10 SEO Mistakes Local Businesses Should Avoid On Their Website

Clients never stop asking what they should do to improve local searches in 2015. With recent launch of Pigeon in UK, Australia and Canada, business owners are becoming more and more curious about their Local SEO strategies. But this isn’t the list of tips and tricks, it’s about sharing crucial mistakes that can potentially damage any business. So, before you learn new things, it’s better to build a concrete foundation to adapt to changes. Read the following lines and ask yourself, “Is it why I am not ranking in local searches?”rn1. Brand Isn’t Enough

Most business owners think they should only focus on their own brands. On many occasions, this isn’t the area they should focus. Imagine, you are the whole and sole in your market. Why should you consider optimization? Think beyond and beat any competitor by going beyond conventional brand.

2. Think Beyond What You Sell

The website that sells your products should not be for the things you offer. This is the same thing your competitors are doing. You need to differentiate by talking about your business, your story, community and more. In this way, you will gain advantage over your competitors.

3. “People Know Us” is A Costly Mistake

At times, business owners do this mistake which may be their end point. It means you are relying too much on search engines and not paying attention to improve, or modify your content.

This is actually a trap. The website must provide nice user experience so that the customers quickly change gears and go to buying mode.

4. Keep Updating Your NAP

It’s quite natural for businesses to move and change places/locations. But having the same old NAP doesn’t make sense at all. If there is a physical change in Name, address and contact number of your business, you need to update your NAP accordingly. Otherwise, you can never reach anywhere with inconsistent citation signals. You may lose customers too, because of the wrong NAP on your profile page.

5. Local Elements On-Site Must Be Optimized

Businesses tend to ignore local SEO while optimizing their business page. If you made sure that your content is different, has added advantage, and offers something more than what you actually offers, you’d have taken care of above three points. Now, set up your local optimization elements.

Latest study on Local Search Ranking Factors indicated that webpage ranking is largely based upon on-site signals. These on-site signals are directly related to local SEO tactics.

6. Don’t Rely On City or Keyword Only

The Bottom Line is: You’re not going to rank for a keyword or city just because it’s there in the list available on your home page. A comma-separated list can never be compared or be included as the part of optimization. Relevant content is more important.

7. Pay Attention to Off-Site Local Signals

This is the point where you need SEO expert to optimize your Google My Business Page. The hired SEO consultant makes sure your NAP and citations are consistent all across the web and your business has been listed in every local directory. You will also get relevant links from local sites.

8. Keep Title Tags Within Limits

Good title tags cover around 65 to 70 characters, which is approximately 500 pixel of width. Unfortunately, there are title tags that go beyond 150 characters. According to Authority Lab’s recent research, Google is likely to recreate title tags that exceed 60 characters. It is based on the fact that long title tags are not helping SEO and CTR.

9. Optimize Your Homepage With Relevant Content

Today, businesses are more inclined towards slideshows with 15 to 20 images. Frankly, this is not the content to depend upon. Your homepage markets your business, creates its important and makes it worthwhile. It should educate customers and search engines need something more powerful than images to index the page. So, try adding something more valuable that makes sense and creates value.

10. Avoid Creating Substantially Similar Pages

Majority of businesses fill templates on their internal pages and expect them to rank higher on search engines. In reality, browsers totally ignore such pages. Users visit your website to learn about you and by putting filled up text you will not only waste their time and turning them away, you’ll be wasting pages too.

Conclusion

Think about the mistakes you do before creating your local SEO strategy. Otherwise, even the best SEO company can not make any difference to your ranking.