3 Tips to Be Found Locally on Google

01/02/19 | by Terrnekia Collier | SEO

When you want to eat Italian food for dinner, what’s the first thing you do to find the closest and highest rated restaurant near you? You open up Google to browse the search results page and click on the one that pertains the most to what you want. The same goes for any local business. Potential customers visit your website and compare your prices and services to that of similar sites. Whichever business fits their needs the most is the one they decide to patron.

People searching for any type of service naturally gravitate towards results that are higher up on the page because they have a higher Google ranking than the others. Do you know if your business appears on the first page or the last? If you’re wondering how your local business can be easily found on Google, check out these 3 tips to help create more visibility for your company.

1. Optimize Your Website for Local SEO

When creating or revamping your website, it’s important to remember that search engines look at things such as titles, meta descriptions, and domain names. Keep it simple and make sure it’s relevant to your brand and what you’re posting on your site.

Domain Names, Titles, and Descriptions

Your title identifies the overall topic of whatever is present on that page. Meta descriptions are a synopsis of about 155 characters that describe the content of that page and show up in search engine results. Your domain name builds brand awareness and helps people remember who you are so they can return.

For example, if you own an ice cream shop named Game of Cones, you should aim for your domain name to be “https://gameofcones.com”. It’s simply just the name of your business but it’s easy for customers to remember.

Try to avoid domain names that have nothing to do with your business. It may confuse customers when they search for the name of your company and it is completely different from the actual establishment. It does not have to be identical, but at least attempt to make it as similar as possible.

The Importance of Keywords

Using the right keywords on your website is another way to boost your ranking. Include them on different pages of your website and make sure there is a connection between the keywords and the content on your page.

But also, be mindful not to oversaturate your page with them. Google is smart and recognizes when you are attempting to include these words just to appear more visible to people that search for businesses like yours. Your page may be penalized for doing so.

2. Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

How often do you look up businesses on your phone instead of a desktop or laptop? When you’re on the go and need information quickly, using your mobile device to search for what you need is now second nature for most people. According to Statista, 52.2% of all worldwide website traffic was generated through mobile devices in 2018.

What Is A Mobile-Friendly Website?

Do you know what that means? If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you may not receive the ranking on the results page that you want if people cannot access your site through their smartphones or if they have a bad experience while doing so. This can drive traffic away from your business, which is the exact opposite of what you want to accomplish in order to be found online locally by potential customers.

One way to make sure your site can make a swift transition from desktop to mobile is to make the information people are searching for as easy as possible to find. Some people don’t mind having to browse a website for what they’re looking for, but you should attempt to make it easy on them.

Make Information Easy To Find

Referencing back to the previous Game of Cones example, if your ice cream shop changes its available flavors every month and someone wants to know what flavors you’re currently offering, they may visit your site through their smartphone. If they have to continuously click through pages and pages of information just to find the flavors, they may give up and look elsewhere.

If something such as constant flavor changes is important to your brand, it would be best to have it somewhere near the top of one of your pages or have a page specifically for that so visitors don’t have to sift through pages of information they don’t find useful.

If you include images on your site, there needs to be a medium between image quality and image size. High-resolution images can slow down the speed on your website so it’s important to optimize the pictures by choosing the most practical file type. This can be a JPEG, PNG or a GIF. Also, consider the image dimensions and whether or not they need to be compressed.

Fonts and Button Sizes Matter

Another way to make sure your site is mobile friendly is to remember that font and button sizes matter. When someone is viewing your website on their phone, if the font is too small to read or the buttons too small to click, it can become frustrating to navigate through the site. Apple’s interface guidelines suggest that button sizes be at least 44 pixels by 44 pixels so that people aren’t accidentally clicking the wrong button. This will help to make users overall experience easier and better while on your website.

3. Improve Your Online Information

This may seem like a pretty obvious tip, but it is not something that is included in every website’s SEO. When people Google your business, is all your current information correct?

Keep Important Times and Dates Current

Your locations, phone number, email and social media accounts should all be verified and up-to-date. Your hours of operation should also be present on your site for users so they know exactly when they can communicate with you or visit your establishment in person.

Respond to Reviews

Customer reviews is another factor that encourages others to frequent your business. When you respond in a timely manner, to reviews that are good or bad, it shows that you value your customers and their opinion about their experience.

But, the more positive reviews the better. When people see that someone enjoyed the services you provided for them, this will increase the likelihood of gaining a new customer. The more visible your business becomes, the higher its ranking on Google.

Why Ranking is Important

Search results that appear on the first page receive more click-through traffic than any of the succeeding pages. The closer that your business page is to the top, the more visitors your site will receive and that can turn into more lead generation.
If you wish to learn more information about your local business being found on Google, contact us at iMatrix and we will gladly assist you in creating the best possible website for your brand!