Rule the Local search Results

There are 5 key aspects that any local business owner should keep in mind when pursuing higher online exposure: your company Google+ Local Page, the online mentions of your business called Citations, your official business Website, you customer Reviews and the Inbound Links to your website.

Google+ Local Page
Creating a Google+ Local Page is a must. You might think that filling in a company profile is an easy task; well, as anything else that could bring you certain dividends, there are some basic requirements that you need to follow. Failing to comply with the official guidelines could lead to Google penalizing your business page and banning it from the search results for good. Most common violations include spamming your business name with excessive keywords, or creating several local pages at once for a single physical address in order to gain higher exposure in the search result pages.

Citations
There are countless websites and directories around the web where you could list your business. The business citations actually represent NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) mentions of your business and they boost the rankings of your Google+ Local Page. The most important requirement for having a winning set of citations is consistency. As a result changing your company name or phone number could be a real hassle. Nevertheless you should take time to correct your name or phone everywhere your business is mentioned or otherwise you can forget that your local page would ever rank at leading positions in the search results.

Website
Having an official website is essential for ranking well, however this infographic won’t discuss the common search engine optimization tactics, given that you most probably have them already covered. Some additional location related tips would refer to creating location specific content and embedding your G+ Local Page map to your website.

Reviews
Customer reviews are known to be a conversion related factor, however you’d better keep in mind that the reviews to your G+ Local Page and some popular business directories are essential for your online visibility.

Inbound Links
Obtaining links from other websites has turned out to be a really risky business lately. The over-exploitation of this tactic resulted in Google penalizing countless websites for spammy techniques. We have listed down some pretty useful natural methods of receiving links from websites that discuss news, products, services, etc. in your own geographical location.