Here is a quick guide to help you get the very best out of your Google My Business listing and climb to the top of your local rankings. Local SEO is a must if you are a business looking to capture more traffic and custom from your neighbourhood.

Why should you want to capture this traffic? Is there any actual data to show it’s worthwhile. Well, yes there is. According to this study by Authority Hacker, nearly half of all Google searches are people searching for something in their locality. Be that a cafe, builder or a mechanic. That’s a lot of traffic to be missing out on.

Now, of course there are other factors to actually transforming this traffic into a client. However, you can’t transform what’s not there.

How Do You Actually Fill Out Your Google My Business?

When adding your Google My Business listing you will have to add some basic information like your address, your business name, opening hours, etc. You will also have to verify your business to prove it exists at the stated address. This is usually in the form of a postcard with a code you use to verify.

Why is it important to verify your listing? Simply put, if you don’t verify it someone else can take it, make edits to contact details or even say you are closed. If you have not verified it then you are not in control of it. If you are not verified and people do suggest edits, you won’t be notified or aware of any changes that happen.

It would be very easy for someone to steal your GMB listing from right under your nose. Getting back won’t be easy either as there is no legal route to take and Google are notably poor at handling such issues.

Your NAP and Local SEO

What does NAP stand for? Name, Address and Phone number. If you want to rank well locally, this has to be exactly the same in any listing you post it on. When I say exactly the same, I mean EXACTLY THE SAME. Any variation or deviation will render the work useless. Avoid acronyms, and avoid spamming the internet with your NAP.

Local Citations for Local SEO

Local citations are business listings in the likes of Yelp and Brown Book. They help get your NAP out in the right places and links back to your website. Doing your own citations can be a slow process, so either get someone who works for you to do them, or someone on a service such as Fiverr. Once again though, YOUR NAP HAS TO BE CONSISTENT.

However, you can’t just throw in the same description to every citation you add. You need to spin each description a little bit to avoid duplicate content. After creating all of these citations, you then must send them to be indexed.

Do Reviews Boost Local SEO?

A short answer is no. Reviews do not have a direct effect on your GMB listing ranking, However, the longer answer is a bit more nuanced. If a potential client is looking at three businesses, and one of those businesses has no reviews, one business has some bad reviews and the final business has all really positive reviews. Which of those businesses will you go with? Exactly, the all positive ones.

The answer is no but yes at the same time.

Are you looking for someone to boost your local SEO rankings and drive your business? Well, Meath Web Design is the choice for you.

The post Your Expert Guide To Local SEO appeared first on Meath Web Design.