By Now more than ever, local SEO is a fiercely competitive arena. The battle is fought on an ever-evolving landscape, so it's critical that your business stays ahead of the game to ensure you continue to attract new customers and grow your community outreach.
To find out how you can solidify your stake in your online community, check out these proven strategies your business can use to master local SEO.
1. Create relevant content for your community.
Search engines love fresh content. So if you have a business blog on your website (here's why you should consider one if you don't already), publish content that relates to the interests of people in your area.
Include plenty of local keywords organically in your content, like names of other businesses near yours. This practice builds good will within your community that can pay you back in the form of new customers and maybe a link from their website to yours.
2. Make room for backlinks and location pages.
Any time a webpage links to another page, that's called a backlink. The more backlinks your page has, the higher it ranks across the major search engines.
While the goal is to have your website linked to from loads of other pages online, you can also link to other websites from your community to increase your networking. The more local links you have, the better.
Many businesses do this through location pages. If your business serves a sizeable region, create a page for every location you accommodate. On those unique pages, describe the location itself and some of the more prominent features. Doing this helps your business show up prominently in searches related to those specific areas and can help draw in more visitors to your website.
3. Utilize a responsive design.
Search engines love it when a website loads fast and provides support for the mobile devices most people access the Internet through these days. So do your potential customers.
If someone wants to look up more information about your business but can't even get your landing page to load, you have a serious problem on your hands. That's what makes responsive design so crucial to web design.
For more info about the importance of responsive design, check out this blog post from April!
4. Strive for 5-star reviews.
When you look up a business on Google or another search engine and see it has a competitor with a higher average review score, admit it: you'll probably include that information in your decision as to whether or not you give them your patronage.
And if a business ranks first place on local search, you can bet that most people won't look much further. If you can acquire plenty of positive reviews from your happy customers, your great work will pay dividends.
5. Verify through Google.
You may show up in some organic ways through Google search, but for your business to be listed with complete accuracy on the search engine, register your business through Google My Business.
First of all, it's totally free. Second, it allows you to list your correct address, phone number, and hours of operation to help your customers find you with ease. Third, you can only do this if you're the owner of the business because Google wants to be sure your operation is totally legitimate.
There's really no reason not to take advantage of listing your business in official online directories. And if you're lucky, you might even show up in the coveted top 3 on Google Search.
With these tips in mind, it's time your business got started arming yourself for the battle to dominate local SEO. Contact GroupM7 today to learn more!
Aaron Dunn
Aaron is a writer by trade with several years of professional experience under his belt. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science. Before joining the Group, he worked as a freelancer and tech reviewer in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Aaron currently lives in Pittsburg, TX. 
