Ah, New York—the big apple, the financial hub, the business capital of the world. You may have a business model you know is worth its weight in gold, and now your main goal is attracting local customers to your website. You may have heard of terms like SEO, PageViews, and even local SEO, but you’re not sure how they all tie together or even what some of them mean individually.

In this blog, you’ll learn how to target and attract local customers for your business in the great state of New York.

Let’s start with the basics and define SEO to clear any misunderstandings.

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of optimizing your native website and pages on third-party websites to help ensure your website climbs in the rankings on Google and other search engines for your target keywords.

You want to think of the rankings for your keywords as the target and SEO as a tool that allows you to streamline your efforts to hit the nail squarely on its head, resulting in high rankings for your website.

Of course, there will be a different approach used to rank your website globally than to rank locally and attract local customers.

For it to rank at a local level, your website needs to perform well in local SEO.

What is Local SEO?

Like SEO, local SEO is the practice of optimizing your native website and external pages to help your website improve its rankings. However, unlike general SEO, local SEO helps explicitly increase your web presence for a specific area you want to target—in this case, good old New York.

Effectively utilizing local SEO can be a solid technique to help your business skyrocket in local listings and among customers.

Why is Local SEO Powerful?

When you invest in local SEO services in New York, you’re letting Google know that your business is in a specific region—not only in the world or the US but also in the city itself—and that you want to attract customers in that highly-specified region.

Since the audience performing the searches you target will be local, you’ll capture extensive local traffic.

Local SEO is also powerful because Google understands searcher intent. So, if someone in New York is explicitly seeking a local service or a solution to a problem, Google will provide it to them.

If you manage to nail your local SEO, it’s possible someone will be walking into your establishment within minutes of Googling a term related to your business.

Now that you have a working knowledge of SEO and Local SEO, including how they relate to one another, let’s discuss the best ways New York SEO services can work on your business’s local SEO.

Top Ways to Nail Local SEO

1. Ensure Your Website is Mobile Friendly

Mobile-friendliness is one of Google’s essential ranking factors. Since the MobileGeddon update, mobile-friendly websites have been and are still rewarded by Google through higher rankings. On the other side of the coin, websites that aren’t mobile-friendly are getting punished by Google for having a lackluster website.

From a search engine point of view, this approach ultimately makes sense because massive portions of users visit websites from the comfort of their smartphones. When these visitors come to a website that’s not compatible with their device, they will leave in a New York minute.

When you have massive amounts of people leaving your business website within seconds of arriving, you end up with a high bounce rate, which also doesn’t do your rankings or conversions any favors.

There are tools that professionals trained in New York SEO services can use to optimize your website for mobile compatibility within a short period.

2. Create a Google My Business Page for Your Business

Google My Business allows you to create a free listing for each of the locations your business is based. Google My Business pages come up on Google’s SERP as “rich results” as a listing or even a map.

You may have seen these listings when you look for services and type “near me” after it.

Additionally, GMB listings show information about a business’s operational hours, service details, contact information, and even a call-to-action. These CTA’s can look like “get directions”, “visit our website”, “call now,” etc.

Your business may even already have a GMB listing out there on the internet because Google keeps meticulous records. If this is the case, you should 100% venture out and claim the listing so you can reap the traffic your business will get from it.

Once you have created or claimed your GMB listing, you must make sure it is regularly updated. You can avail SEO services in New York to help you keep your GMB listing up-to-date with high-quality posts, photographs, reviews, and even a helpful FAQ section.

3. Submit Your Business Website to Local Directories

While Google My Business is one central directory, there are many others your business should be listed on to maximize your local searchability. These directories will take basic information about your business, like its name, contact information, hours, and service details to create a citation among its other local business results.

There are significant directories like Yelp, Facebook, Angie’s List, and Apple Maps available to you. More niche directories can be found after performing deep competitor research to see which listings businesses like yours use to target local customers.

 About The Author

Joseph Dyson is an award-winning Senior Account Manager at Search Berg—a renowned digital marketing company that provides SEO services in New York. Aaron specializes in offering SEO Services. Over his illustrious career, he’s helped several businesses drive their rankings and conversions significantly higher by implementing well-thought-out, actionable SEO tactics. He regularly contributes to the Search Berg blog.