Web Design Ballarat: Local SEO for SMB Websites
If you are a small or medium-range business in Victoria, getting a web design Ballarat professional to optimize your virtual storefront for better visibility in Google and other search engines is essential. When potential customers search the Internet for a product or service like what you offer, and they don’t find your company’s website, how can they buy from you?
Why local SEO
A retail outlet, a barber shop, a bakery, a carpet cleaner and just about any business that gets some or all of its customers locally stand to benefit from having a website that has been designed for local SEO. If for instance a potential customer is searching for something on the Internet, say a veterinary clinic, Google will immediately assume that the person is searching for one that is nearby and will list down all the animal clinics nearest his or her vicinity. Google will “know” where he or she is searching from based on the IP address, and if mobile is used, also from the GPS. Moreover, distance and location ranking parameters were expressly considered in Google’s Pigeon update to its “Local Search” search engine algorithm.
How to optimize for Local Search
With website design Melbourne, it is possible to get “on page” and “off page” SEO that will help land your website in the local search engines. For instance, structured data containing such basic information as your business name, address and phone numbers, can be incorporated directly on each web page’s HTML markup.
Local and mobile searches are really often interlinked. Potential customers searching for local destinations tend to use their mobile devices to conduct their searches. Thus, websites now should also be developed to serve as mobile-friendly digital business assets. This can be done by using responsive web design Bendigo. Google too gives preference in its search rankings to websites with responsive web design. With its capability to automatically adjust to different viewports, there is less need for web “redirects.”
Another way for local search optimization is by provision of a “click-to-call button” on the mobile-friendly website. Still another way is to integrate Google Maps, or any other mapping software, on the pages itself of your website so that searchers can be guided on the easiest way they can get to your location. When going mobile and local, focus should always aimed at how to make it as easy as possible for potential consumers to get from the website to where and how they can buy from you, be that online or at your nearest physical outlet.
Content Is Still King
Although you can get a web design Melbourne that is technically capable of ranking high on the mobile and local search result pages (SERP), it won’t do you any good unless you have an equally effective content management system (CMS) to go with it. The CMS too, no matter how efficient, would be useless unless you can come up with regular engaging and relevant content for your target market audience.
