Some of the common mistakes that businesses make when trying to optimize for local search include things like not claiming your Google My Business listing, not optimizing your website for local search, ignoring online reviews, and neglecting to build local citations. We provide some tips on how to avoid these mistakes and offer advice on how to fix any issues that might be impacting your local SEO efforts.
If you want to make your local SEO efforts easier, just contact Skokie SEO today at 224-242-9015.
Ignoring Local SEO Entirely
If you’re running a business, it’s important to make sure that your website is optimized for local SEO. Local SEO is a process by which you can make your website more visible in search engine results for certain local keywords.
For example, if you’re a plumber in Atlanta, you’ll want to make sure that your website comes up when someone searches for “plumber in Atlanta.”
Local SEO is a great way to get more traffic to your website and generate more leads for your business. However, there are a few common mistakes that businesses make when they’re trying to optimize their website for local SEO. In this article, we’ll discuss 5 of those mistakes and how you can avoid them.
Not Optimizing Your Google My Business Listing
When it comes to local SEO, it’s important to take advantage of any free tools that are available to you. One of these tools is Google My Business. Google My Business is an online listing that can help boost your rankings in local search results. This is the most obvious to optimize, but can be easily overlooked.
It also helps customers to find information about your business including your address, hours of operation, contact information, and more. However, many business owners are not taking advantage of this great tool.
In order to ensure that your listing shows up in Google’s local search results, you need to make sure that you’re optimizing your listing. This includes filling out all the fields in the listing and keeping your information accurate and up-to-date. Additionally, you should include photos, videos, and posts to keep your listing engaging and visually appealing. Doing so will help to ensure that customers notice your listing and choose your business over the competition.
Not Prioritizing On-Page SEO
Not prioritizing on-page SEO is another common local SEO mistake that businesses make. On-page SEO refers to the optimization of individual web pages so they are more easily found and ranked in search engine results. This includes things like optimizing meta descriptions and page titles, adding headings and lists, optimizing images, and even optimizing your URL structure. When done correctly, on-page SEO helps search engines to understand what type of content is on the page, which in turn helps the search engine to properly rank your web pages.
In addition to optimizing your content, it is also important to pay attention to your website structure. For example, all pages must be crawlable (i.e. search engine spiders can see and interpret the content on your website) and load quickly. This will ensure that your business’s website and information can be found quickly and accurately by search engine algorithms.
Forgetting About Reviews
Another mistake that businesses make when it comes to local SEO is forgetting about reviews. Reviews are an important part of your local SEO strategy, as they can positively influence your search engine rankings. Reviews provide consumers with information about the quality of service, which can help them make an informed decision about the business they choose. Google views the reviews from customers positively, and the more positive reviews you have, the better chances of your website and business appearing higher up in the rankings.
It is important to remember that the quality of the reviews matter too. You want to ensure you are receiving genuine reviews from customers, and to go about this you can use a few strategies. You can offer incentives for customers to write a review, and you can also use review management platforms. Additionally, you want to actively respond to all of the reviews, both the positive and the negative, in order to thank customers for their feedback and to address any issues they may have experienced.
Not Incorporating Schema Markup
Schema markup plays an important role in SEO, as it helps search engines understand the website’s content. Schema markup also offers several benefits, such as:
– It can help search engines know what is important on a page.
– It can make it easier for search engines to comprehend structured data on your website.
– It can make it easier for search engines to figure out what kind of content you are offering.
Schema markup is not only beneficial for Google, but for users as well. With schema markup, users can have a better understanding of what your website offers, which helps them make informed decisions when it comes to using your services or buying your products. It also helps improve user experience, as users can be shown relevant search results in the form of rich snippets, which is beneficial to local SEO as well.
Incorporating schema markup on your website can greatly improve your local SEO results, as it shows potential customers everything they need to know about your business without having to click on your website. Additionally, it stands you out in search engine results and makes you look more professional.
Conclusion About Local SEO Mistakes
Hopefully this list helps you think more about your local SEO strategy and will help you focus on improving important areas of your website and local profiles. Contact us and hire us if you need help sorting out all of your mistakes! We can help!