While word-of-mouth publicity and local print ads are good options, you cannot ignore the power of localized search engine optimization at the current time. We can help you improve your local SEO game in a way that would work wonders for your brick-and-mortar store or business.

First things first – let us help you get the basics right. So, what is local SEO? To understand the importance of local SEO, it is necessary to know what a “local search” is.

We perform a local search whenever we look for information, products, services, or a business in a specific geographical area or location. Generally, a person executes a local search to determine what options are readily available near them. Local SEO is a process by which you can elevate your visibility on search result pages (or SERPs) for these local searches. Establishing your local presence can work wonders for your brand and business, especially in its nascent stages.

Let us now see what we can do to elevate your visibility on local SERPs.

1.GMB is the way to go

We cannot harp on this enough. Making Google My Business (GMB) your best friend is crucial to improving your local SEO game. This free tool offered by Google allows you to create free listings for your business. You can create an account, fill in the necessary and relevant information like your name, address, business category, contact number, and location, and use it like your online business card. 

You may also provide additional information like images and work hours if you think it is relevant or necessary. Once done, there is a high chance that your business will appear on Google SERPs for your location.

2. Optimize your homepage and metadata

Your website should have accurate information about who you are, what you do, and where to find you. If the title tag, header tag, and meta-description of your website’s homepage clearly state these details, it becomes easier for Google to understand all the elements of your business. Optimizing your metadata can make it simple for search engines to understand what you do, where you do it, and show your information on relevant SERPs.

3. Use local schema

Use local business, organization, product, and service schema to optimize your website for local SEO. This additional code adds a layer to your business that eases the job search engines perform. This crucial factor for your local SEO is underrated, yet it is important to maintain NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number) consistency.

4. Customer Reviews

Reviews are extremely important for local SEO. They play a dual role. They not only improve your local search ranking but also work as a catalyst for building a strong online reputation for your business. Positive reviews can go a long way in helping you get fresh leads for your business. Positive reviews play an important role in the online algorithm and contribute to your local rating in many ways. So, remember to have a good rapport with your customers and urge them to leave positive reviews for you!

5. Ensure NAP/citation consistency 

Search engines like Google consider citation signals and NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number) consistency in local search results. Search engines can crosscheck NAPs to check your website’s authenticity. Therefore, it is crucial to maintain the same NAP everywhere. Commonly found on the footer of your website, ensure that the information you provide is proper and accurate.

6. Implement mobile-first voice search 

With mobile phones being an integral and indispensable part of our lives, it is crucial to consider voice search. Online studies show that more than 80% of people use mobile devices to conduct a “near me” search. Many people prefer voice searches to text-based searches today. Remember that providing a voice search facility will add that X-factor and contribute positively to local SEO. Remember to optimize your website to ensure that it is mobile-friendly. Also, do not forget to add CTA buttons on your website. Doing so will help steer a lot of traffic directly to you.

7. Social media presence and local directories 

Social media, if used correctly, can work wonders for your business. Update your business’s Facebook and Instagram accounts regularly. Make optimal use of your profiles, stories, posts, videos, and static banners to communicate the nature of your business and accurate contact details. Join relevant groups that target specific locations. Create engaging posts and ensure that they reach their desired target audience. Moreover, you cannot afford to ignore listing and optimizing your business information in local directories. Ensure that you put the same details everywhere.

With QualDev, you can go that extra mile to crack the local SEO game and grow your business exponentially! With our specialized SEO services, we can ensure that your business receives maximum visibility and conversions depending on your specific requirements. With thorough knowledge, expertise, and experience in the field, we are a team of innovative professionals that will help you take your business to the next level.

We are a top-notch ecommerce web design and development company based in New York, USA. We take immense pride in providing future-ready solutions that help your business scale like never before. Get in touch with our team today!

The post Beyond the Basics – 7 Steps to Win the Local SEO Game appeared first on QualDev.

Every organization that targets the local market can benefit from local SEO; however, there are some specific business types for which local search can bring out some incredible results. Let us take a look at six of the big ones.

1. Medical Services

The main reason a doctor or hospital need to use targeted local SEO is to get the top spot on search results in their locality. With a solid SEO strategy, people will find them based on the keywords they target when they use an organic search approach. Suppose, if you are an orthopedic surgeon, and you will want that when someone writes “spine surgery” while searching on Google, they should find your office; or if you are a dentist, and you want the when someone searches using the term “dentist near me” your name appears first; SEO will help you achieve this.

Do you know, 85% of people in the United States use the Internet to get medical information? They want to know what treatment options are available to them, why they have specific symptoms, how to control a disease, and when to see a doctor. If you can answer these questions, you will benefit considerably when you use local SEO strategies.

2. Cafes, Restaurants, and Bars

These sorts of organizations mainly profit from local map listings and client reviews. People mostly search the web to find the best local businesses and local deals. With this in mind, if you run a cafe, a restaurant, a bar of a similar organization, get yourself registered on “Google My Business” and ask your clients to review your business online so that you can attract hundreds of new clients.

While incredible content provides massive fuel for effective SEO in various industries, reviews have the potential to make or break the local search ranking for a pub or restaurant. So, optimizing your content following the AIDA rule, gather genuine client reviews, and you will see how Local SEO can work wonders for your businesses.

3. Photographers

Blogging works best for the photography business. If you take stunning photographs and wish to exhibit your talent, then, nothing beats exposure on social media channels. Showcase your skills on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and similar channels. You can show off your Photoshop abilities on YouTube. What is more, if individuals begin to admire your work, you never know, you can turn into a sensation on social media.

4. Law Offices

When people need any legal advice, they generally look for experts in their local region. Therefore, it is very important for businesses like law firms to appearing in local searches. There are various things a law firm can do to enhance their regional rankings. First, they need to optimize their site by using appropriate keywords, so that they appear on search result pages for the term; for instance, when someone is looking for a ‘divorce attorney’.

Another important factor that affects the rank on local searches, is online reviews. Because of the unfortunate stigma encompassing lawyers, third-party validation is very significant for potential clients. In this manner, law firms should put forth an effort to gather client reviews on popular platforms like Google and Yelp.

5. Plumbers

If a tap is leaking or a pipe breaks in your house, you would need immediate help. What will you do? You would probably go to Google and look for plumbers in your area. With the help of the right local SEO campaign, you can get a high rank on Google, and you can steer people to your website at no cost. Also, it does not cost you anything to get hired. Potential visitors and free conversions make local SEO one of the most profitable ways to promote and market your plumbing business. A second advantage is that most plumbing companies do not pay attention to, or make only minimal efforts, to optimize their local listings. The result of these factors is that, if you run a solid SEO campaign, you will be on the first page of Google within 30 days.

6. Real Estate

Real estate businesses need to focus on their local SEO strategies as well. Because of gigantic real estate marketplaces like Zillow and Trulia ranking on top spots, small local real estate agencies need to build a solid plan to achieve the right search presence. Businesses that are successful in the real estate market carry out in-depth keyword research and focus more on long-tail keywords. For instance, if an agency attempts to rank for terms like “houses for sale,” they are going to find themselves tragically stuck between high DA websites, which have a strong hold of the top search result spots.

If you are new or just starting out in the business, focus on creating pages for specific regional markets or even neighborhoods in your area, with the use of long-tail keywords, such as “3bhk house for sale in Houston”. It would be best if you keep the content on your pages as specific as possible. The more specific you will be, the higher the chance of you achieving a high ranking.

Conclusion

Irrespective of your business or service, if you streamline your site well, you will find it is hard to remain anonymous on Google. Google cherishes local SEO because it depends on a little objective audience, geographic-explicit keywords, regional importance, reviews, and substantially more. Harnessing the exposure for local searched will assist you to accomplish greater visibility and a large number of potential clients. If you are looking for local SEO services in the USA, contact us for the best services.

The post Which Businesses Benefits From Local SEO Strategies? appeared first on QualDev.

To promote your products and services and set yourself as a brand online, you need to have good internet marketing support in this highly competitive space.

If you plan to start a business or want to expand your existing one, you can hire a digital marketing agency or establish an in-house team to take care of all the activities of your website.

Before diving deep into why digital marketing is important for a business, let us understand what digital marketing is:

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing is the promotion and advertisement of products and brands through one or more forms of electronic media channels like Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc. This is important, not only because of rapid growth but also because it is essentially the future of marketing.

Many people think that the digital form of advertising very soon will replace traditional forms of marketing like Newspaper or print media.

As we know, digital methods of promotion are faster, more convenient and more versatile than traditional methods. Here are some of the most popular forms of digital marketing:

• Website Content
• Blogs
• Online Advertising
• Viral Marketing
• Online video content
• PPC (pay-per-click) advertising
• Email marketing
• Social media Marketing (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc)
• Mobile marketing (SMS, MMS, etc)

Internet marketing not only helps you improve the visibility of your business and brand, it also increases website traffic and sales as well. Below are the top 5 reasons why digital marketing is important for your business.

1. It increases the visibility of your business

Nearly everything is done online these days, from buying movie tickets to buying appliances for the home. The internet has changed the way people shop significantly. Every company has to recognize this and be present on the internet. Internet marketing is beneficial for all types of businesses. It provides you with a way to extend your visibility to a larger population.

Consumers are buying almost everything online. Through digital marketing, you can engage with these people and increase the reach of your business. Google ads and brand recognition campaigns works best to improve brand recognition and the revenue of your business.

If you do not participate in these digital marketing strategies, you may miss the opportunity to reach out to many potential customers.

2. It Is Cost Efficient

One of the main benefits of digital marketing is that these tactics are affordable and effective as compared to traditional marketing. Businesses can use email, social media, and SEO-based content marketing at a much cheaper cost. Producing and distributing print advertising on radio stations or leading TV channels can cost you 5 times more money without a targeted audience.

Digital marketing strategies are not only cheaper but often also provide an attractive return on investments. In fact, content marketing is three times cheaper than some traditional marketing strategies.

Furthermore, marketers who publish relevant and valuable content regularly are 13 times more likely to generate a positive return on their investment. Content marketing is not an only affordable digital marketing strategy it provides an excellent return on investment. It offers you a lot more for your money.

3. It Improves Customer relations

A reason why digital marketing is essential to most popular brands is that it allows them to build better relationships with their customers while traditional marketing enables only one-way communication with consumers through their customer support channels.

Digital marketing enables communication in real time. This makes it easier for brands to respond effectively to problems and concerns their consumers face. Most brands use real-time chat support and handle customer issues in no time.

Another way is social media. It is a great tool for improving customer relationships. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter allow brands to communicate with their customers and engage them in a meaningful and honest manner.

When customers have questions or concerns, they often use social media to contact a company for information or solutions. Accelerating social networks enables organizations to address issues and concerns quickly before they escalate. By improving customer relationships, social networks play an important role in overall customer satisfaction, which can lead to repeated sales and customer referrals.

4. It Provides An Edge Over Competitors

Today, with the help of the internet, you can access and buy a wide range of products online. It is very important that every company maintain competition with local and online retailers and small businesses. This is only possible if companies use digital marketing platforms correctly.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 76% of B2C marketers and 88% of B2B marketers use content marketing strategies and tools such as blogs to reach their target market.

Not only do brands use digital marketing strategies to reach their audiences, they continue to increase their budget on this. E-marketers forecasts show that spending on digital advertising will rise to $ 23 billion by 2020.

If you are not working to integrate digital marketing strategies into your organization’s overall marketing strategy, it is possible that your business will fall behind.

5. Gives You Authority

Maintaining an online presence allows companies the opportunity to show their customers that they are active, dynamic and looking for improvement and growth. The Internet allows local businesses to legitimize themselves as successful businesses and allows them to gain and maintain a broad customer base.

Businesses can showcase customer reviews, working hours, and all ins-outs of the business easily through GoogleMyBusines.

Conclusion

Are you ready to experience the difference that digital marketing can bring to your business? QualDev SEO services new york will help you harness the power of digital marketing strategies for your business. Contact us today for a digital marketing consultation or let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

The post 5 ways in which digital marketing boosts your business appeared first on QualDev.

In the modern age, most customers are very busy and have no time to devote to finding a perfect piece of diamond jewelry by visiting different brick and mortar stores. In fact, millennial are excessively busy and seldom look beyond the first page of Google search results. The consequence is, that only those who stand tall amid the top SERPs, bag the maximum number of leads to convert into sales, while you, without an SEO strategy, may regale forever on the 3rd or 4th page of Google search results, waiting in vain for your turn to come.

If you have been losing business for a while because of poor SEO practices, you should understand why Google friendly SEO services are important to gain back your competitive edge. However, before we check out what these practices are, let us first understand a bit about SEO for diamond jewelry business:

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search engine Optimization. In the layman’s language, SEO is a way to ensure that any person who search for stuff on Google have a way to know that you provide the service or product on your website. Once they visit your website, you can encourage them to make a purchase and convert them into loyal clients. SEO focuses on fetching traffic to your website from Google and other search engines, without incurring any expenses for ads.

Every search engine has a few free spots known as organic spots. With an effective SEO strategy, you can secure one of them. Therefore, whenever a potential customer searches for “best diamond jewelry” or a similar phrase on Google, your SEO strategy ensures you appear in the top results.

Are Google Friendly SEO Services Really Important?

You can spend hundreds of dollars to secure an ad spot on Google, or you can use a powerful SEO strategy and get it for free. This is by far one of the cheapest and most effective ways to advertise your business. After all, you get hundreds of clicks without running any paid campaigns. Also, it is recorded that customers perceive organic results as more authentic. If you have a great SEO partner doing the hard work for you, you can achieve a leading position on the SERPs, and maintain it for the long term. Search engines like Google are looking for better results for each search done using their platform and this can help you steer good traffic to your website.

What Does Google Want?

Google wants to stay at the top of the list of best search engines and for this, it must offer authentic and quality search results. So, the search engine is deadly serious about matching the customs query to the website pages and filtering out the best matches to show their visitors.
Some of the key points that Google cares about includes:

• Relevant information
• Trusted sources
• Structured and quality content
• Satisfied users
• Proximity for Local SEO
• Past website record

Depending upon your business goals and market position, the SEO agency you work with would recommend different ways for you to upgrade your rankings on Google Search pages. For example, Google considers websites with great links to be trusted websites that belong to trusted businesses. Proper use of this example provided you with a tool to improve your website’s ranking on Google SEPRs.

What Is The Secret Of SEO For the Diamond Jewelry Business?

SEO is not only about the present it is about the future as well. Many prospective clients would want to buy diamond jewelry in the future. As an active online business, you must keep an eye on these customers. This is where research and targeting plays a great role. SEO experts run a thorough R&D program to find the best keywords for your business, that your potential customers are going to use while searching for their favorite piece of diamond jewelry. SEO experts look for:

• Relevant keywords
• Frequently used search phrases
• Local searches
• Potential buyers
• User’s expectations

Offer Google what it demands

Here we reach the final part, where having an SEO expert by your side is necessary. Offering Google, what it is looking for and sending the right signals is imperative. The ideal modus operandi that an SEO expert would use would include:

• Updating your meta description
• Adding and updating image alt-text
• Upgrading or adding new and relevant content to the website
• Create “backlink” with trusted sources
• Find and troubleshoot page speed issues
• Add “internal links”
• Enhance the user- experience through various modes
• Evaluate and reorganize website menus

Does SEO Intimidate You?

If you find all this information way too much to process, you can relax knowing that it is not necessary for you to know everything about SEO. However, you should look for an agency that offers local SEO for jewelers to ensure you gain and maintain the top ranking on Google’s search results pages and enjoy great traffic coming in. An SEO expert would add value to your website, helping you become one of Google’s favorite.

The post How Can SEO Help An Online Diamond Jewelry Business? appeared first on QualDev.

When we compare this to the finding that 70% of local consumers trust online business reviews or that, 11- 15% of businesses have claimed their Google Places local listings, we see a lot of potential customers that are yet untapped.

Any business that gets some or all of its customers or clients locally should consider local SEO. The business could be a local restaurant, retail outlet; doctor’s, dentist or lawyer’s office, or just as easily be a local ad agency.

If you have a physical address in a city and expect people to go there, you should get Local SEO covered for that location.

To most people getting ‘Local SEO covered’ looks easier said than done, so we put together a list of the Local SEO services that we QualDev Inc., provide our customers.

Check out the below guide to optimize your website for local search and improve your website visibility:

Perform Competitors Analysis (Local or National)

Unless you are offering a groundbreaking new product or a niche-carving service, you are bound to have competitors who are snapping at your heels if not already ahead of you by miles.

Whether you are a new entrant or an established business house, the task of garnering a respectable online market share in a crowded marketplace is a difficult task.

We carry out a thorough analysis of all keywords the competition use. We then apply necessary changes to help your website achieve better rankings on search-engine result pages for the same set of keywords.

Our specialized process helps us understand the strategies your competitors employ. This in turn enables us to reposition your website’s SEO strategies, so that it scores over your competitors in search engine rankings.

Perform Keyword Research and Marketplace Research

The first step when starting an online marketing campaign involves keyword research, to ensure that you target the correct terms necessary for directing your campaign to success.

However, making sure you select the right keywords can be difficult, as you need to consider many factors simultaneously.

With our keyword services, we help identify the right keywords for your business, so that the traffic directed to your website is relevant, resulting in more conversions.

Selecting the right keywords is not just a case of knowing which keywords are searched for the most and with the greatest volume but a case of finding those with the right intent, that will send paying customers to your website and improve your bottom line.

With our keyword research service, we look at all the possible keywords in your industry to find those terms that will provide high numbers of qualified traffic in line with your business goals.

Onpage Optimization For Local Search

During this phase, we incorporate the keywords you selected into existing pages or new pages created on your website. Here we adjust keyword saturation and density (2-3%) to suit requirements that help achieve top 10 ranking.

This process involves modifying and optimizing vital areas of your site’s source code, making and implementing several level adjustments to guarantee that your site is search engine friendly.

We focus on important factors, like

• Keyword density, relevancy, synonyms and position
• Page markup key-phrase factors including syntactical accuracy, page code structure, title tags, meta tags, hyperlink tags, and image alt tags
• H1/H2/H3 HTML Tags
• Canonical home page issues (Duplication of URL)

XML and HTML sitemaps: creation, implementation

XML and HTML sitemap files are simple files that contain information about important URLs on your website. The information stored in these files help search engine robots better spider your site.

We create Geo XML sitemap, that includes your company details and link it to your live website as well as add the geo sitemap in Google webmaster tools; and HTML sitemaps that provide users with direct links to individual category and product pages on your websites.

Robots.txt: creation, implementation, optimization

The Robot Exclusion Standard, also known as the Robots Exclusion Protocol or robots.txt protocol, is a convention to prevent cooperating web crawlers and other web robots from accessing all or parts of a website that is otherwise not publicly viewable.

This ensures that users do not get links to irrelevant pages, like a blank page or something that says you do not have permission to view from the search engine results they rely on.

This type of experience can be frustrating and in all likelihood when you faced a similar situation, you clicked the back button on your web browser quite quickly.

With robots.txt optimization, we submit only important pages with actual information for indexing by search engines.

Robots.txt creation and robots.txt optimization mean that the important pages on your website have better chances to make it to the top of the search results page, while pages that should remain hidden do not eat into the ranking.

When robots ‘crawl’ this file, they are informed and know exactly what to look at and what not to look at.

Add Rich snippets code for your business on the site

Snippets — the few lines of text that appear under every search result—are designed to give users a sense for what is on the page and why it is relevant to their query.

We use structured data testing tool to make sure that Google can read and extract your marked-up data to provide relevant information in snippets.

Create Google My Business Page

According to GlobalWebIndex, 97% of consumers search for local businesses online.

This means that your business information needs to be readily available to all search engines. A Google My Business Page allows your customers to find your business profile on Google which contains your business hours, address, phone number, much more information regarding your business all in one place.

This information is displayed within a Google Search, so you want to make sure your information is accurate and up to date.

Claiming your business profile on Google My Business is a positive step to boost your visibility to get reviews. Having a positive rating can help to elevate your business in search results, especially on sites that allow visitors to sort businesses by the number of positive ratings.

Claim Your Profile On Reputed Business Listing Sites

Promoting your business in your own city, state or country is an important part of local SEO.

These effects are very helpful as they provide prospective customers in your locality who are looking for the services and products you provide online, with information by advertising your business effectively.

Local Press Releases

Press release still helps companies get media coverage over blogs and podcasts and provide SEO benefits. Boosting your company’s visibility is especially important for small businesses, but even large corporations need to fight for consumer mindshare.

By implementing a press release distribution strategy, you let customers know who you are, what you do, and why they need you. You also gain the attention of journalists, and over time, they start to trust you more and give you more media coverage.

Our content copywriters prepare press releases and distribute them on Local Press Release websites, providing information about the products or services you lunch.

Reputation Management & Social Media

We use a customized program we created to connect to and manage all your social media profiles from one portal. This helps to manage and monitor your reputation online and gauge the effect of the SEO efforts both Local and Organic.

This also means we are able to steer our SEO efforts towards ensuring an increase positive reviews and ratings and in turn – in conversion rates on your website.

Analyze the Website Performance Regularly

Analyzing your website performance on regular interval helps gauge the effect of the SEO efforts by providing statistic and quantified results.

Our Performance Analysis includes reports like local search ranking report, local visitors report, local traffic report on a monthly basis.

Our team of SEO experts is experienced and in touch with the latest trends and practices that popular search engines follow and look forward to every opportunity to prove that they deliver quality results with each project.

The post How to Optimize Your Website For Local Search appeared first on QualDev.