You use SEO because you want to be visible on the web, and gain leverage against your competitors. Thing is, old generation of Google’s algorithm gives you an entire country of competitors, or difficulties in localizing your stuff.
To solve such problem, Google have launched the “Pigeon” in July 2014, paving the way for local SEO to help various business on certain local areas.
What is the Pigeon Update and How to fly with it?
What is the Pigeon Update and How to fly with it?In simple words, the Pigeon is a new algorithm of Google that was launched in July 2014, aiming to give significance in localizing SEO for local business.
Say, you have one branch of pizza parlor in your city, it makes no sense to focus competing with shops on other cities. The Pigeon update can help in bringing more people from the city to your pizza parlor, as they could easily see your brand upon Googling for a pizza place in the city.
That could help in significantly decreasing competition for local business while bringing in more customers to their place. Of course, the kind of industry where a business belongs could say if this is a beneficial thing or not.
Flying with the Pigeon Update
After knowing about the Pigeon update, you should definitely know how to fly with it.
Remember that going local for SEO is not just simply adding keywords tagged with your city’s name throughout your contents. Thus, it’s important for you to read this quick local SEO guide to help you have 3 basic ideas on flying with the Pigeon efficiently.
How to Rank Up in Google Maps? Here is your Effective Guide to do Local SEO in 2019
Fix Your NAP’s Consistency
Remember that a business’ vital details, like contact info for example, are one of the first few things that potential customers want to find. Thus, it’s important to make your NAP or Name, Address and Phone number with area code along with other info consistent across the top-ranked directories.
In fact, as a significant on-page content, NAP plays around 21% of the SEO results. You wouldn’t want to miss that.
To make your NAP efficient across various directories, remember these quick tips:
- Put your NAP in an easily crawlable HTML format, position it at the footer of your content, and never put it in a non-crawlable image.
- Make sure it contains the same formats and the same info details across directories.
- For your email contact info, use your own business domain instead of generic email domains like Gmail.
Those quick ideas should help you optimize your NAP efficiently, and make it consistent on different directories.
Build Your Business’ Credibility
Local customers tend to choose credible brands or business over questionable ones, and that’s a basic marketing concept on or off the web. Thing is, the Pigeon optimizes such concept for your advantage, even today using local SEO 2019.
To build such credibility using SEO techniques, you should keep three things in mind:
- Make your NAP consistent, as discussed earlier.
- Gather quality local reviews.
- Claim your business or brand on Google My Business.
Gather Quality Reviews
Remember that positive reviews could influence around 90% of local customers, and negative reviews deter around 86% of them. Thing is, buying reviews to acquire hundreds of them at once is never a good idea.
Thus, encourage your customers to leave reviews after buying or availing your stuff. Moreover, you can link people to your review sites, so they could read reviews about your business or leave reviews themselves.
In addition, the moment you get negative reviews, you can also make it a local SEO advantage by approaching it appropriately and professionally. Just remember that review sites could take down defamatory reviews upon your requests.
Claim Your Business or Brand in Google My Listing
Next, make sure to polish your reputation on Google My Business. You can do it by fixing your NAP’s consistency, acquiring more quality reviews, and by making your business look nice.
The trick here is to upload more quality pictures all throughout your business operation. Generic photos doesn’t easily hook customers, but HQ photos can do the job.
Optimize Contents to Acquire Backlinks
Backlinks are one of the biggest tools in acquiring organic SEO results. Even in the Pigeon update, it still plays significant roles for local business.
Thus, local SEO tells that it’s important to polish your appearance on social media sites as well, and make your business relevant for your community. Like the pizza parlor example earlier, simply selling pizzas could be great, but sell it for an upcoming local football league and it could do wonder.
You can do it by taking pictures and videos of your community, while subtly or obviously promoting your brand in it. That could help you acquire more visits, potential customers, and eventually push your authority up the Google ranks.
Telling stories about your community could also do great, as long as it could help in gearing customers towards your brand. Say, you offer catering services, you can also suggest the best venues in your local place for certain events where you can serve.
Of course, don’t miss to do common yet reliable link building methods to help in further improving your website’s authority.
So remember to make your NAP consistent across various directories, for customers to easily find vital details and info about your business or brand. Next, gather sufficient yet quality reviews, and claim your brand or business on Google My Business to boost your credibility.
Finally, make your brand or business relevant for people in your community, and help it acquire more backlinks to push your site further up the ranks.
These are just a few of the important notes you should remember to make your site fly with the Pigeon update. This can help you gain the advantage of the local business competition, and lead more customer towards availing or buying your stuff.
Can’t do SEO on your own? No worries, expert SEO services are there to help you. Just find a reliable one that offers local SEO services, and you’ll gain the advantage you need.
Related Posts:
Thank you for sharing Jean. Keep posting like this please…
This is an informative article. Thanks for sharing!
This is so informative. Thanks for sharing!