If you’re a business that is dedicating itself to the massive online trend that we’ve become accustomed to than you’re well aware of Yelp and Google Maps, but you might not be aware of how much it can actually affect your websites success rate (or conversion rate, all depending on what type of online marketing you’re currently into). Local SEO is one of those processes that requires you to be smart about your business and SEO implementation, and this (of course) means making use of things like Google Maps and Yelp to list your business. Google updated its algorithm to “Pigeon” not too long ago, it actually occurred in July this past year. This update allowed the Google algorithm to take Google Maps and Yelp into account when it comes to local SEO results, and this meant that local business would have to become “initiated” within these platforms.
There are tons of people out there who don’t make use of Google Maps and such, but there are also millions who do. Whenever you look up a service in your region (for example let’s just say we’re looking up the search term “Canadian jean store”) there are going to be localized results at the very top of the list. This is because it’s always important to have access to services and products closer to your home, it just wouldn’t make sense to point you towards an Indian webpage that’s selling jeans overseas.
You need to set your business up on these platforms if you want to get the most out of your local SEO practices, and here’s how you can do it.
Step 1 – Set up a Google “My Business” account and make sure that your business is properly listed on Google Maps and Yelp. This means making sure you’ve put up the right address and phone number and such.
Step 2 – Focus on Yelp now and start up a listing on there as well, this means you’ll have more of a spread when it comes to promoting your services (which is, of course, always a good thing). On Yelp you have the ability to post photos and look at the customer reviews given to your service, you even have the ability to respond to these reviews!
Step 3 – Optimization time! You can go through all of your listings and optimize them as you see fit. Make sure that the URL to your homepage and stuff is included, as well as unique things that might intrigue potential customers. Putting up your hours of operations and pricing lists as well is always a nice idea, but it’s ultimately up to you.
Step 4 – Strive for greatness, try and gather a large amount of reviews through regular means (meaning just simple promotion and such, some people can ask for reviews but it doesn’t feel “organic”) in order to keep your business buzzing. It’s a tough task to manage, but nobody said local SEO was going to be easy.
