Victoria Rayburn [00:00:00]:
If your website does not rank well on Google, you're missing out on business. Not because you aren't great at what you do, not because you don't serve your customers well, but simply because your ideal customers cannot find you where they are looking for your products or services. In fact, 97% of people use Google when they're in need of a local product or service. As a result, if you can get your website and business to rank among the top Google search results, you can get your information in front of prospects who are actively searching for and likely ready to purchase exactly what you have to offer. Hey there, you're listening to Priority Pursuit podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners and leaders define, maintain and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love. I'm your host, Victoria Rayburn, and small business owner to small business owner, can I share some cold, hard truth with you? If your website does not rank well on Google, you're missing out on business. Not because you aren't great at what you do, not because you don't serve your customers well, but simply because your ideal customers cannot find you where they are looking for your products or services. In fact, 97% of people use Google when they're in need of a local product or service.
Victoria Rayburn [00:01:22]:
As a result, if you can get your website and business to rank among the top Google search results, you can get your information in front of prospects who are actively searching for and likely ready to purchase exactly what you have to offer. Basically, when your website ranks well on Google, you don't have to spend so much of your time going after new leads. Instead, many of your strongest leads will start coming to you through Google. Now, there are a lot of moving parts to successful SEO strategy, but today I want to discuss the five most effective things you can do to improve your local SEO, which includes both how your site ranks in organic search results and in Google's local pack. Now, in case this is your first time, listening to priority pursuit SEO is a marketing tactic that I am particularly passionate about because it played a huge part in my marketing strategy when I was a wedding photographer and because I witnessed it help Treefrog's agency clients and coaching students reach their own business goals. You see, every year when I was a wedding photographer, 40% of my clients found me through Google. In other words, SEO was responsible for nearly half of my income. I've also witnessed SEO help my coaching students build businesses they love, meet their sales goals, break into new markets, and meet various other business goals.
Victoria Rayburn [00:02:44]:
I firmly believe SEO, in addition to the rest of the flywheel marketing strategy and just offering a great client experience was why I was able to meet my booking goals year after year as a photographer. Basically, I have experienced the power of SEO firsthand and witnessed its effectiveness again and again for other small businesses. And as a result, I am super passionate about teaching SEO and helping small business owners with their SEO strategies. Now, like we've already discussed, there are a lot of moving parts to a successful SEO strategy. But if you're willing to put in the work to understand search engine optimization, which likely is not nearly as complicated as you think, it can do big things for your business. Now, we usually try to keep these episodes on the short and sweet side, but because I know SEO can do big things for your business, this episode is going to be a little long. In fact, it's going to be more like a coaching session. There is nothing I want more than for your small businesses to succeed.
Victoria Rayburn [00:03:47]:
So I really hope that you will take this episode seriously. Oh, and while we are going to cover a lot in this episode, please know that every priority pursuit episode has a coinciding blog post that summarize the episode. You can find this episode's blog post at priority pursuit.com and we'll be sure to link to the blog post in the show. Notes. So if you aren't the place to take notes, if you're driving, you're walking the dog. Whatever. Don't worry, we have notes to share with you. Again, this is a lot of information, but with all of this in mind, let's dive into the five most effective ways to improve your local SEO.
Victoria Rayburn [00:04:24]:
Okay, so the first thing that I want to encourage you to do is to optimize the main pages of your website with location based keywords. Now, in case you aren't familiar with keywords, keywords are simply the ideas and topics that define what your content is about in terms of SEO. They're the words and phrases that searchers enter into search engines, literally what they Google. And when you put these keywords in the correct places on a webpage or in a blog post, you can increase the chances that your page or blog post will appear when Google users search for something similar. Now, when you choose keywords for a web page or blog post, the most important factor to consider is search intent. In other words, if potential customers want to find products or services or content like yours, what are they going to Google again? In this episode, we are focusing on local SEO. And more often than not, when people are in need of a local product or service, they search by location. For example, Indianapolis wedding photographers, Lafayette, Indiana lawn Care Services, downtown Indianapolis bookstores and so forth.
Victoria Rayburn [00:05:29]:
So as a result, when you own or operate a local business, meaning you have a physical location or you have a service area, it is strategic and beneficial to optimize the main pages of your website so you know your home, your about product service pages for location specific keywords because optimizing your website with location based keywords helps Google understand where you serve your customers. And then it also mirrors what your ideal customers are likely searching for, which again, is going to make your website much more likely to rank among top Google search results. Now, if you have a brick and mortar location or a strict service area, this probably sounds easy enough. But you know what? If you offer a service where you go to your client, for example, if you're a photographer, you likely travel for weddings or shoots. Or if you're a contractor, you probably serve several towns or cities. In that case, you know, how do you choose what location to optimize for? So if you go to your clients, I want to encourage you to choose one specific location to optimize your website for. Let's stick with our photographer example. You know, that's always fresh in my mind as a former photographer, but one of you know, the beautiful things about being a photographer is the fact that you have an opportunity to work and shoot anywhere, all over the world.
Victoria Rayburn [00:06:44]:
However, when it comes to SEO, you are so much more likely to rank on Google when you get specific, and you keep your keywords specific to a location, so usually a city. With this in mind, I recommend optimizing the main pages of your website for the area you want to work most often. This might be where you live, the city closest to you, or wherever it is you want to do most of your work. That said, again, it's important to think about your ideal client's search intent. In other words, what would they Google if they wanted to find products or services like yours? Everyone's ideal client is going to be different, but I do want to give you a couple general rules of thumb or a little bit of advice when it comes to picking keywords. So it can be very hard to rank among the top Google search results in a large city simply because you likely have a live competition. As a result, you're going to need to get more specific than you know. For example, photographers in Chicago or bookstores in Chicago.
Victoria Rayburn [00:07:45]:
A lot of photographers in Chicago, a lot of bookstores in Chicago. As a result, it's going to be hard to rank well on page one. Now, to determine how to get more specific, think about your ideal client search intent as they search the Internet for the perfect photographer or bookstore for them. What are they typing? Chances are they're getting more specific than photographers in Chicago. Bookstores in Chicago. Maybe they're looking for a photographer with a particular photo style and they're typing in something like editorial Chicago wedding photographers. Or maybe they're looking for a bookstore in a particular neighborhood, like bookstores in Lincoln park, or with specific values like women owned bookstores in Chicago. Essentially, it can be difficult to get your site to rank well on Google for more general searches in a large city.
Victoria Rayburn [00:08:29]:
As a result, to get your website in front of your ideal customers, you want to choose more niche keywords that are specific to your ideal clients search intent. Also, for the record, there is nothing wrong with small town living. However, chances are there aren't many people, if any, Googling photographers in Remington, Indiana, which is the small town with a population of 1300 where I'm from. You know, with limited people in a small town to serve few to no Google searches. And likely if you're a photographer like you really have any like places take photos in small towns unless you don't have access to private property. But that's a story for another day. You'll likely be better off optimizing your website with keywords for the closest city where you regularly work or the city where you want to work most often. You know, for example, when I lived in a small town, I optimized my website for Lafayette, Indiana.
Victoria Rayburn [00:09:24]:
Now this might be. You might be hearing this and thinking like that's nice, but I don't want to work in one single area. And friend, I get it. Again, one of the many magical things about being a small business owner is getting to work where you want to work. But here's the thing, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to get the main pages of your website to rank for multiple locations. As a result, I highly recommend creating your SEO strategy around your bread and butter city or area where you'd like to work most consistently. Then from there you can use your blog, social media ads and referrals to book work in other areas. Now, if you'd like to learn more about how to choose keywords and where to put them on your website, I encourage you to check out our guide how to use keywords to improve your small businesses SEO.
Victoria Rayburn [00:10:10]:
This guide walks you through exactly how to choose and use keywords according to your business goals, and you can find it at the link in our show notes or by going to treefrogmarketing.com slash keywords. Again, you can find it the link in the show notes or@treefrogmarketing.com keywords. Okay, keywords are powerful, so please, please, please check out that guide. I mean it. But something else you can do to improve your local SEO is to get a phone number with your target locations area code. This helps Google see that your business is part of your local community, part of the location in which you serve. Now, I know changing your phone number can be highly inconvenient, especially if you use a single cell phone for both personal and business use. I mean, I've had the same phone number for literally half of my life at this point, and changing it would be a hassle.
Victoria Rayburn [00:11:02]:
But an easy way around having to change your phone number entirely is just to register for Google Voice, which is a phone service that connects to your current cell phone but allows you to have a business phone number. Basically, when you sign up for Google Voice, you can choose your phone number so you can get an area code that's local to your service area. Then when you download the app, you can make and receive calls and send texts from that number. At the time of this recording, Google Voice starts at $10 a month. So it's an affordable option. I mean, it's certainly a far more affordable option than getting an entirely different business phone and just way more convenient than changing your phone number. But yeah, if your current number doesn't match your service areas area code, yes, again, Google Voice, great, great option for this. But as a quick side note, Google voice isn't only great for SEO, it's also great for setting batteries.
Victoria Rayburn [00:11:53]:
Google Voice allows you to set office hours and send all calls made outside your office hours to voicemail. Plus, all voicemails and texts from your business number are stored in the Google Voice app, allowing you to keep business and your personal phone number like, more like just separate so you can keep the use of your personal and business side of your phone entirely separate, thanks to this app. And you know, as you know, we are big fans of boundaries around here, so I absolutely love this feature.
Natalie Franke [00:12:22]:
What would you do with an extra 45 minutes every workday that would save you 16 hours a month or roughly eight days a year. And over the course of your career, we're talking about over one year of your life. Saved all that time back? Well, many independent business owners spend far more than 45 minutes a day on administrative tasks. And with honeybook, you can get that time back and then some. Honeybook lets you easily manage projects, contracts, invoices, scheduling and client communication, saving you time and allowing you to better serve your clients. For a discount on your first year of honeybook, visit honeybook.com and subscribe with the code priority pursuit. 45 minutes a day adds up quickly. Use it to focus on what matters most.
Kelly Rice [00:13:07]:
Many small businesses don't have an effective marketing strategy, and because of this they try one tactic after another without seeing results. This not only prevents consistent business growth, it makes managing marketing efforts more difficult than it should be. As a marketing agency for small businesses, we understand how frustrating it can be be when hard work doesn't deliver the.
Victoria Rayburn [00:13:26]:
Results that you want.
Kelly Rice [00:13:27]:
Because of this, Treefrog has developed a proven four step marketing system that will help any small business grow on our website. You can also schedule a 30 minutes discovery call to discuss working with Treefrog to build a marketing strategy that will allow your small business to finally see the growth you've been working so hard to achieve.
Victoria Rayburn [00:13:45]:
Now, another way to improve your local SEO is to create consistent online directory listings. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, online directories are websites or anywhere business information is listed online. So think like Yelp Yellow Pages, you know what I'm talking about. Now, online directories are beneficial for improving SEO in two ways. First, backlinks, which are links that link to your website from other websites. They are one of the most effective ways to improve your SEO, local or otherwise. Basically, when Google sees the other websites linked to yours, the search engine takes this as a sign of credibility, which can improve your SEO. Google more or less sees these links and says, hey, people are linking to this website or this content.
Victoria Rayburn [00:14:30]:
This must mean it includes good stuff. We should rank this site higher. If you'd like to learn more about how you can get backlinks to your website, I want to encourage you to go way back and listen to episode 42, why backlinks matter for SEO and six ways you can earn more backlinks this is an old episode, but the tactics mentioned in it are still very much relevant. But an easy way to earn a lot of backlinks is to create an online direct is to create online directory listings. We will talk about how you can create literally hundreds of listings in about 15 minutes in just a second. But utilizing online directories is by far the easiest and fastest way to earn backlinks to your site, making it one of the most effective ways to improve your SEO. Now, in addition to helping you earn backlinks, consistent online directory listings help give you more credibility in general. I mean, when Google sees that your business's name, phone number, hours, email and other information are consistent across online directories, Google will be certain of your location and your service area and more or less say, wow, this business must be legit because all of their information is consistent and this consistency will make Google more likely to rank your site well.
Victoria Rayburn [00:15:46]:
So yes, online directory listings are very helpful, but how do you create them? You have two options so you can one, create your listings manually or two, invest in a service like Moz Local to update and maintain your listings for you. Now, your time is valuable, and while you could spend hours manually listing your business information all over the Internet or have a va do this for you, I highly recommend utilizing Moz Local. For less than $20 a month, you can give Moz local your business information one time and it will then consistently list your business info on thousands of online directories plus if any information about your business changes, such as your address. If you move your office to a new location, you can use mines local to update all of your directory listings within just a few minutes, as opposed to manually updating every online directory listing, which would likely take days. So again, we recommend Moz Local. In fact, we use it for all of our agency clients and we will be sure to link this program in the show notes so you can check it out. Now another effective way to improve your local SEO is to utilize your Google Business profile. First of all, if you don't have a Google Business profile, you most certainly need one.
Victoria Rayburn [00:17:06]:
And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, I can promise you that you have seen other businesses Google Business profiles appear in your own Google searches. Oh my goodness. How many times can I say Google and business in like one sentence? But okay. A Google Business profile is essentially an online storefront where you can display into your updates, photos, videos, your hours, your policies and more about your business. Then, when people search for products or services you offer or for your business specifically, Google then uses your business profile to provide its users with a snapshot of your business if they'd like to learn more. Google users can then visit your website or even contact you for a quote through your Google Business profile. If you have this setting on, you don't have to. You don't have to have that turned on, but I recommend utilizing your Google Business profile for a few reasons.
Victoria Rayburn [00:17:54]:
First of all, your Google Business profile will put your information in front of your customers faster, thanks to Google's local pack feature. Now, the local pack is that group of three business listings that you see when searching for products or services provided by local businesses. Now I am sure you've noticed and use this section on Google before, but these listings are actually Google Business profiles again, and the more you utilize your Google Business profile, the more likely it is to appear in Google's local pack, which is ideal because this is usually the first thing Google users see when searching for local products and services and as a result, they are just more likely to click on the business businesses that appear in the local pack. Now another reason to utilize your Google Business profile is simply because Google is the leading search engine and Google wants you to use this feature. And basically it is really important to play by Google's rules. So much of SEO, if we're honest, is making Google happy and this is an easy way to do that. Last but not least, your Google Business profile is kind of a magical tool simply because few businesses take advantage of theirs. As a result, there isn't a lot of competition, making utilizing your profile a highly effective SEO tactic.
Victoria Rayburn [00:19:10]:
Now, many small businesses assume that simply registering for a Google Business profile is all they need to do with their online storefront. However, that is not the case. If you're wanting to improve your SEO, you need to actually utilize your Google Business profile. And by utilize, I mean you need to do three things. First, make sure all information displayed on your Google Business profile is accurate and up to date. For instance, make sure your contact information is correct, make sure your business description is accurate and fill out every applicable box and option Google gives you to make sure your business profile is complete. Then, as information changes or needs to be updated, simply make adjustments. For example, if your address changes, change the address.
Victoria Rayburn [00:19:51]:
If you'll be closed for a holiday, change your hours for the holiday. Just making sure your Google Business information is up to date and is being updated is a great way to show Google that your business is active and responsive, which will make the search engine more likely to rank both your website and your Google Business profile. Well, also, by the way, you can do all of this through Mods Local, which we just discussed. So with mods local, you know you can go in, change your hours for a holiday and it's not just going to update Google, it's going to update all online directory listings that show your hours. So again, super, super helpful tool. Now next you want to start regularly posting to your Google Business profile. Google specifically recommends posting about announcements such as special promotions, sharing events, sharing customer testimonials, posting behind the scenes content, sharing educational content and highlighting community involvement now, this might sound stressful and be one more thing to add to your to do list, but if you're already developing social media content, chances are you can adjust the posts you're already creating to work for your Google Business profile. And honestly, so few businesses take the time to post their Google Business profiles that even if you just post yours once a week, you'll likely still be posting drastically more than your competitors.
Victoria Rayburn [00:21:08]:
And in all honesty, so much of ranking on Google is simply doing more SEO work than your competitors are. Now, for the record, we are all about community over competition over here, but facts are facts. Basically, posting to your Google Business profile will not take much time or effort, and you'll likely see big SEO results. Another way to optimize and get the most out of your Google business profile is to make sure you're accumulating Google reviews, which are part of your business profile. Recent reviews help Google see that your business is active and relevant. So if asking your clients for reviews isn't already part of your workflow, you're going to want to change this ASAP. Now, if you go to your Google Business profile, you should see a button that says get more reviews. Click that button, grab the link and make sure that asking for reviews is part of your regular workflow and systems.
Victoria Rayburn [00:21:57]:
Maybe that's sending a follow up email after you've provided a service. Maybe that is having, you know, a display with a QR code. Like for instance, if you're a restaurant that people can easily scan and leave you review. But make sure that you are asking for reviews. And it is very important for you to actually ask for reviews because more than 70% of consumers will leave reviews when directly asked. However, you will likely find that few to none of your customers will take the time to leave you a positive review without being prompted. That isn't to say that your customers don't appreciate you, but with busy lives of their own, and because they don't necessarily realize how helpful reviews can be to small businesses, it likely won't occur to them to leave you a Google review unless you specifically ask them to. So again, I highly recommend making asking for reviews part of your workflow.
Victoria Rayburn [00:22:47]:
However, if you're short on Google reviews now, you can, and I'd argue that you should, reach out to past customers and ask them for reviews. Remember, 97% of people utilize Google when they are in need of a local product or service. Therefore, the longer it takes for your business to appear among the top Google search results, the more business you're missing out on. Now you can post on social media and ask for reviews. However, you will likely see more results if you reach out to individual clients whom you know would leave rating reviews directly, whether that's via email or via text. Last but not least, and often, the most effective way to improve your local SEO is to create niche, location specific content that can be consumed on your website, such as blog posts or videos. Now, outside of trying to find products or services like yours in your area, your ideal clients are likely googling other questions related to or adjacent to your products, services, and location. As a result, if you create content, such as blog posts that answer your potential clients questions, your ideal clients will likely find your content when they google their questions, which will then encourage them to check out the rest of your websites.
Victoria Rayburn [00:23:58]:
And your website as a whole will likely rank better because your location specific content will help Google further associate you with the area you're targeting. For example, you know, like let's pretend let's go back to our wedding photographer example, but let's pretend you're a wedding photographer in Indianapolis. You could write blog posts like best places to take engagement photos in Indianapolis elegant wedding venues in downtown Indianapolis where to take your wedding photos in Indianapolis bridal boutiques in Indianapolis best wedding planners in Indianapolis this kind of content will both help you serve potential clients well and help Google see that you are a local expert at whatever it is that you do. Again, there are a lot of moving parts to implementing an effective SEO strategy, but the fact of the matter is that when people need a local service, they go to Google to find it. I mean, like we discussed, 97% of people use Google to find local businesses. As a result, if your website doesn't appear on the first page of Google, you're missing out on business. Not because you aren't great at what you do, not because you don't serve your customers well, but simply because your ideal customers can't find you. However, when your site ranks among the top Google search results, people who are actively looking for what you have to offer can easily find you.
Victoria Rayburn [00:25:10]:
And marketing y'all, it does not get any more strategic than that. Basically, you likely can't afford not to rank on Google. So utilize these five SEO tactics, check out the keyword guide and other resources we talked about in the show notes, and please, please, please make SEO a top marketing priority. It can just do such big things for small businesses. And on that note, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of the Priority Pursuit podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, we hope you'll take a moment to share it with your small business friends and to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Now, please note that I am asking you for a review, so here's to hoping you're in the 70% who we reviews when asked. But either way, we hope you'll join us next week for even more marketing boundary and priority driven tactics you can use to build a life and small business that you love.
