Growing Your Business
Feature
By Jamil Shabir (pictured), managing director at Bootcamp Media
Top tips to boost your SEO
practiced it and made it their life’s work. This isn’t true. Don’t get me wrong – SEO is a serious skill. But
T
there’s a lot you, as the business owner, can do yourself to help with SEO, particularly if you rely in part (or wholly) on local trade. Local SEO refers to the process of optimising your
website’s content and technical infrastructure so that it is capable of generating lots of organic traffic from searches based on location. If you’re a bricks-and- mortar retailer, it’s absolutely vital. Here are 10 things you can do to start improving your local search performance:
1. Start blogging about local events If you haven’t already started some form of content marketing strategy that includes blogging for your business, now is the time. Blogging about local events is a great way to demonstrate that you take an interest in your area, but it’s also a great way to improve local SEO when using valuable local keywords.
2. Set up Google My Business Google’s business directory is important for every business, but for those that rely on local trade it can mean the difference between a customer entering your doors and going through those of a competitor.
here’s a common misconception that search engine optimisation (SEO) can only be undertaken by those who have studied it,
3. Start obtaining online reviews Ask any hotelier which website they have a love/hate relationship with, and they’re likely to say TripAdvisor. For them, it’s a balancing act of attracting and benefiting from rave reviews – and dealing with the negative stuff. The same goes for local businesses, as online reviews act as social proof for your customers. While you may receive poor reviews occasionally, they should be outweighed by positive commentary, and that’s what will turn passers-by on Google into potential new customers.
4. Get some local coverage It might sound a bit old-fashioned in the digital age, but by getting friendly with the local press, you can increase your chances of performing well in local search results. The more you talk to journalists in your area about
the business’s brand and mission, the more interested they’ll become – particularly if you have new products to offer that genuinely change people’s lives, or services that are exciting and ahead of the pack. Local coverage on those publications’ websites will usually result in valuable backlinks to your own.
5. Create a virtual tour Google Maps now enables people to ‘walk in’ to local shops and establishments to get a feel for places before they visit.
April 2019 CHAMBERLINK 61
‘There’s a lot you, as the business owner, can do yourself to help with SEO’
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