Gone are the days when local businesses did not bother about having a personalized website for their businesses. For making an impression on the customers, getting higher ranks in search engines and become easily searchable – you need to make a website for your business. Here are the reasons traders should go for having a website –

• The website will help you to create a professional impression of your business in the mind of customers.
• A website that is designed well and optimized using the local SEO techniques helps to increase the visibility of your business.
• The information about your business, service details and blogs are accessible anytime. This improves your reachability making your services online 24*7.
• Ads in print media or any other medium are still costly, the website is very cost effective. The information reaches the maximum number of customers always and it does not depend on the time constraint that other mediums have.
• It shows your reputation and success through your stories, customer testimonials etc.

Owning a website is not the only necessary thing. You need to optimize your site using local SEO techniques and other search engine optimization techniques. Here’s how –

1. You need to create a dedicated contact details page so that customers do not have to struggle to find how to contact you.
2. You may make the mobile numbers clickable so that customers can contact you then and there.
3. You may add a map to the location your office resides. It will help customers to find the location of your office easily. Research says more than 85% of the customers look at the map of the office address of the small business.
4. Schema markup plays a good role in on-page optimization techniques. You need to add a good schema on the pages during website design and your contact details should be included in that.

The most important thing customers look at and search for is your business name and contact details. For the business of tradespeople like electricians or plumbers, whose services are for emergencies, it can be disastrous to not making your NAP information correct. NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone number. If you are having a website, then it will be NAP+W. NAP information should be correct and consistent everywhere and it should be listed on all the possible platforms.

Here are some important points you need to remember about NAP when you are implementing local SEO for your business –

1. The NA should be listed all the possible platforms online including social media.
2. You website should include correct NAP details.
3. NAP should be correct and consistent on every platform. Discrepancies will lead to potential loss of business.
4. NAP should include all the business addresses that you have.
5. Audit of the NAP information regularly is the most important thing and tiniest discrepancy should be corrected with immediate effect.
6.  Incorrect or inactive NAP citations can lead to losing the trust of customers.

There are two ways you can update your NAP in the online platforms –

i) Manual –

You can make a list of the platforms for the NAP citations of your business and update manually. In this case, you need to keep a spreadsheet with all your information and keep track. But, the problem with this method is, there are high chances of incorrect and inconsistent NAP citations due to human errors.

ii) Automated –

You may use data aggregators to upload your NAP to multiple platforms all at once. Hence, there are lesser chances of missing or incorrect information. However, it is needed to audit and keep track of discrepancy in both the cases.

There are some local SEO tools or applications like Google My Business, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Locadium, NAP hunter etc. to list your business online.

Google My Business is a great tool to start your business listings with. It is very easy to create a profile on Google My business. You need to have filled up a form online using your business information required and your profile will be created. Google My business profile helps to manage your business profile on Google. There are other tools as mentioned earlier specific to different search engines. Find the tools that are relevant to your business and list your business there.

 Here is one important point that you need to keep in mind that – your business should be listed under the correct category. Imagine if a plumbing service is found under the category of ‘builders’, customers might think your business fake. It also affects the search engine ranking.

Everything is online, so is your business – period. Creating online profiles on different platforms helps to increase the visibility of your local business. We have already talked about the business listing tools that are important. Other than the tools, here are some other platforms where you need to make your presence evident –

1. Create your profiles on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram etc. Social media profiles show that you exist in real. There are options for creating business pages on some social media platforms like Facebook and they have their marketing strategy to implement for your business in exchange for a very cheap price. It will help reaching the name your business to a huge number of people.
2. Create profiles on discussion forums and question and answer platforms. Participate in discussions, give an answer to queries specific to your business and give a link to your website.
3. Local business directory listings are also important to still. Directories like Yellow Pages and other local business directories are still being used to find a local service.
4. Create profiles online review sites.
5. Local search engine listings are important to improve your local presence online.

Local tradesmen like plumbers, electricians or repair workers rarely go and work outside of their locality. Therefore, the majority of the competitors are within their territory only. Also, these type of services are needed when there is an emergency like water pipe has been broken, an electric appliance is not working etc. People look for individuals who can come fast get things in the working conditions. Local SEO for small business gives the tradesmen advantages to become visible online locally and stay ahead of their business. Here are some tips to get your first step in digital marketing through Local SEO for small business techniques –

1. Optimize your website using SEO optimization techniques and keywords listings relevant to your business.
2. Use online keyword research tools to get keywords for your kind of business.
3. Get your business listings updated on tools like Google My Business and get the most benefit of Google Local SEO.
4. Use content marketing using content-type text as well as audio and video on the social platforms and on your website.
5. Ask reviews and ratings from your clients which will help in local search engine optimization SEO on the major search engines.
6. Hire Local SEO Expert to get your local SEO implementation done easily.
7. Claim your online presence through the social media profiles and platforms.
8. Last but not the least; build your NAP citations correct and consistent all over the web to get most out of Local SEO marketing.