Article Contributed by Walter Moore
The SEO and SEM business has grown by leaps and bounds from the simple concepts behind online marketing to a tremendously complex set of tasks. There is a whole lot of jargon involved and an even larger list of confusing prerequisites which wards a lot of people off, but it is vital that you start optimizing your business’ presence and reach through targeted SEM. To put it into extremely simple terms which even the least tech-savvy CEOs will be familiar with; there are really only three aspects to the whole process, and these three should be the pillars on which you build every strategy and take every decision. They are Rankings, Revenue, and Reputation. Here’s how you go about Local SEO optimization for your business.
Complying with Guidelines
There are two vital steps to this- the first being determining whether the business is classified as local by Google’s guidelines; the second is to go through these guidelines extensively to ensure that the business isn’t violating them or spamming in any way. These steps are instrumental in protecting the online reputation of the brand and also showing that the business does not deal in spam and black hat tactics. Penalties to rankings are avoided, and you don’t spend funds or time on ineffective and counterproductive practices.
Developing the Website
This is a three-step process. You must first develop a clean, fully functional website which has a proper UX across all users and devices. You can also tune up your existing site to resolve any such issues. Next, develop as much relevant, quality content as you can to set your website apart. Then, you can optimize the site for organic search, local search, and conversions, all at once.
This builds reputation, protects rankings, boosts visibility and also ushers in tremendous results in organic and local search. Each of these steps builds the site’s legacy in the long-term, and hence saves revenue in terms of UX optimizations and time spent in reinventing the wheel to have a functional website.
Reviews
Start off by enforcing and perfecting customer service policies across all divisions of the company. Next, come up with a solid review acquisition strategy across major citation platforms and also for your website. When the reviews start coming in, try to respond to each one. This communication and conflict resolution builds trust with the consumer base and boosts the reputation. Several positive reviews boost rankings too, and revenue gets a great boost thanks to trust-based transactions.
Link-Building
You should look into your website’s pre-existing link strategy for any issues with linking and try to resolve them. The next logical step would be to develop exceptional content which would organically earn you links from genuine, reliable sources. Use local sponsorships, contributions to editorials and other relevant opportunities to build links on reputed sites as well. This association with the best of the best is critical to online reputation management, as it lumps your business with top names and not shoddy practices. This builds rankings over time and pays superb dividends on the initial investment in terms of conversions and traffic from previously untapped sources.
Social and Other Media
Find all the hubs frequented by your target audience and develop a customized social strategy for optimum reach and participation. Put in a genuine effort for sharing and reaching out rather than just selling, and monitor your accounts for any grievances put forward. Also look into alternative media like video and email marketing and development of apps, tools, and widgets. It is understandable if you don’t have the expertise for this, hiring a reliable bulk email marketing services Mumbai firm is absolutely the right thing to do. This boosts reputation, protects rankings and reels in revenue like never before.
Conclusion
It’s surprising that the idea of local SEO and online reputation management is still viewed so skeptically by business owners. While technical jargon does seem daunting at first, entrepreneurial instincts should tell you that this is the next logical step, and not jumping on the bandwagon now will have severe consequences in the future.
Author Bio: Walter Moore is an SEM expert and marketer spearheading a startup in Chennai. He also runs a successful blog revolving around resources on SEO and SMM and reliable references like GingerDomain.com.