How to get found locally on Google

When a customer wants to go for brunch on Saturday morning, one of the first things he/she does is to go on Google to search for the closest cafe or restaurant serving brunch. The same goes for any local business, no matter if it’s a restaurant, a computer repair shop, a plumbing shop or a bank branch.

Customers are using Google to find the best products and services near them because it finds answers to their query in just a few seconds. For a business owner like yourself, the key is your business to show up at the exact time when local customers are looking for it. Here’s what you need to know to improve your company’s search presence and increase the likelihood of new customers visiting both your website and shop.

Create a Google My Business (GMB) account

Setting up your Google My Business profile is one of the first steps you should take to get found locally. It’s completely free to list your company there, so take advantage of it by listing your working hours, adding photos, special offers and respond to customers’ reviews. A GMB profile adds authority to your business as you show to Google that your business is real and helps you generate trust in your brand.

Optimize your website for local SEO

First of all, local SEO is not only about optimising the keywords of your website content. It goes further than that. A search engine like Google takes into consideration things like titles, meta tags, alt tags and domain names. More specifically, the title you give each page of your website, meta tags and alt tags help identify the overall topic of that specific page and images used within. Search engines cannot read images or graphics so it’s important to take some time to help describe the content on your website to search engines.

Make your website mobile-friendly

3 out of 4 smartphone users use a search engine at least once a day to search for local product and service information, local address and telephone number, opening hours, as well as double check location if they never visited before that particular establishment. This means that people when they are on the go and need information quickly, they use their mobile phone to search for the information they need, thus it’s important to make the information people are searching for as easy as possible to find by making sure your website is mobile friendly.

There are several ways to determine local SEO ranking factors and increase your chances of ranking well in local searches. The closer that your page is on the top, the more visitors your website will receive. If you wish to learn more information about your local business being found on Google, contact us at Clickhouse Media and we will help you dominate local search results.