As a small business owner targeting potential customers in your local community, it’s important that your business ranks highly in local search results. In fact, approximately 70% of consumers search online for local businesses in their communities.

So, the most effective way to get more people through your door is to consider a local search engine optimization marketing strategy. With the right strategy in place, you can grow your small business to new heights.

In this article, you’ll find a few quick and easy steps to improve local search rankings for your small business.

Optimize Your Website

Your website is the centerpoint of your business. Unless your website is fully optimized, your business may not be as successful as it should. To stay relevant, you must be online.

Implementing high rankings keywords, backlinks, landing pages, and social media profiles will help you to increase your online visibility and improve your conversion rates.

Google references data from several sources to determine whether or not a physical business is legitimate. As a small business owner, you must ensure that this data is accurate and consistent. Google My Business is a great way to showcase this business information so that Google can authenticate your business website. And, GMB also helps customers to find you much easier.

Luckily for you, GMB has a free signup process that’s super fast and easy. You’ll get instant online visibility and more local customers will be able to find you with absolute ease. Optimizing your Google My Business, along with your website, will help you to drive traffic to your website and attract more customers.

Conduct Research – Local Keywords, Metadata, & Domain Names

Choosing the right domain name is a great first step to building your business website. Google will search for your business name, address, and phone number, which you should already have listed in your Google My Business profile. If not, then you better get started!

When creating your website, you must choose a domain name that is both original and relevant to your business. Make sure that it’s not too long, since shorter domains are easier to remember and type into a web browser. Your title tag should include industry-specific keywords, including the city, state abbreviation, and business name.

It should describe your website in just a few short words. This is easier said than done, so perhaps hiring a professional marketing agency to help you with your local SEO marketing efforts could be your best bet.

Use Social Networks As Local SEO Channels

To find local customers, you must go to the source – social media. Social networking sites, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are excellent marketing tools that you could use to promote your products and services freely.

And because social media platforms are always changing and perfecting their algorithms for local SEO targeting, you could use your social channels as a major marketing tool. Users are always getting targeted from their local areas, so why shouldn’t you?

Having a social media profile is an excellent addition to your website. It attracts new local customers and also ties existing customers to your local community. These interactive channels also allow you to directly communicate with your targeted audience, so you can foster existing relationships while building new ones along the way.

Google rates active social media profiles the highest and showcases them in local search results. You can also send people links to your profiles to expand your reach even further. When creating your social media profiles, make sure to include your business name, address, phone number, and website URL.

Also, implement photos of your business and include a brief description in the “About” section. You could write this yourself, however, it’s recommended to hire a professional content writer to handle the task. They will incorporate high ranking keywords that will vastly improve your local SEO ranking.