- Welcome to The Journey.
I'm Nealey. - And I'm Morgan.
- And today we're gonna give you eight quick tips
to improve your local SEO.
All right Morgan before we dive into the tips,
it's probably a good idea to really understand
what is SEO and why is it so important?
- Yeah.
The reason we use search engines
is because they have proven time and time again
that they provide the best answers
to the questions that we're searching for
and if your website doesn't appear
on the first page of the search results,
then you're nowhere.
And so SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization
and it's work that you do to make sure that you prove
to Google and other search engines you're the best.
So for SEO, I like to use the analogy
of all the work that you need to do
is like a 1,000 piece puzzle.
And you and all of your competitors,
you all have the same puzzle
and we're trying to prove to Google who's the best,
which one of these puzzles is the most complete.
- My puzzle's best, definitely the best.
- Yours is definitely the best.
We know that.
Does Google know that?
We shall find out. - Right.
- But the thing is not everyone has all 1,000 pieces.
Some people are new.
Some people have been doing it for a long time
and Google doesn't necessarily care
that you have all the pieces in.
The thing that Google cares about
is that you have more than the next guy.
You could have maybe 10 pieces
and if you're in not a very competitive space then yeah,
you're going to appear on the first page.
So these eight tips that we're going to talk about
are going to help you to start putting those pieces
in to get started on your SEO journey for local businesses.
- Perfect, so let's jump into the tips.
What's tip number one?
- Tip number one for local businesses.
Everybody needs this
is you need to create or claim
your Google My Business Profile.
Google My Business is this tool that Google has created
that allows users to see all of your business information
in one place.
We did a video all about this so go check it out
so you can deep dive but basically,
if you don't have a profile, you need to go create one
and if you haven't claimed your profile
meaning that your profile exists
but you didn't necessarily do it or some user created that,
you need to claim it so that you can update
it with all the right information.
- Right.
You need to make sure it's in your control.
Don't let it out to the world for anyone to add.
It's yours.
- So tip number two is that you need
to optimize your profiles.
It's great to have it created
but if you don't have all the information
that Google is looking for,
then they're not going to recommend
your business over someone else.
So that means having your business name correct,
your address, your phone number,
your hours of operation.
Those are the basics that most people do,
but optimizing it really means going a level below that
so adding photographs, adding your logo,
adding pictures of your building
so that was when people are actually going to your business,
they know what it looks like.
If you're a restaurant,
include pictures of dishes and what you're known for
so that way people have lots more information
when they're looking at your Google My Business page.
So those are the key things that you need to do to optimize.
If there's reviews that are outstanding,
you need to respond to all of those reviews.
You need to encourage your customers to go and leave reviews
because that also plays a part in how you're going to rank
against other local business profiles.
- All right Morgan, what's tip number three?
- Tip number three is you need to add your business
to relevant business directories.
These are other sites that their main business
is promoting other businesses like yourself
and so you need to make sure that your business
not only is there but the information is correct
and the great thing, it's an easy back link.
- Absolutely. - So it really helps
with your SEO to make sure that your business,
anywhere people are looking at these business directories,
your business shows up.
- All right, which brings us to tip number four.
- Tip number four is to add your business address
to your website.
It sounds pretty plain and simple
but a lot of websites don't have that.
So again, to increase your rankings,
this is one thing that not only Google is looking for,
but your users,
if they're wanting to visit your business,
they want to have the address very prominently placed.
So put it in the footer.
Have a separate page about your location.
Just make sure that it's there, visible, and very prominent.
- All right, so should we put a Google Maps
thing on the site too?
- Yeah, that helps.
That's visual.
People can click it.
They can see exactly where you're located,
the cross streets, so that's always helpful as well
so just make sure that you actually
have the address called out and written out next to that.
- Perfect,
which brings us to tip number five.
What's tip number five?
- Make sure that your NAP
is consistent across the web.
- What's NAP? - Name.
- I like naps.
- I mean, well (laughter).
Name, address, phone number.
So you need to make sure that those three things
are consistently formatted everywhere.
So pick one and then update it on your website.
- [Nealey] Stick with it.
- Update it on your Google My Business
and then update it anywhere else where your website appears.
If you don't own those websites, email the owner and say,
"Hey, can you update this?"
And most likely they will
but just make sure it's consistent everywhere.
- Perfect.
To number six, what do we got?
- You need to update your home page's
meta title and meta description.
The meta title and meta description are things
on your website that you control
how your website shows up on the search results.
So whatever the meta title is, that's what will appear
on the search engine results page
and then the little description below.
This is a great opportunity for you
to let your clients know what you're about.
So if you are a coffee shop in Seattle,
maybe you should have that in your meta title
and description.
Put your location.
Put more information about your business
so that way your users know what you're about.
- Right, and most website builders
or applications that you use
have a section for you to add a meta title,
a meta keyword, and meta descriptions.
If you don't know how to go in the backend and do it,
which most of us don't want to, right?
So if you need help,
just contact whoever you're hosting your site with.
They'll probably be able to help you
get that information there because if you don't set anything
Google will just assume whatever it wants to put there
and it may not always be relevant
to what you want to invoke to your audience.
All right Morgan, what do we got for tip number seven?
- Tip number seven is just to make sure
that all of your other SEO elements are in place.
Make sure that you have great content on your website.
Make sure that your source code is formatted
in the way that Google likes to see it.
Make sure that you have a great number
of high-quality backlinks
that are pointing back to your site.
All of this will help with your local SEO.
We actually did an entire video all about the basics of SEO,
check it out right here.
- So it's super relevant to make sure
your site is structured in a way that Google basically wants
so on your site, those H1 tags like you mentioned,
it's basically a code on the site that says
"This is my most relevant tag line," if you will.
So only one H1 tag per site.
Images are super important because Google cannot read images
but it can read text
so that's that little description there.
Most website builders or applications like Word Press
has a place for you to add those.
All right Morgan, we're on the very last tip.
It's been an incredible journey, #thejourney.
What is tip number eight?
- Tip number eight is to consider launching
paid ads or Google guarantee.
So if you're not getting the results fast enough
or the traction that you need using steps one through seven
and appearing in the organic sections,
then this is where paid ads
and the Google guarantee comes in.
So you can consider doing these things.
Paid ads, obviously it's pay to play.
Whoop!
You appear right at the top of the search result.
It's amazing but once your ad budget is gone,
you no longer appear there.
But people click on the ads.
They're very effective.
- So I love paid ads.
It gets you right to the top
but I'm not really familiar with what Google guarantee is.
Give us the low down.
- So the Google guarantee is basically paid ads
supercharged.
So you could pay, anyone really can pay
to have their business appear in the paid ads
but the Google guarantee takes it to the next level
where if someone purchases the service
through the Google guarantee and they're not happy,
they can get their money back, which is really awesome.
So it's Google vetting certain businesses
and making sure that they provide a great experience.
There's extra levels you have to do to qualify
for the Google guarantee
but it's really great and stands out in the search results
and people love it.
All right, guys.
Those were our eight quick tips
to help improve your local SEO.
I hope you liked it.
I liked it.
Did you like it? - Loved it.
- I thought you would.
- Make sure you like this video.
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