Getting your business on Google Local
SEO is a process – it will take some time for you to build your site from not appearing anywhere in the search engines to being number one for your location and business. Example Lexington barber shop (or whatever your business is).
There are four main things that you want to make sure that you’re doing, thankfully they complement each other. For this article we’ll pretend that we own a landscaping business in Lexington. We focus on landscaping during the summer and bird feeding / snow removal during the winter. As we’re talking you’ll want to substitute your business – if you need some help coming up with ideas, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
Social Media –
You will want to have all of the social media properties. At the minimum you’ll want a Facebook page, YouTube account, Twitter – optional is an Instagram – If you don’t like dealing with that, then get someone else to do it for you. You want to be posting something every day on your Facebook page, you want to be taking pictures and videos of your business every day. You want to post things that a future customer (or a current customer would be interested in).
Make it a goal to record a few minutes of video and some pictures every day. Post the videos to YouTube, post the pictures to Instagram and Facebook.
So using our business example – here is some examples. We have started getting some of our spring flowers and seeds in. Spring is coming up. We record us putting some of the seeds and things on our shelves. We take some time to explain how to use some of the new equipment. This could be several different videos. We take pictures of some of the new things. We make a Facebook post that integrates our Youtube and pictures.
Tomorrow we’ll make a blog post (see content below) that teaches our customers how to get ready for Spring, the ten things you need to do to make sure your garden is ready. We’ll make a video related to this and we’ll make pictures that take you step by step through the process.
Content –
Your blog is important, if you don’t have one, you should create one, we have tons of articles on this website that will explain to you step by step how to do it. http://www.webpageplanner.com/do-it-yourself
You should be posting on your blog at least three times a week. You’re not posting to sell something; you’re posting to educate your customers.
We’ve talked about creating a killer blog post – here are the details.
http://www.webpageplanner.com/how-to-seo-a-blog-post
Linking –
Linking is just networking with other people. When you post good content, other people will naturally link to them. Think of five people / business types that would complement your business. So for our example we would list.
- Florists
- Equipment sellers
- Outdoor furniture
- Swimming pools
- (talk to your customers)
Make a list of businesses that fit those slots. Now work on contacting them – one at a time. Tell them what you’re doing. Give them some business cards, ask them for some of theirs. Talk to them about their web properties and then talk about how you can benefit each other with a link.
Customer Reviews –
You need them. They can be hard to get. Here is a link to some good content on how to do that. http://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2014/08/28/6-simple-ways-to-get-customers-to-review-your-business-online/#544bd4aa4afc
To Do List – this next week make sure to do the following.
- Take pictures / videos every day – you have no excuse you have a cell phone.
- Post a video each week, post images every day.
- Make three new blog posts this week.
- Make a list of five people you’re going to contact – contact one of them each week, when you’re finished with that list, make another.
- Make a plan for how you’re going to get customer reviews.
Questions let us know.
