Local Archives - BOLLYWOOD SURKHIYAN

How to Get Featured in Your Local Newspaper

Getting featured in your local newspaper is a great way to get exposure, and it is free! In addition to reaching a local target for your niche market, many papers have online versions, enabling you to post the link to the article on your website, blog, etc.

What to do:

1) Decide what you have done that is news-worthy and of local interest.

Are you publishing a book? Organizing a fundraiser or community event? Starting a new business, new location, or offering new services?

For ideas, take a look at your local paper for the kind of stories that are printed, long and short. For example, papers often features local authors. So if you have published an eBook or print book, there’s a good chance they will write about you.

The story doesn’t have to be related to your business. The point is to get your name in the paper, so that there can be at least a mention of what you do professionally. For example, if gardening is your hobby and they have a gardening section, you can write an article on gardening tips.

2) Write a press release. Be concise, and include key information.

If you’ve never written a press release, search the internet for some tips. The paper is likely to edit and contents, so don’t be surprised if what you see in print doesn’t match what you sent! Remember the 5 W’s and one H: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.

3) Submit press release to multiple publications.

If you live in a town/city which boarders a major metropolitan area, submit to newspapers for both areas. Also consider any magazines and journals that are a good fit for your topic.

The larger publications have the advantage of a larger distribution. The advantage of the smaller publications, is that they may have more time and space for a reporter to do a personal interview with you!

4) Be Patient!

If don’t hear back right away, the paper may have a backlog of potential stories. For example, because eBooks have made self-publishing so affordable, it could take several months to be featured as a local author.

5) Add published story to your Personal Portfolio.

Get in the habit of maintaining a special folder of your accomplishments, training, awards, etc.

Summary

Whatever your field or expertise, you can always benefit from free advertising! Your local newspaper is a great avenue to get more exposure, and add to your credibility. If you don’t think you’ve done anything newsworthy – think again. Take a look at the entire newspaper, magazines, and journals, looking for connections to things that you have done. Send a press release – and you are on your way!

Think Global Act Local: A Case Of McDonald’s Global Strategy

The impact of culture on international business, has led to the emphasis of the concept of glocalization. The following reasons, highlight the importance of adopting a strategy tailored to a particular culture in international business. This reasons are:

– International marketing scheme is affected by globalisation and cultural differences.

Cultural distinctiveness has affected strategies adopted in international management. A given strategy in a particular culture is unlikely to yield the same result in another cultural background or environment.

– An understanding of the difference between macro and micro environment has been of great help in strategies of international interventions.

– Cultural distinctiveness has a great impact on consumption of goods and services. A clear understanding of this, helps international organisations to properly analyse the market and suggest ways to properly meet consumers needs and demand.

A case study of the global strategy of McDonald’s reveals the concept of ” think global and act local” (glocalization).

McDonald’s was able to attract its French customers by introducing some local menus that suits the French taste bud. When McDonald’s first came into France, it faced lots of oppositions. The difference in food culture between the French and the Americans was very wide. The French preferred home made kind of food rather than fast food meals. Secondly the French were sentimental towards accepting the American life style. The Mistake McDonald’s made was that it positioned it self as an American fast food company, introducing American menus and way of life to the French. As a result, the French were not willing to accept its brand. Based on this, there was need for McDonald’s to restrategise. McDonald’s later discovered the importance of children in influencing family decision, and therefore, positioned itself as a family restaurant rather than a US brand restaurant. This strategy was powerful because it was the only brand at that time that recognised the family.

The moment McDonald’s started positioning itself as a place for the modern French family, it started to experience an increase in growth. This was the turning point for McDonald’s in France.

However, the success of McDonald’s was not completely smooth without hitches. In 1999, an irritated farmer named Jose Bove, began a protest against the insurgence of junk food. He took his tractor along with some other farmers and demolished the McDonald’s branch in his local area. This protest by Jose brought the attention of the French president who openly condemned the role of US within the global food industries.

The opposition by Jose led McDonald’s to adopt a transparency policy campaign with farmers to explain to them what it is doing to improve relations among them.

Secondly, McDonald’s started paying attention to local details. It discovered that the French do not have the habit of snacking. It had to adopt recipes which the French liked to its menu. It added French pastries and cakes to its menu, and this was a big boost to its sales. Also, it had to ensure that French franchise only prepare fries from a particular specie of French potato. This strategies adopted by McDonald’s made the French to accept its global brand because it had a local taste and feel.

Also, the global fast food McDonald’s, survived and grew in India by developing innovative menus to cater to Indian taste bud. When McDonald’s first came to India, it had strong oppositions from nationalist. Despite this opposition, it had a growth plan to double its turnover every three years in the next decade.

The managing director of McDonald’s in India, Vikram Bakshi, said that in order to survive in India, it had to change its strategy. Seventy percent of its product had to be developed to suit the Indian market. In India McDonald’s was very careful not to offer pork or beef based on the country’s sensitivity to these items.

McDonald’s faced a very big challenge on how to reach out to the Indian large vegetarian population, and still maintain its national brand. Hence, in 1999, it came up with a new brand of burger called the “McAloo Tikki Burger”. This burger has never been heard of any where in the world. Today, the McAloo tikki burger is the single highest selling product and one of the first product to be exported to the middle east.

McDonald’s archived its success in India and world wide because it used both global and local strategy in marketing its products. It had different designs for different countries depending on their culture, as in the case of India.

McDonald’s also takes into consideration the laws of the country they find themselves. For example, in Spain beer is sold in McDonald’s outlets, while in Great Britain it can’t because it will need a separate license to sell alcohol.

This case of McDonald’s shows that in order to succeed globally, intercultural differences should be taken into consideration in the strategy adopted by international organisations.

In conclusion, cultures affect the strategy adopted by international organisations. These cultures vary, therefore the strategy adopted in country A should be different from the strategy adopted in country B.

In addition, global brands has been able to evolve cultures to a certain degree, and cultures has in turn, affected the nature of global brands.

In line with this, people hold certain element of their culture in high esteem and are not willing to let go of it. However, they are willing to accept foreign influences only if it is able to portray certain aspect of their culture, making them have a local feel.

As a result, for international organisations to succeed globally, it is important to pay attention to local needs, while maintaining a global brand.

Therefore, as you deploy a market entry strategy into foreign markets, it is important to adopt the concept of “think global and act local”.

Local SEO Tips You Need to Implement

If you want to target a specific town, you should have a physical address in its locality.

It is very important to have a consistent physical address in the area you choose to optimize. In addition, the vicinity where your specific address is located should be as close as possible to your targeted area.

Use Google My Business (GMB) the proper way.

Google has made GMB more important, meaning, any business info you include in it also appears on Google+, Google Search and Google Maps. This makes it easier for customers to locate you with whatever device they use.

When you create or further expand your GMB for local SEO, make sure that:

You fill in your GMB completely with accurate, relevant and consistent information

You list an owner-verified GMB location

You mention the specific town and city you are targeting in the GMB landing page title

The GMB’s main categories are consistent with your products that match a wide-ranging search category.

Make sure that the NAP or Name, Address and Phone on your site is the same on GMB.

Aside from your physical address, make sure that the NAP matches the name of your business; this has to be consistent wherever it appears on the web.

In particular, you should use an accurate template for your NAP no matter where they are used – like on your site, Google+ account, GMB or other sites, as well as directory listings.

Make sure your website includes a map to your physical address.

In addition to including contact info on your website, it would also help a lot to incorporate an actual map so people will know your exact location. You can add a code on the contact page of your site to include a map to your location.

Give a distinct web page for every product.

If you offer different products/services, see to it that each has its own webpage, together with specific and relevant details. These pages in particular can be linked from a page that shows the products/services offered in your portfolio.

Use citations properly.

Obtaining citations in major directories across the globe, region and locality is crucial for local SEO. Citations have the ability to boost credibility and build authority for your website, and best of all drive, traffic to your site.

However, if you have no website (it is a must), you can be more visible with the help of local listings.

If you plan on using citations, make sure that:

They are consistent.

They come from good quality websites.

Your business gets mentioned in blog posts and the local newspaper.

You have a lot of domains that are relevant to your locality and industry that talk about your business in a positive manner.

The Value of Google Places for Local Business and Map Ranking Factors

So as search engine marketers, we all know the value of Google’s local 10 pack, 7 pack, 3 pack, whatever you want to call it. But just how valuable is it and what are the factors that search engines use to determine local ranking? This is all what we will talk about in today’s entry.

For those of you who may not know me yet, my name is Matt Parks. I’m an online marketing consultant who helps small, medium and even global companies build appropriate online marketing strategies and enhance their brand awareness through competitive traditional and non-traditional advertising techniques.

Now for what you’ve been waiting for… the good stuff…

So, you may ask… Just how valuable are the local map results for my company? Well there is no simple answer to that question. Each company should have a custom built strategy. For instance, if you own a local Thai restaurant and want to increase your daily foot traffic, local listings will greatly help your efforts. On the other hand, you own a specialty shoe store that does 100% of your business online, local listings are just not for you. Google and other search engines developed their local results pages to assist users in finding small business owners with brick and mortar shops, retail stores or restaurants, and get quick information about them – such as hours, short reviews and even menu items and sale dates.

So, we’ve whittled a few of you out of the mix now. What’s next? How do I get premium ranking with these listings?

Ahhhhh. So you want to know the magic trick huh? Well, first you need to have a listing. You can create one by logging into your Google account if you have one, and selecting the local business center icon under your settings. If you don’t have one there, just type into Google: “local business center” and follow the easy to use, step by step listing creation wizard. When creating your listing, it is very important to make sure all the information you provide is correct, including phone number and address as before you finish, you will be required to verify by telephone or snail mail that in fact the listing is yours. Now on to the pot of gold. Lets go over the top ten ranking factors for local listings…

1: GENERAL IMPORTANCE OF CLAIMING LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING – You have to have a listing first.

2: LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING ADDRESS IN CITY OF SEARCH – The closer you are to the IP, the better.

3: ASSOCIATING LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING WITH PROPER CATEGORIES – This is a must, create new categories if you need to, just don’t try and keyword stuff.

4: PRODUCT / SERVICE KEYWORD IN LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING TITLE – Use your correct full name, but add a keyword if it fits right. ie: Garden Palace – Chinese Restaurant

5: PROXIMITY OF ADDRESS TO CITY CENTROID – Don’t use a fake address, but if you are corporate, a UPS box (no P.O. box, only physical address) near the middle of town couldn’t hurt

6: PRODUCT/SERVICE KEYWORDS IN LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING DESCRIPTION – Keep it short and sweet.. Remember, you are trying to appeal to the user/searcher.

7: LOCATION KEYWORD IN LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING TITLE/DESCRIPTION – Garden Palace of Nashville – Chinese Restaurant

8: ASSOCIATING PHOTOS/VIDEOS WITH THE LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING – Not as important, but try and at least upload a logo.

9: PRODUCT / SERVICE IN LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING CUSTOM FIELDS – Undetermined how much this helps, but they are provided, so use them… But don’t OVERUSE them and stuff em’ full of keywords.

10: ASSOCIATING LOCAL AREA CODE AS PRIMARY LOCAL BUSINESS LISTING NUMBER – Local numbers perform much better, may not help with ranking, but it does with consumer trust.

An extra bonus: Make sure information in your listing is consistent across the board.. ie: YellowPages.com, CitySearch.com, etc. as Google uses these Data Sources to add trustworthiness to your listing and gives you ranking bonuses due to it being more “relevant”.

Well that’s about it.

How to Do Digital Marketing for Local Business

Local marketing can work for any online business whether you really are only local to the place you want to market to or whether you’re a global business.

Start a Local Niche Group on Facebook

The remarkable thing about Facebook is that you can create as many groups as you want to. You can create them for different locations so that you can learn more about your audience in those local areas. Doing this will give you an inside into their thoughts and problems that you can use everywhere.

Add Your Business to Local Directories

One thing you must be careful about is that many directories don’t let you have more than one listing per phone number. You can get more numbers via some of the online services like Google Voice and others.

Contribute Content to Local News Outlets

Locally there are magazines, newspapers, TV shows, radio shows and more that you can be interviewed on, submit content to, and more. Give them a reason to want to feature your story, and you’ll soon become a local celebrity.

Host a Local Contest

You can kick things off by hosting an online contest for your audience who live in specific locations only. Choose a contest that causes buzz. For example, get participants to make a video that can be easily shared.

Optimize Your Site for Local Search

This won’t cost you much at all. Set up your site, or at least a page on your site with local search terms. Don’t keyword stuff, think about the words and the content you put on that page before doing it. You want visitors to feel special when they visit.

Be Easily Accessible

If you want to be trusted by local people, you need to communicate with them. You need to allow them to email you and contact you easily. Don’t hide any of your contact information and make sure they can do it easily.

Get More Reviews

Set up a system that enables you to get more reviews. Set up your autoresponder to automatically ask for reviews after your customer has had enough time to experience results.

Create More Locally Focused Content

When you are focusing on a location consider creating more locally focused content. You may have to get creative doing it, but adding local events, and other related information to your content will help.

Create an Influencer Marketing Campaign

One fast way to break into any local market is to find local influencers to mention your name or product. You can often work with multiple influencers at the same time too.

What You Need to Know About Local Search Engine Optimization Services

SEO, search engine optimization has been the thorn in many companies sides when it comes to their online marketing efforts. Those that chose to carry out their search engine optimization in-house soon found that it required lots of time and focus, which would drain their valuable resources. Those that used internet marketing agencies soon saw the return on their investment.

Then as a nasty joke Google introduced their Pigeon update in July 2014, which made search engine optimization even more complicated than before. The new update was developed to make online searches more convenient for mobile users who are searching for a particular product or service. With their location active, Google is now able to provide them with the most relevant results in their local area first, this means that companies have had to include local in their search engine optimization services to ensure that they are seen first, reaching their local audience with ease and convenience.

Let’s admit it SEO has become very complicated and it takes up so much time, which is why so many companies use the services of internet marketing specialists, so that they free up their valuable resources for other important tasks within the company. There are a few things you need to know and do when it comes to local search engine optimization and ensure that the services you are paying for, includes these.

First is to ensure you have a Google My Business listing. This is imperative, you are going directly to one of the top search engines with this simple set up which takes a matter of minutes. You need to ensure that every section is completed in detail and make sure your address and contact information is accurate, enabling Google to identify your location without delay so that they can trawl your page and rank you in the potential customers search result.

Next you need to ensure your company is listed on all the other top online directory sites, such as Yelp, for example. Again you need to ensure that every section is completed in detail, making it easier for search engines to identify your company based on location and then rank you accordingly. This helps you reach a wider audience within your local area, ensuring your improve your visibility moving forward.

From here you need to get your customers to give online reviews on your products and services or testimonials that you can add to your website. Reviews are a fantastic way to get noticed online for your local search engine results. Speak to your SEO expert to identify the best way to do this. It can be something as simple as when clients purchase from your website they receive an email a few days later asking them to rank your service or asking them to provide a review based on their experience.

A very important part of local search engine optimization is to ensure you include your address and location on your website. Now this may sound obvious and you’re already thinking that you have this on your contact page already, but in order to ensure each of your pages are ranked effectively, you will want to include our location on each and every one of your web pages for the best end result.

Links are another very important part of your local search engine optimization services. Link building helps you reach your audience and improves your visibility with search engines. You want high quality links from reliable sources that are relevant to your industry, they should be location based to meet the Pigeon update requirements.

Local SEO Services to Promote Your Local Business

For the past few months, I was struggling to get my restaurant business in Denver, Colorado on the initial pages of Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing. I finally found the perfect solution to all my difficulties – local SEO. I contacted a professional SEO company providing local SEO services. After analyzing my business and its visibility issues, the SEO team presented me with an SEO package that included a wide range of strategies designed to enhance the search engine page ranking of my website and drive more traffic and sales. Let’s look at how these strategies worked to promote my business.

Local Listing Sites: Local SEO makes use of local listing sites (e.g. Yellow Pages, Yahoo, Google, Bing etc) that target local/geo targeted terms, for optimizing local search results. The SEO Company provided strategies that helped increase the ranking of my local business listing on these sites. Now, when someone searches for Denver-specific data relating to my business, the information on my business that is stored on all these sites appears as a top search result.

With enhanced online visibility, I find that more local customers have started to visit my website, which is working to promote my brand. My service provider took care to choose only local listing sites authorized by Google for promoting my small business.

Back linking: Local SEO services include building inbound links to a business website. In keeping with Google’s latest Penguin update, my SEO service provider took care to build backlinks to my website from reliable websites with content relevant to my business. I realized that relevancy was crucial because the search engines identify keywords on the basis of the backlinks. Another significant aspect is link speed or the speed at which backlinks are created. The SEO team built backlinks slowly and systematically, as any unnatural speed could make Google look at my links as spam. In addition, they also employed tactics such as social bookmarking, article and forum submissions and other off-page activities. Keyword variations, branded text, and other strategies were adopted to improve results.

Social Media Promotion: My service provider also used effective social media optimization strategies to drive my target audience to my website. They built my business profile on popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more and created posts in them which helped draw local customers to my website. They spread the posts via ‘Share’ or ‘Like’ buttons. As search engines, particularly Google, show search results from social media sites (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and more) these profiles are also helping to drive more organic traffic to my site. The SEO team also promoted my business by creating videos and images of my restaurant and sharing them through YouTube and Pinterest.

Social media marketing involves the maximum utilization of marketing potential with the features (paid advertising facility, contests, business pages in the case of Google+, and more) in social media sites. In my experience, focusing on a particular social media site for marketing purposes (Facebook Marketing, Twitter Marketing) is the best way to promote your business online.

Online Advertising

Pay per Click advertising (paying money to search engines to display your website on top search results) is regarded as a powerful way to promote business online due to easy implementation, high Return on Investment (ROI) and better traceability. The SEO team provided my business with PPC advertising services, also known as geo-targeted PPC. The advertising was focused on the Denver area, which resulted in more local customers visiting my website. Both open-ended keywords and focused keywords were used in my geo-targeted PPC.

The local SEO services provided by the SEO company help draw the attention of more local customers to my website and helped in the online promotion of my restaurant – something which I definitely couldn’t have achieved on my own.

Why Is A Local Search Engine Important For Businesses?

“Go Local”… This new mantra to shop local, buy local and go local, etc. has become a game-changer for the businesses. Eight out of ten consumers use search to find local information that means if your business is not optimized for the local search, your business is missing 80% customers. The local search engine is critical if you want your business to grow and expand.

What Makes Local Search Important?

With every search on Google, local search is happening. When someone is searching for any product and services, they search with the “near me” keyword. For e.g. “coffee shop near me” “Thai restaurant near me”.

The below-mentioned statistics suggest how Local Search has become imperative in providing business.

50% of consumers who performed searches through their smartphones have visited the local stores in 24 hours.
35% of people searched through their computer visited the local stores in a day.
73% of the local businesses witnessed a boost in their sales and got unique consumers based on who searched them locally.
68% of people suggested that they prefer searching online for local businesses before visiting them.
92% of users looked online for local businesses in the year 2017 and that number is growing every day.
86% of the people look up the location of the business in the Google Maps

To give you better clarity, let’s pretend my tap broke. I do not want to search whichever websites that Google lines up for me. Rather, I will search for writing “plumber near me” “Plumbing services near me”

The SERPS will get me a bunch of local plumbing services including ratings and testimonials as well as price packages. – Get it? This is how the local search engine works.

How Local B2B Search Can Be A Game Changer?

We understood the power of local search SEO, but if you think who cares? Well, as a matter of fact, your customer cares. Because local consumers will always rely on the local search engine results to find the information. So, how can you make your local search engine better for your business?

The crucial parts of local Search SEO involve:

When it comes to local SEO, it is different from organic practices. When optimizing your business for local search below are the immediate areas you need to focus:

Optimize “Google My Business”
Improve your internal link structure
Create local content
Make sure your website is mobile responsive
Make sure that your business contact details are updated
Engage more on social media platforms by adding daily posts
Optimize online directories
Add location to your web pages
Optimize your meta description, content, title tags, images, and URL

Local search engine results are based on geographical factors. It is impossible to rank based on organic SEO unless you are a huge brand. Especially B2B businesses where competition is stiff, your business can enjoy benefits like:

Increased web traffic
Increased visibility
Build a loyal customer base
Enhanced brand awareness
Increased business inquiries/leads
Your business earns more trust through high page rankings
Repeat customers
Reduces advertising expenses
Get exposure in local business community directories
Gets more positive reviews

To Get Rank On Google – You Need Local SEO

You might be wondering what it takes to get first-page ranking on Google? Well, to say least there are literally hundreds of things that go in from best SEO practices to ratings and reviews, optimizing the mobile experience, focusing on user experience, regularly updating and maintaining Google listing, and so on.

Google algorithms are constantly changing to deliver relevant search for the users. Google’s “Venice Update” was one of the first changes that influenced the local search for businesses. The update made it imperative to have landing pages for the businesses for every location they provide service and optimize it with the right keywords.

Another significant rollout was “Google Pigeon Update” which had several makeovers with the recent one including “Local 3 pack” as opposed to how earlier they used to display 8-10 businesses in a pack.

Recently, Google announced another change suggesting that the search results are local and even more relevant.

The top half search result page is covered with the “Paid Ads” and the “local pack listings”. About 86% of the customers use this listing when they are looking for local businesses.

With the right local SEO strategies and practices, your business can come in the top 3 local pack searches.

Algorithms are adapting local “near me” search hence to get your business listing higher on Google page ranking you can’t overlook Local Search SEO.

It’s a step by step process that you need to perform to get on the first page of Google.

Local Search Vs General Search Engine

Search engine giants like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. use hundreds of factors to rank and index in the searches that include SEO keywords, inbound and outbound links, content, to name a few.

Local businesses having a physical office in a specific location will want to rank high in the local search. The user is likely to search for the products/services in a specific location they want to find it nearby and easy to commute to visit. Therefore, it is important for local businesses to show up in local searches.

Can Local Businesses Rank High On Search Engines Like Google?

It is not impossible but tough. Also with every search engine, the algorithm varies, Google competitors like Bing, Yahoo adopt different strategies to place the businesses.

Ideally, multi-location brands have better chances to rank locally as well as organically since they have a website to help boost their ranking when searched.

That is where organic SEO comes into play. Search engine optimization is the process of trying to make sure search engines know which searches your business or website is relevant for. However, there are marketers who manipulate the results using SEO techniques.

Google considers search engine manipulation to be extremely serious and expends substantial resources to try to identify and eliminate it. Hence, Google is now emphasizing more on “local searches”. The local search algorithm update, “Pigeon” is giving importance to the local search results hence benefitting the local business.

Closing Thoughts

Currently, if you have not performed local SEO, we recommend that you devote your time to getting those things done. It is important that your customers find you.

When it comes to Local SEO we are pro at it. If your website is not showing in local searches your business is missing a huge opportunity.

What Is Local SEO and 5 Reasons Why It’s Important

What You Don’t Know Online Can Hurt You

How do you know if you need a local SEO strategy? The critical word in this question is “local.” Do you own a business that draws in customers from zero to 15 miles away? Would potential customers looking for your products and services drive up to ten minutes to get to your business? If you can answer yes to these questions, chances are you need to manage your local SEO strategy.

So, what is local SEO? And why is it important?

What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO involves optimizing your online presence to attract business from local searches on Google and other search engines. According to Hubspot’s local SEO statistics, 46% of all Google searchers are looking for local information. And 72% of consumers who searched for a local product or service using local SEO near me searches visited a store within five miles.

So, does local SEO work? It sure did if you were one of those businesses. Are you wondering where to start? To illustrate the benefits of focusing on local SEO, we’ve put together a list of five reasons why it’s essential for your business success.

5 Reasons Local SEO Is Essential for Your Business Success

Reason #1 – Your Business Details Appear in Front of Consumers Looking for Your Products and Services

Remember the good old days when you scoured the yellow pages to find businesses offering the products and services you needed? Today, all you do is type the product or service you’re looking for into a search engine on your laptop, desktop, or mobile device. The businesses that provide those products or services will pop up. And, if you type “near me,” it’ll show you everything close enough to drive to from your current location.

Pretty slick. Those local SEO “near me” searches save you time. Just choose what you like, pull up the map and directions, and you’re good to go. If you look at those results carefully, you’ll see they’re populated by online business directories, much like the yellow pages of bygone days.

When you compare local SEO vs. organic SEO, both are still important. You want a content marketing strategy that helps your pages rank in search engine results for specific keywords and keyword phrases (the goal of organic SEO strategies). But local SEO is critical for businesses that serve a localized community. It’s somewhat less important for global companies that draw customers from all over.

Reason #2 – Consistently Accurate Online Directory Citations Boost Your Organic and Local Pack Rankings

You must list your business name, address, and phone number accurately and consistently across the top-ranked local citations and business directories. That information is referred to as your NAP Data (name, address, phone). A search engine bot is more likely include your business in the search engine results pages (SERPs) if it’s confident that your information is consistent and accurate.

That seems fair. Do you think you might get frustrated if Google sent you to a business that isn’t there or gave you a phone number that’s no longer in service? Search engines want to find this basic information about your business in numerous places throughout the internet.

When they find that information in several places-and it’s all consistent and correctthey trust the data. But if Google or Bing, for example, see confusing, inconsistent data, they consider it less valid-less reliable. Therefore, search engines are more likely to bypass you in favor of a business with more consistent NAP Data.

Reason #3 – Your Business Site Gets More Links Back to It from Authoritative, Trusted Sites

Backlinks, or links pointing to your site from trusted, authoritative websites, play an essential role in SEO. They validate your website’s existence, proving that your site is a viable force in the vast internet universe. Additionally, some directory citation sites add a website URL field to their listings and display these URLs as ‘dofollow’ links. That passes valuable link equity to your site. Search engines use backlinks to determine your domain authority, boosting your SEO (as opposed to ‘nofollow’ links, which are nice but don’t give you any juice).

Want another great way to snag a backlink while doing something else worthwhile to build your business? Join the local chamber of commerce or other business group. Doing this will provide a relevant local link back to your website, and you can network at local events. While you’re at these events, you might pick up some business or even more backlink opportunities.

In addition, if you have vendors or are a product provider, you may want them to link to your website as well (with a dofollow link, of course).

Reason #4 – Your Business Will Be Closer to Landing on the First Page of Search Engine Results

Online business directories take up quite a bit of real estate on search engine results pages (SERPs). As a result, local businesses they list in their directories get top billing on local search queries. If you’re not on those lists…

You need to know how to get your business listed in these local citations business directories because you’ll lose out on valuable business. And what you don’t know online can hurt you.

You might have the best pizza in town, but if the guy across town doesn’t find you when he searches for “pizza near me,” he’s going to go buy his pizza from your competitor. And that brings us to Reason #5.

Reason #5 – Your Business Will Gain Opportunities for Third-Party Reviews

Here are the three core pillars for ranking well in the Google Local Map Pack.

Relevance

How well do you target the keywords or topics your potential customers would search for on your website?

Prominence

How well does your business stand out online?

Proximity

How close is your business to the potential customer searching for your products or services?

We’ve touched on relevance and proximity. Now it’s time to talk about prominence: the positive reputation and comments your business enjoys across the internet. How do search engines find this information? Many citations and directories allow customers to post reviews and grade their experiences with local businesses.

If you deliver excellent service, your business will benefit from this added perk. But it’s not enough to get good reviews. You should also respond to them. And, if you get a negative review, don’t sweat it. Just be sure you keep your cool and respond appropriately. Work on resolving the issue as quickly as possible. Even a simple apology is better than no response at all.

More Tips for Local SEO

Local SEO for multiple locations, list all of your staffed locations, including the complete name, address, and phone number on a Contact Us page on your site.

For businesses with 10 or fewer locations, list the complete name, address, and phone number of each location in the sitewide footer.

Make sure people can easily find your phone number on your website-and that it’s clickable on mobile devices.

Just as you want to be consistent on the directories, make sure your NAP Data is consistent across all pages of your website.

If your business serves multiple locations, you need a separate page with unique content for each site. Avoid copying and pasting from one page to the other.

Customize Your Local SEO to Your Business Type

So, what you don’t know online can hurt you. If your business isn’t working on a local SEO strategy, you’re leaving money on the table that your competitor across town will pick up.

Local SEO works well, but it takes time and patience just like organic SEO. That’s why many businesses hire a local SEO agency to put all the pieces together.

How To Attract Local Customers – A Quick Guide To Local SEO

If you are running a local business, you may be wondering how you can target even more customers in your region. If you already have a website, that’s a great start, and if you don’t, it’s definitely time to join the digital marketing revolution.

More and more people are searching for businesses like yours online. That means they are using their computers, tablets and phones to find you. If you’re not online, or your website can’t be found, you can kiss goodbye to the chance of doing business with them. Whether you are selling products or services, you could be missing out on a huge chunk of your market.

But I have a website. Isn’t that enough?

No, you need to ensure people can find your website. The only way to do this, short of delivering your website address to everybody in the area by hand, is by making your website known by the search engines. And the only way you can do that is through local SEO.

Local SEO – It’s Not As Hard As It Sounds

When it comes to ensuring local customers can find you, the process is easier than it sounds, but it needs work. It also needs constant maintenance if you want to ensure you stay in front of your target audience and ahead of your competitors. Fortunately, there are companies offering professional assistance with search engine optimisation that can do everything for you, but more on this later.

Here are 5 ways you can improve your chances of being found by local customers:

1. Create a Google My Business account – by claiming your own Google My Business page, you will be joining the millions of businesses that are benefiting from this service. It’s almost like an additional web page, and is just another way to get your business known. This services allows you to add all the important details of your business, and to receive and show customer reviews too.

2. Acquire as many local reviews as possible – local reviews also have a direct impact on local search, and so try to get as many as possible. Use Google, Yell and other review sites, and ask previous customers if they would be happy to leave a review.

3. Optimise your landing pages – every single page on your website is a chance to get your business noticed in the search engines. By using the keywords that your audience is using to search for you online you automatically increase your chances of being found. So, if prospective customers are searching for “roofing”, make sure your pages contain that search phrase.

4. Build a link strategy – business is largely based on trust, but how do you convince people to trust you if they haven’t dealt with you before? The answer is to become an online authority in your field. Blog posts are a great way to do this and will add more keyword juice for the search engines as well as showing you know your stuff. You should look to write blogs on your website that link to good quality sites within your industry, and also look to write guest posts on relevant blogs that then link back to your own website.

5. Don’t forget social media – social media is another way you can boost your search engine rankings, so use it as much as you can. It’s also a great method to build a rapport with your target audience, and yet another way you can advertise your service, communicate directly with your customers and attract reviews.

If You Don’t, Your Competitors Will

Search engine optimisation is one of the best ways to reach your target audience. When it comes to attracting local business, you have a lot of tools and options open, but you must use them well to get the best returns. It’s only a matter of time before your competitors start to take up these methods, if they aren’t already doing so.