We’re now venturing into the second month of the year 2015, and it seems like everyone’s finally starting to settle in with things.
With Google’s latest algorithm update at the end of the previous year, SEO specialists finally had some good insights as to what we need to do to have Google on our side. As for Effective Local SEO strategies, aside from tweaking a few things, the general idea remains the same. Here’s what you need to do on your Local SEO campaigns for this year.
Gathering Links
image source: dribbble.comLink building is old news but has always been the backbone of both National and Local SEO. The latest updates showed that Google favored link signals even further, which means it has become an even more important component of effective local seo strategies. With that in regard, it’s important that you focus your efforts in gathering more links but only to a certain extent. Spammy links and those that are bought are looked down by Google – if you’re found buying links like this, your site might get penalized in the process.
Before your site ends up at the bottom pages of the SERPs, try to think of ways that you can gather links naturally. There are a couple including article submissions, create great content that other people would link back to and more.
On-Page Signals
image source: brainpulse.comIn a nutshell, these are the components in your website that will tell Google who and what you are. You can do this by strategically putting your keywords in the right places (e.g the Title Tags, Header Tags and the content), your NAP and more. If you haven’t done your site optimizations yet, now would be a good time to do so.
Just take precaution in adding your keywords. Google hates keyword stuffing and that strategy is already outdated so stop doing them. Instead of cluttering your website with them, replace them with content that your viewers would deem relevant and important. Remember that you want Google to crawl over your site and at the same time, you want your viewers to stay in it as well.
Update Your Google+ Local and Places
image source: prodentite.comGoogle is stressing the importance of getting a Google+ Local page as well as Google Places listing even further as it gets a boost on the latest update. If you still don’t have one, then it’s about time you do so – if you already have, then supply the necessary updates it needs if there’s any. Your Google+ Local gives you and your business the opportunity to use Google’s social networking capabilities to the fullest. Your Google Places on the other hand will literally show your company details like its physical address on the SERPs and on Google’s online map.
When you sign up for both of these, the data will be merged together, giving you an easier way of updating these pages by doing so in one dashboard. As you create or update your business page and listing, make sure you supply it the most accurate and recent details – it should also coincide with the information in your website as well.
The Other Strategies
These algorithm updates may provide website owners all over the world with a series of concerns and problems, we should understand that Google’s doing it to provide a better service for their users – it can be said that the newest update has made the users the new centroid. And if you just played your cards right, you’ll find that there isn’t really much that changed, seeing as all the effective local SEO strategies back then can still be applied right now.
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