Ways To Optimize Your Website for Local Search
No matter your industry, your website should be the first-place customers turn to for information about your business.
Unfortunately, many websites aren’t optimized for local search—they don’t have a way for users to find their business name or address, or they don’t use Google My Business tools like reviews and directions that would help draw in customers.
To help you optimize your website for local search, we’ve compiled a few quick tips:
Claim your business listing.
Claiming your business listing is the first step in optimizing your website for local search. The process is simple, but there are some things to keep in mind:
- If you have not claimed your business listing yet, do so immediately. The sooner you claim it, the better your chance of being found in local search results.
- Make sure that all of the information on your website corresponds with what Google has on file for you (namely, phone numbers and addresses).
- This ensures that users looking for a specific product/service will be directed straight back to where they came from once, they’ve made their purchase or inquiry and gives them no reason not to trust what’s displayed on screen!
- Local SEO in MD can be tricky, and it’s important to remember that it takes time. You may be disappointed if you’re looking for quick results from your local SEO efforts.
Optimize Google properties.
Google My Business, is a free tool that allows you to manage and optimize your business information across Google’s different platforms- such as Search and Maps.
The most important thing you can do for local search is, to ensure that all of the information on this page is accurate and up-to-date. You should also add photos of your business which will help people recognize it, when they see it in search results or on the map.
You must also claim ownership over all of these listings, so no one else can take over them by creating fake accounts with similar names (like “XYZ Company”).
If someone else has already claimed one of these accounts in another city or state, where they do not exist, then ask them nicely if they would be willing to transfer ownership to not confuse consumers looking for businesses like yours!
Optimize your website with code.
Optimizing your website for local search is a great way to get more traffic, but ensuring you have the correct code on your site, is also essential. Here are some things you can do:
Use schema.org markup (schema). This will tell Google what content is on each page so they can serve relevant information in their search results. For example, if someone searches for “vegetarian restaurants near me,” Google will show results with listing details like address, phone number, and reviews from trusted sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp!
Use structured data (structured). Structured data makes it easy for Google bots to crawl through websites and find specific information about businesses without having humans manually enter all that data into their system every time there’s an update or change made by owners/managers/staff members at said business(es).
It’s also great because it allows users who aren’t familiar with SEO terms like HTML tags to know precisely what kind of content each page contains without having read through every single word within those pages themselves first beforehand!
Claiming your business listing.
Claiming your business listing is the first step to optimizing your website for local search. Claiming your business listing is a simple process, but it’s also one that many businesses don’t know how to do and therefore skip out on.
Here are some steps you can take:
- Go to Google My Business and log in with your Google account information or create one if you don’t have one already;
- Search for “Your Company Name” or something similar by typing it into the search bar at the top of the page;
- Click “Edit” next to any listings with incorrect information, such as phone numbers or addresses.