Most marketers today are still trying to get their hands on how local SEO works. But before starting your marketing strategy, you need to know what actually works and what doesn’t.
Here are eight common local SEO mistakes that every marketer should take note of, as listed by the best digital marketing company in Los Angeles, Cybertegic:
Inconsistent NAP citations.
Having the same NAP (name, address, and phone number) is a critical element for local SEO. If your citations don’t have consistency, it can cause your website not to rank as high as it should be.
Reviews don’t matter.
Reviews do matter — a lot. In fact, businesses that have more reviews draw a significant amount of clicks. According to a study made by Bright Local, 87% of consumers won’t consider a business with a low rating or bad reviews.
Ranking in maps alone.
Search result listings account for the largest majority of clicks. And if you’re not in the top 3 of organic results, you can still get a large amount of traffic from organic search results.
Trying to rank on keywords + city only.
These days most people search not only by their city but by their neighborhood as well. So don’t forget to implement keywords based on the neighboring cities.
Ranking in directories isn’t important.
Having listings in directory listing sites like Google My Business, Yelp, Linkedin, and Yellow Pages can help your website rank well in Google. Ranking high on these directory listing sites can also help you generate more traffic.
Having a mobile-friendly design doesn’t matter.
Mobile and local go hand in hand. In fact, 94% of all smartphone users have looked for local, and 84% have taken action that converts according to Distilled.net.
Ranking only using your website.
It is not only websites that can rank on top of local search results. You can also rank Youtube videos, Facebook page, Twitter account, and your local directory pages for your targeted keywords.
Google wouldn’t help you if you messed up.
Many who use Google services, especially Google My Business, aren’t aware that GMB has phone support you can reach out to.