Localizing your search engine optimization is a powerful business tool, as it helps you target interested internet users in your area. However, companies tackling local SEO strategies for the first time are vulnerable to certain pitfalls, potentially undermining their efforts. To get the most out of your digital marketing, avoid these common SEO mistakes.
Not Localizing Keywords
Keywords play a huge role in who sees your website links. Well-researched keywords can boost your rankings with applicable queries, leading customers to your online shop.
However, if your services are limited to a specific area, it doesn’t make sense to cast a wide net; doing so will result in a high bounce rate as visitors realize you aren’t located nearby. Therefore, localizing keywords is an essential part of strategies for local SEO optimization.
One of the best ways to localize your keywords is to include the name of a city or county, as users often use these words to narrow their search. For best results, use these keywords in meta tags as well as webpage content.
Not Creating a Google My Business Listing
Web directories are the internet’s phonebook; they contain the names and contact information of businesses active online. You’re probably already familiar with several:
- Nextdoor
- Yellow Pages
- Better Business Bureau
- Yelp
Google My Business is the biggest and most important of them all, as it influences rankings on Google search engine results pages. Creating a listing is free, so there’s no excuse to skip this critical step. Once registered, you’ll have access to Google Reviews, and your links will show up on Google Maps.
Not Putting Contact Information on Your Website
While much of learning how to do SEO for website pages involves researching your audience, developing keywords and analyzing the results, it also includes simple tasks, such as listing your contact information. As obvious as this may seem, companies can get caught up in generating content and forget to provide their addresses, email addresses and phone numbers.
To avoid this blunder, put all your information in a footer visible on every webpage. To further encourage contact, you can embed a text box where visitors can directly input their message. It’s also a good idea to prominently display links to your social media accounts at the top or bottom of web pages.
Creating Multiple Listings
Creating listings on multiple web directories is good business, as it ensures your enterprise shows up whenever internet users search those catalogues. However, having multiple listings in the same directory undermines your efforts.
For one thing, directories have strict rules about multiple listings and may remove all of them if discovered. There’s also the issue of listings with incorrect or inconsistent information that needs to be clarified for internet users.
Unfortunately, duplicate listings are rarely purposeful — they can appear because of human error, updates to business information or automation glitches. As a result, it’s crucial to search directories for duplicate listings and remove them routinely.
Not Optimizing Website Images
Anyone providing SEO services for local business owners will tell you that image optimization is just as important as optimizing written content. Search engine algorithms consider images and their metadata for rankings; taking this extra step can put you ahead of the competition.
One of the best ways to optimize your images is to ensure they’re mobile-friendly. The majority of mobile users research purchases on their devices first, and mobile-friendly sites allow customers to navigate your web pages easily.
You should also optimize alt tags to increase the likelihood of images appearing in searches. Alt tags describe images and ideally contain keywords.
Unwired Web Solutions provides local business SEO services to help owners boost their online visibility. Our team of experts can create custom strategies to help you reach your business goals. To learn more, visit us online or give us a call.