headers & Subcategories
It’s important that your blog has some style making it more readable. The readability factor will increase greatly if you use H2 for questions and headers, and H3 for any subcategories, including bullet points, etcetera. It will make for a tidy and easy-to-read experience. This is never a bad thing. These days we are so overwhelmed with extreme amounts of information in ever-decreasing periods of time. Anything that makes it easier to process that information is a good thing.
Grammarly
Please use this tool. It’s a great one to make sure your blogs are top-notch in terms of grammar and spelling. I don’t know about you, but as soon as I spot an incorrectly used ‘there’ where a ‘their’ should have been, I check out and the related company immediately loses at least some credibility.
Call To Action (CTA)
You are writing these blogs for a specific purpose. That purpose is to get customers to come to you. It’s a net you’re casting, so cast it wisely. You want to use at least one CTA in each blog. You may enjoy the writing process, but unless you catch some fish, what’s the point, right?
This means you have to have some offers ready to go so you can call your potential customers to action. Then, it’s all about linking them to your website or a landing page so you can complete the offer and collect an email address.
Internal and External Links
You want to have internal links in your blogs. These are links that link to other pages within your website. Someone browsing your site from other pages is a good sign. It means they have some interest in what they’re seeing which can translate to sales.
It can be as simple as mentioning one of your lead-generating PDFs. Here’s one of ours.
All businesses can find something they could be doing better. Are you wondering how you can maximize your efforts to improve your bottom line? Find out by downloading our free PDF, “You’re Losing Money By Not Doing These 3 Daily Activities” Daily Activities PDF
A little more about links…
While external links (also known as backlinks) can be any kind of link to another website, I find it can be a fantastic opportunity to ‘link up’ (see what I did there?), with other local businesses that are related to your business or your blog subject. Who doesn’t appreciate an ‘atta girl’ or ‘atta boy’? If a business you know is doing something particularly well, why not give them a virtual pat-on-the-back? You can either give the external link without the business knowing you planned on doing so, or you can use this opportunity to reach out and possibly collaborate.
Why not join forces with some kind of joint offer? Can’t hurt to brainstorm around this idea, at least.
Remember, it’s all about ranking and making yourself visible to whatever demographic you’re trying to reach. Again, knowledge is power. You have the ability to use these tools to figure out how to lead customers right to you. It may seem and feel overwhelming. I completely relate to this. But, in a short time, I promise it will all come together for you. One step at a time.
Curious about what other ways you can optimize your website? We’d love to help you increase local website traffic for your business!
Schedule a call with us today and let us explore some options and ideas with you.
