Local SEO – Optimisations for Your Website Part 1.
This set of videos is just really to go over a lot of the questions I have been getting over the last couple of weeks. I thought it would be a quick video but turned out to be not so quick, which is why I turned it into 3 videos so that it was not death by powerpoint. For those who like to read I have expanded the video for you below it. As always any questions feel free to drop me an email and I will do my best to get back to you asap. You can also check out my Local SEO page
1. Is your website mobile friendly?
Since April 2015 Google has been stipulating that it will be penalising non mobile friendly sites, and it amazes me as to just how many there still are. But why should we have a mobile-friendly site?
Well in the last lot of statistics it specified that over 60% of people use mobile devices to search for local business. So the way I see it there are are 2 main reasons why your site should be mobile friendly:
- Because Google is going to penalise your rankings if you are not mobile friendly.
- If your site is not mobile friendly when a potential customer lands on it on their mobile and they have to pinch and squeeze and scroll left and right then they are simply going to leave your site and go to your competitor who has a mobile friendly site.
You can check your site yourself at:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
Simply enter the URL of your site i.e. http://mydomain.com.
Google will tell you whether they deem your site to be mobile friendly or not. If you are then well done that’s one thing crossed off. If you are not mobile friendly then you need to look at your website and get it sorted. Why?
Because even if you don’t believe that Google will not let you get on page one for your keywords, to me number two is the most important reason, because even if you do end up on page one, or by some flook, someone visits your site when you are on page two. 🙂 You are still going to lose 60% of potential customers who will be on a mobile device.
Can you afford to lose 60% of new potential customers?
2. Does your site load quickly?
Again this is an issue that is both a ranking factor but more importantly a User Experience factor. Google obviously wants to give the best experience to the searchers so again they have stated that slow loading pages will be penalised in the search engine results pages. But just think about yourself, how long do you wait for a site to load before you get bored and press the back button?
So if your site is loading slow what do you think a potential customer is going to do?
Again Google has kindly given you a tool you can use to check your site yourself at:
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights
You are aiming to be in the Green above 85/100. But the beauty of this tool is that Google even tells you how to fix the errors that are slowing your site down. Some are easy fixes such as images, some you have to check with your hosting company, and some you will not be able to get fix due to the nature of your website. But so long as you are in the green then you are good to go.
3. Are you listed in the top 100 local business directories?
The reason Google loves businesses that are listed in many of the top local business directories such as Yelp, Yell and Free Index etc. Is because a business that has taken the time to list themselves appears to Google like a business they can trust.
The second reason you should be listed in as many of these directories as possible is that it gets your brand out there. The directory sites can also send some traffic to your site, known as referral traffic, and Google uses referral traffic when determining listings.
Note: When you set your citation/directory listings up your NAP, (Name, Address and Phone number), MUST be consistent across them all.
4. Are you on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & YouTube?
Your Social profiles are all about your brand and marketing your brand to the masses. Just as with the citations above Google looks on a business with its social profiles set up as a legitimate business it can trust. Also as with the citations above your NAP must match what is on your website. There are many more Social profiles than the ones above and the more you have the better. For instance Pinterest and Instagram.
Your social profiles will usually send a much larger amount of traffic to your website if you have them optimised correctly. Optimising them correctly also means that you do not have to spend all day posting to each of them.
So that is the end of part one of this series of posts. If you liked it please share it with those who you think it might help. To continue to Local SEO Website Optimisations Part 2
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