Search Engine Optimization Guide FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES - SEO Guide by 406 Marketing

Potential customers are searching for the exact service you’re offering every single day. Capitalizing on internet traffic and performing search engine optimization is one cheapest, and most effective things you can do when it comes to marketing your business online.

This is not intended to be a all inclusive “how-to” guide, instead we’ve provide short topics you can focus on to improve your rankings over time. If you like simple lists you can download our Search Engine Optimization checklist here.

Have content on your website that is relevant to the service you’re offering and the search term people are using to find it… IE. If you offer Drain Cleaning Service make sure you have a page on your website dedicated to describing this service. If you offer multiple services make sure you have a dedicated page for each one. Try to make your website content valuable to the user. Things to remember:

Search Engines like Google & Bing now penalize sites that aren’t mobile friendly… Make sure your website is easy to use on mobile devices, if you’re not sure you can use Google’s Mobile Friendly Test Tool to test your site. If you’re website fails the test consider making some improvements. When it comes to driving traffic and increasing search rankings, user experience should always be a priority.

Website loading speeds have an impact on your search engine rankings. Make sure your website loads quickly. Less than 3 seconds is ideal, less than 2 seconds is great!

Here’s a few resources that you can use to test your website speed & resolve issues:

In 2019 Search Engines are giving preference to sites that are secured with a SSL certificate. If your site URL loads with http:// consider having your web developer add a SSL.

Use this SSL Checker Tool to see if your site has an SSL certificate installed.

If your site has an SSL, make sure all HTTP URLS redirect to HTTPS.
For example, http ://yoursite.com should automatically redirect users to the SSL secure version https ://yoursite.com

If you have an SSL certificate active on your site and setup properly you shouldn’t be able to access the http version from the web browser, it should automatically redirect to the https version.

Make sure your local listing on Google & Bing are both verified and updated with the proper information. Performing Local SEO can have a huge impact on your search engine rankings.
Things to make sure are accurate

H1, H2, Page Title, & URL together play a major role in your search rankings. If your website pages are missing a H1, or have an irrelevant page title, you might be missing out more than you think…

Create individual pages for each keyword you want to target. Here’s an example for targeting the keyword ‘General Contractor Great Falls’:

By adding the keyword to each of these fields you’re telling Search Engines that this page is relevant and should be shown to searchers.

Back link: A link to your site from another website.

Backlinks are still a major factor when it comes to search engine rankings in 2019.

Look for opportunities to link to colleagues, partners, affiliates etc. Natural back links from relevant sites will boost your rankings.

If you’re a local catering company, you might try obtaining a back link from a local wedding planner. Or if your a local contractor you might try obtaining a back link from a supplier or subcontractor.

Google & Bing both have their own webmaster tools platforms. They’re designed to help you inform search engines about your website, so they can index it more effectively. At a minimum every business should verify their website properties and submit updated sitemaps in both platforms. You’ll also receive notifications if something changes with your site or if you have any crawl errors.

Using your verified webmaster tools profiles you can enter a URL for your sitemap. This file tells search engines what pages are on your site.

Manage Your Bing Webmaster Tools Profile Here.

Manage your Google Webmaster Tools Profile Here.

Errors on your website can cause Google & Bing to penalize your site, or worse, fail to index it at all. If there’s crawl or indexing issues with your site Google/Bing Webmaster Tools will list them in the crawl errors section or notify you via email. It’s a good idea to log into webmaster tools to check for any issues or warnings regarding your site.

Search Engines are beginning to use Social Signals as a way to verify if a brand or business is reputable. If one of the popular social platforms has your target audience on it, consider creating a profile or working on an existing one to send positive vibes towards your website. Having a Facebook, Instagram, Google Business or other social profile with your business information, Website URL and a few followers can give you an extra bump in search rankings.

These types of social profiles can help your search rankings:

Search Engine Optimization is a marathon, not a sprint. Keep historical data, stats and analytics related to your website so you can make informed decisions. Make sure you have Google Analytics installed.

Important metrics to monitor:

If you have questions regarding search engine optimization , or the content listed in this guide feel free to contact us.

If you’d like more details on the current state of your website fill out the form on this page to request a free website audit. You’ll receive a PDF that includes amazing insights into your website and it’s performance. Including search engine rankings, page speed, conversion optimization and more. It will also provide you actionable steps to improve your website performance.

Download our Search Engine Optimization checklist here.

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