Hierarchy of SEO needs for local businesses on a budget (2023)

By 2022, 98% of people will use the Internet to find information about local businesses.BrightLocal Research. And 87% of consumers have used Google to review a local business.

It can be difficult for local businesses with limited time, money and resources to decide where to focus their marketing efforts.

One thing is for sure, finding local businesses online is vital.

And SEO is one of the most effective marketing activities for a local business to come online as it offers one of the best returns on investment in the long run.

Since local businesses may have a limited budget, what SEO factors should they focus on?

Here, I'll outline six areas that small businesses can reasonably do in-house (or spend some money on outsourced technical support) and at least introduce the basics of SEO.

What are these foundations?

In order for local businesses to appear in search results, they should consider the following areas:

• Company Profile on Google
• Reviews and ratings
• Content quality
• internal link
• Website and website optimization
• Incoming links

(Video) How To Do SEO On ANY Budget (SEO for Small Businesses)

6 SEO Tactics Every Local Business Should Be Using

Local businesses should focus on optimizing two areas of search results:

• Google Local Pack / Local Map Search.
• Google Organic Listings.

whenranking of local companiesin the local package, Google considers relevance, distance and familiarity.

There is another set of countless signals it uses for organic listings, including "blue links".

While the list below is not exhaustive, there are some basic SEO tactics that should at least be used to help your local businesses rank.

For local packet classifications

1. Google Company Profile

create,VerifyWoptimization of the company profile on Googleis one of the most important tactics for ranking local businesses in the local pack.

Here are the three most effective techniques for optimizing your business profile:

• Choose the most suitable oneprimary classfor a business, add two to three categories (or just the ones that are most relevant). The main category is the most important factor that helps you get ranked in a local package. You won't always get it right the first time, so don't be afraid to experiment with different categories and test the results. PlePler is a handy tool that can help with this by providing useful data.

• Fill out your Google business profile as accurately as possible. Please take the time to fill it outall available informationin the profile. Create a compelling description of the company and what it offers, using as many rich keywords as possible in a natural way.

• Make sure your company name, address, phone number and website (NAP+W) are correct. Physical address is an important ranking signal for Google because it takes into account businesses that are closest to the search point (where the searcher is). NAP+W data should be consistent across all online sources - not just your business profile on Google - as this increases the search engine's confidence in the accuracy of your business information. Make sure you use a local phone number (not a toll-free number).

2. Ratings and Reviews

A local business's ratings and reviews can affect its ranking, including the number of reviews (text and numbers) and actual results. This isstraight from Google's mouth. So take reviews and ratings seriously.

Here are some tips:

• Encourage customers to leave reviews. Google explainshow to share a linkwith customers leaving reviews. By doing this consistently, you can keep your reviews up to date, which can send a positive message to Google.

• Remember: Google doesn't want businesses to offer incentives to write reviews. However, many local businesses do. It's about ensuring that a company's review profile reflects an honest view of the company. If all reviews are positive and there are no negative reviews, the user may not trust the company too much.

• Let your customers know that your business values ​​their feedback by reading and responding to their feedback. Here ishow to read and respond to google reviews.

• To examineappearance ing third party reviews to add value to your listing. This can further assist users in choosing a company.

For organic rankings

3. Content quality

Content qualityis probably one of - if notzmost importantly – in most cases, the site ranking factor.

There are many ways to define quality, but here are some ways to ensure it on your website:

• Study the Google nameguidelines for search quality controllers,in particular, the definitions of "experience" and "knowledge" to understand how Google thinks about quality.Experience and knowledgeit is important for local businesses to shine in their content.

• Make sure there are important pages throughout your site, such asservice pagescontains enough content to be useful and helpful to site visitors. Spy on the top competitors for that keyword on the service page to see how much content you need to create.

• Third party service pages orsite pages, consider how the company will share content with the community. You can establish a business as a local authority by talking about topics the business specializes in, telling local stories or acting as a guide. Also: Good local content can be good,local links.

• Provide a variety of content to increase your chances of ranking and being found, such as YouTube videos, images, or anything else.

And remember if you use AI content on a website, you need to have the system in place for human review and editing to ensure quality.

For more information, see my article on search engine land:ChatGPT Content and SEO: where do we go from here?

4. Internal link

Have good volumeuseful contentacross the pagewell organizedhelps you better tailor your site to your search term.

Silo SEO is a technique I discovered over 20 years ago. Structures web page content by grouping related web pages into hierarchical categories using index and links.

In other words, how you set up folders and navigate your site matters.

Siloing improves the internal linking system to connect similar pages and helps search engines discover more related content to better understand the site's topic.

It also helps users easily navigate to find the information they need.

Note that Google sometimes considers the entire website, rather than a single webpage, when determining which websites to rank:

“Site navigation is important to help visitors quickly find the content they need. It can also help search engines understand what content is important to the website owner. While Google's search results appear at the page level, Google also likes to understand the role the page plays in the bigger picture of the site."

- Google,A Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

In practice, a local business website could probably be organized by things like:

• Section with individual service pages.
• Site page section, if any.

For example, if your business has more than one location, create one or more pages dedicated to each location where your business is located.

An example is a silo strategy for a keyword like "engineering company".

You will create a section for the site by linking to the landing page for that term from the top navigation. Then add subpages detailing each location and the services it offers.

This will apply to each business location. Avoid duplicate content issues by giving each section a unique location.

5. Website and Website Optimization

There are countless ways to optimize your website, but for local businesses just starting out, here are some things they can and should do to improve SEO:

• Optimize local websites by including city, neighborhood, related geographic terms and other key terms in places like meta tags and in website content, including header tags and anchor text.

• I implement, I implementplan of the local type of activityon web pages to further explain to search engines what a business is and present that information to searchers. Name, address, phone, number and website is the minimum goal. This is a bit more technical and local businesses may want to use things likeStructured Data Markup Assistantto continue. Google also has a help file for thisHere.

• Optimize site performance. Since most local searches are done on mobile devices, local businesses should have a mobile-friendly website. It's another technical issue, but Google has ittoolsWhelp fileshelp people along the way. You further ensure that the Site is protected byEnable HTTPSNecessary.

The last two points may be areas where the local company spends little money on specialist help.

6. Links

Local businesses are a must havequality, local linksto show they are a trusted local business. Here are some ideas to earn links:

• As mentioned earlier, high-quality, useful community-driven content can build links naturally.

• Only links originating from unique IP addresses, domains, and WHOIS data for a given geographic region will be useful.

• Some other ideas for getting local links include: joining a local organization, subscribing to a local directory, hosting a local event and attracting an audience to your website, sponsoring a local event, starting a blog, or being interviewed for a report by a local press.

Focus on what's important

Numerous SEO tactics can help local websites rank higher in search results. However, there are several methods that can help local businesses get the most bang for their buck, whether they implement them themselves or allocate some of their marketing budget to hiring outside expertise.

Focus on your local hierarchy of SEO needs and get the SEO foundation right to have a chance to compete.