bad habits in local seo

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We take a look at some Bad Habits when dealing with Local SEO. Some are practices that developers have not updated and your site is subsequently not following best practice, some from a lack of understanding of Local SEO, and some relate to misinformation.

Bad Habits in Local SEO

Tim Capper at Online Ownership

SEMrush Webinar

On Site: Location, Location, Location Connect the Signals Page Titles & H Tags Structured Data Events Local Content

Google Business Page: Use It Cover Image, Logo Tag Line & Story Images Reviews Insights

Bad Habits in Local SEO


In Local SEO your location and defining that Location is crucial to your visibility in local search results.

Reinforce your location and make it easy for customers to find your location by adding your Business Details site wide. The easiest way to achieve this is within your footer.

There are numerous ways to layout a footer, but your Business Name, Address and Contact Details must be included. ( We use this for structured data later on )

Location, Location, Location



The largest localisation signal for any local business is your Google Business Page, but developers, businesses seem to ignore adding the the G+ icon next to their other social icons……Add It!

Make sure your Business Name on sites home page matches the Google Business Page, without it you may not have a Knowledge Panel appear.

If you are embedding a map to show the business location, use the map embed from your own business page.

This can also be used to provide reviewStructured data in the form of aggregateRatings, which will appear as stars in Search results.

Connect the Local Signals!

Connect the Signals


Each Page should provide a unique that best describes the service or product on that particular page. Including your location in your landing page title tag, you will be letting both search engines and human visitors know that your business serves and is located in a specific geographic location.

Home Page : Tim's Boiler & Heating - Emergency Plumber - Northampton, UK For Internal Service Pages: Boiler Installation & Repair - Northampton - Tim's Boiler & Heating

Making sure your city and state (county) is present in the title, H1 and H2 tags of your organic landing pages it allows search engines to understand the intent of the page.

For your main page your H1 should include name and overall service and the H2 would include town and county. On a product specific page the H1 would be the actual product / service and the H2 would ideally contain the area again.

This is not set in stone and could migrate to the H3 tag, but be aware of a proper structure.

Page Title & H Tags for Local SEO


Now that your business details are in the websites footer, you can use JSON-LD schema markup to annotate the businesses information.

The JSON-LD script shown here can be added to the websites header.php or footer.php file.

Check to see if Schema.org supports your type of business, if not use the default of LocalBusiness.

Structured Data Markup


Use Events structured data to have your businesses events displayed direct in the knowledge panel.

Yes, this also includes SaleEvents.

Recent like for like testing on events, showed a 36% increase in engagement on a businesses events page when appearing in the knowledge panel.

Check: https://schema.org/Event

Events


If you don’t publish it, there is no way for Google and other search engines to know what your business offers and where it offers it. Think about your customers and what they need from your content:

What do consumers want to learn about your category, products, or services? Do you have snackable content on mobile that answers their questions?

Do consumers want to visit your business? Are you helping them find nearby locations and

highlighting in-stock inventory on your mobile site/app and in mobile search results? What are consumers doing with your product or service (for example, baking cookies,

buying a home, recovering from an injury)? Do you have how-to video content to support their efforts?

Where are consumers buying your product? How can you support consumers who are buying

from you in-store or while on the go? Are you empowering consumers to check out in whatever way suits their need?

Start growing your business today by understanding your customers needs and satisfy those

needs with your content.

Local Content


Yes your Google Business Page is a social platform that is ignored. Most business forget about using their business page once they have updated their business info. It may not be as popular as FB, Twit or Insta, but if there is one thing that will spark your interest, its this.

Post on your business page are read, understood and indexed by Googlebot which all leads to a better understanding by Google as to who you are, where you are and what you offer.

So next time you post onto your Social profiles, update your Business page too. *Bold Text Is Especially Good for Titles and Headlines* _Italics are especially good for adding emphasis_ -Strike this text out-

Use your Google Business Page


Time to add your logo and header image, the last thing you want is for a potential shopper to see an unloved business page, what does that say about you as a business.Change your header image to a more Christmassy feel, go on get into the spirit of it. Dashboard: https://business.google.com/manage/ Manage Location Photos

Cover Image & Logo

https://business.google.com/manage/


With the new layout of Google+ adding a tag line and story to your business page is now located in your About Me section.

About Me: https://aboutme.google.com/

Tag Line & Story

https://aboutme.google.com/


A picture is worth a thousand words. Use your photo section to provide images about your business, products and service.

Photos can generate a lot of views, do not ignore these.

Dashboard: https://business.google.com/manage/ Manage Location Photos

Images

https://business.google.com/manage/


Reviews are big, bold and attention seeking in the local pack and maps. Heat map studies have shown how users naturally check out businesses with reviews showing on their Google business listing first.You need five business reviews before you have review stars showing alongside your business listing. Incorporate a review strategy into your customer service emails Respond and reply to all reviews via your dashboard How to create a Direct Link for Customer Reviews.

Reviews help customers in their final purchase journey. Reviews for a business or product has shown to increase conversions by 28% and being a Local business, reviews on your Google Local Business Page are an important part of your Local SEO.

Reviews

http://onlineownership.com/direct-link-to-your-google-business-review-page-for-customers/

http://onlineownership.com/local-seo/


Insights consists of five sections, each of which gives you a different way to understand how customers interact with your listing:

How customers find your listing Where customers find you on Google Customer actions Driving directions requests Phone calls

Search: Export data from Google Business Insights

Insights


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SEMrush

Online Ownership

bad habits in local seo

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