Every business can benefit from SEO. Most local businesses don’t fully take advantage of it in the right way, which actually works out well for you. It makes them a lot easier to compete against, and you’ll rank higher in the search engines.

Search Engine Optimization has been around since the dawn of the search engine. People always want to rank higher, get more clicks, and convert them into more business. Optimization is just learning all the tips and tricks that others have reverse engineered from search engines.

Search engines don’t like getting fooled, so they’re constantly adjusting when people find a way to rank higher without putting in the work. Google changes its algorithm 500 to 600 times a year! The problem is that this cat and mouse game can make it very confusing for those just trying to do the right thing and rank organically.

Below are 6 tips for SEO that will help boost your businesses without any gimmicks.

News Websites

With a business, any publicity is good publicity. The same is true for your website. If you want to rank well locally, you’ll want to get in the news.

Most local news sites have some of the highest page authority you’ll find in your region. Google puts these sites pretty close to the top of the list when it comes to being considered “solid sources”. This is where a backlink on the local news site can really help.

The reason for this boost is based on trust-rank, which is one of the newer updates to the Google algorithm. Google likes to put trustworthy site higher up, because, well, they’re trustworthy. If you get links from these site, you’ll slowly be considered more trustworthy too.

• Partner with charity organizations to get into the news.
• Use guerilla marketing techniques that get attention.
• Do something extraordinary, like Blendtec did.

Start Blogging

There are many ideas for your small business blog that you’ve seen on this site. The question is – why start one?

SEO is the first reason. Becoming the expert is the second. The more you blog, the more content Google will be able to index. If you’re using local keywords, and talking about your service, you’ll have plenty for people to link back to as well. As long as it is great content, you can promote it on social media, and gain fans and followers.

It will also help you become the expert. You can blog about behind the scenes stuff, helping customers, success stories, why you do things a certain way – pretty much anything. It all helps people trust you, and more importantly, your SEO will benefit from the content in the long run.

Backlinks from Local Sites

iBlogZone did a local SEO infographic not long ago, and point number 10 was all about local linking. The difference between this type of linking, and the linking mentioned above for news sites, is just about being local. Generally, sites that backlink you locally, will give you a better chance of ranking higher locally.

It works just like the global linking algorithm, just on a smaller scale. If you know other local business owners, work with each other to find ways to link to each other’s sites in a way that is a little more natural than just a long list of links.

• Write blog posts about common activities / charities.
• Do a shared promotion.
• Just post about the other business in general.
• Talk about the people of the business.

If your local chamber of commerce has a directory site, make sure your listing is up to date.

Local Keywords

Keywords are becoming less important as more websites abuse them. They’re still important though. You’ll want to make sure you’re using your local city name and your main keyword or two in several places on your website.

We’ll use John’s Tow Truck service as an example.

• Website Title. Instead of just the business name, use “John’s Tow Truck Service – Chicago’s Trusted Towing Experts”. This way you get the name of the city, “tow” and “towing” all in the title.
• Domain / URL. Instead of just “johnstowing.com” try to also get “johnstowingchicago.com”.
• H1 Tags. Try to make sure you’re using headlines those rules in the h1 tags. “John’s towing rated Number One in Chicago”. Keyword and city. All the time.

Local Influencers

There are several local people that can make a big impact your business. These people are called influencers. They generally have a larger audience on social media, or a larger readership on their blog as Essay Republic, and they can help you with local search and branding.

You can use social media tools to find these influencers. It won’t take much. Simply look for the people locally that are in on all the conversations. You can use Twitter’s advanced search to find people locally that have a lot of followers. Look for Facebook groups. The owners of those groups are often influencers.

Once you identify influencers, you can talk to them on social media, send them free samples, partner up for promotions and work together on a number of fronts. All of this will increase your local SEO power as your brand is talked about and linked to.

Reviews Matter

Get reviews for your Google My Business page. If you haven’t claimed it yet, that’s step one. Reviews can make a big difference in how often people will click your link when it shows up in search results.

Solicit reviews from local customers just by asking them nicely.

• Send out a request in your newsletter.
• Ask for reviews on receipts.
• Solicit reviews on social media.
• Let your friends and family know.

All of the above tips aren’t tricks. They aren’t gimmicks. They won’t be considered “bad” by Google when they change their algorithm. If you’re looking for real ways to rank higher, use the above as a guideline and just be honest. Google likes that.