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What Is Included in Local SEO Services?

Dominate your market with thousands of hyper-local citations that turn local search into local business.
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What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is the process of improving your site's search engine visibility for location-based searches. From gas stations and cafes to plumbers and electricians, the average person turns to search engines when searching for local businesses. Especially for restaurants and other businesses with exclusively local customer bases, local SEO is key to letting customers know about your hours, location, and contact info. The right local SEO optimizations help search engines understand where you’re located, what markets you serve, what you offer, and how customers can best reach you.

Local SEO Services Basics

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Local Search
Rankings
We help you get to page one of the SERPs for location-based searches and keyword phrases.
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Google Map
Pack
Get into the Google map pack to drive site visitors and foot traffic into your-brick-and-mortar store.
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Business Page &
Directories
We'll make sure your business page is updated in the directories where people search for businesses like yours.
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Online Review
Sites
We help you improve your presence and status across the major online review sites and those in your industry vertical.
Ready to learn how Local SEO Services can grow your business?

Local SEO Services

There are thousands of review sites and data aggregators across the internet. From Yelp and TripAdvisor, to Angie’s List and your GMB listing, it’s no small feat to keep your local listings up-to-date and consistent for users and search engines. With our network of thousands of the most important business directories that major search engines crawl, our local SEO agency will maximize your online visibility through submissions across all these major directory platforms.

Much like the yellow pages before the internet, the online landscape for local businesses starts with listing your business name and contact information on the proper locations. When someone uses Apple Maps to find an Italian restaurant, you want to make sure that yours shows up. The same is true if they use Waze, Google Maps, or their car’s built-in navigation GPS. Local SEO is all about knowing all of the different sources people use to find businesses, and making sure your company shows up.

We won’t stop there, though. On top of listing your brand in the appropriate directories, we’ll also make sure your information stays consistent and up-to-date. Change your business hours? Move locations across town? Search engines crawl all of these review sites, directories, and data aggregators, and if your information is contradictory, they will be less likely to show your website in search results. Our citation services have helped hundreds of local brands outrank their local competitors and even national brands.

Showing up in the Google map pack is make or break for most local businesses. When users search for local options near them on their mobile devices, the Google map pack makes it easy for them to immediately find the information they need to make a decision of whether to choose your local products or services, whether directions, store hours, or contact information. If using a mobile device, they may call or get directions by clicking on your search result.

Other features like featured snippets or rich snippets will highlight specific information in your search engine result like your company reviews. This helps boost your business’ credibility and reputation with searchers, in addition to taking up more real estate on the first page, which can entice them to click. These types of optimizations often take place on the HTML level, through features like schema.org markup. We will make sure your local business leverages every advantage so you can edge out your biggest local competitors.

In addition to placing your business’s info in local directories like your GMB listing and Foursquare, we also help your local business earn unstructured citations, also known as “link signals,” from other pages. You’re probably familiar with how word-of-mouth can make or break a local business. If everyone in town recommends a particular restaurant or salon, then you’re more likely to pay it a visit. Link signals work in the same way.

The internet is an open forum, and everywhere you look––journals, periodicals, blogs, mobile apps, your local newspaper, etc.––people are talking. Any mention of your business name can improve your search performance, but backlinks are one of the top search ranking factors. When another page links to your business, it’s equivalent to them casting a vote of confidence in your product or service. The more internet locations that link to your web page, the more authority your site will possess, thus helping you rise in the search rankings.

At LinkGraph, we specialize in high-authority link building from both local and national sources. We make sure your links come with location-based anchor text or other local language that helps you improve your local search appearances. Through 100% organic outreach to webmasters and publications, we earn you high-quality links that build your local search visibility and overall reputation with search engines.

We push your location information out to search engines by registering it with their most common reference sources. Our Existing Citations Audit will identify any inconsistencies or errors in your current listings on local business directories or citation sites. We’ll also secure new and reputable industry citations that improve your online visibility in your niche or vertical. When it comes to local businesses, some of the most common reference sources include:

  • Google My Business
  • Foursquare
  • Yelp
  • Facebook
  • Angie’s List
  • TripAdvisor
  • MapQuest

Hiring a part-time SEO worker on Fiverr to update your listings for the cheap may feel like a good thing, but it is unlikely to get you the consistency or breadth of citations you need to show up in local searches. A local SEO specialist will understand the nuances of your industry and which of these platforms is most relevant in your field.

For example, if you’re a carpenter, a Yelp profile might not be as important as one on Angie’s List or Home Advisor. Meanwhile, the opposite applies for restaurants, hotels, bars, etc. Our local SEO pros will develop a submission strategy not only tailored for the local audience you seek but also for your specific industry needs.

SEO of any kind begins with optimizing the actual content on your web page. Through targeting specific keywords relevant to your business and its customers, we engage both search engines and readers with quality content that demonstrates the appeal of your services. When a user enters a local query into a search engine, the search engine will crawl the web for the most relevant results based upon what appears on your webpage. We know the right words it takes to be relevant in your industry and your local area.

There are many local SEO tips you can implement into your on-site content in order to show up in local searches. From targeting long-tail keywords, to having locally-focused blog content, to including your physical address in your header or footer, our local SEO strategists know the optimizations that will help make your visible (and invisible) content more locally-focused.

Our on-page optimizations ensure that your site communicates to search engines your essential business information like location, products/services, hours, and positive reviews. With our proprietary copy optimizer software, we can create local content and landing pages that meet the needs of users and perform well in local search results. The invisible meta data of your website also communicates to Google crawlers whether your site is relevant for local searches. We make sure you title tags, meta descriptions, and headers all do the work of projecting your website as one that should be showing up for local or “near me” search queries.

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Local SEO Audit

If you’re not sure whether your local citations and directory listings are up-to-date and consistent, we can perform an audit to identify those discrepancies that may be holding your website back from appearing on page one for local searches. We use proprietary software to crawl thousands of directories for your listing to see and understand the data the way Google’s crawlers do.

Once we identify where your citations need edits or revisions, we can implement those changes for your business, saving you time and paving the way for immediate improvements in local search rankings. Google is more likely to trust and rank sites that have consistent information about physical addresses, store hours, phone numbers, or other information that a potential customer is likely to want in response to their queries. Make sure yours are correct by starting with a local SEO audit.

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Online Review Sites

There is very little chance of your local business ranking in search results if you do not have a strong base of positive reviews on major online review sites. Google crawls major review sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc. to understand how your local business is perceived. Unlike local citations, which simply state your business location or contact information, ratings communicate information to Google about your businesses reputation.

Our local SEO strategists can help you optimize your business page within review sites as well as take advantage of positive reviews with features like schema.org. There are software programs that can help you incentivize your happy customers to leave positive reviews, and our strategists can offer local SEO tips and guidance for how to improve your online review signals. If your website experiences a barrage of fake negative reviews, our reputation managers can do the work of reporting those reviews and making sure they don’t have a negative impact on your long-term local SEO presence.

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Monitoring & Maintenance

Just like with any marketing strategy, local SEO is not a one-time fix. To stay relevant, your business will change, offer new services, and target new customers, to compete. For this reason, local citations require maintenance and monitoring as your store hours, website structure and url paths, or products and services grow or expand.

With our proprietary software and detection tools, we regularly audit your listings to prevent inconsistencies or errors to ensure that your citations stay consistent and competitive over time. As more online directories collect data about businesses in the United States and beyond, we stay-up-to date on which are most important for your local area and industry vertical.

We add physical locations and rich media to your local business listings to give your brand a competitive edge wherever potential customers may look for you. LinkGraph ensures that your local SEO strategy grows along with your business. Our citation monitoring removes the inconvenience for your local business by doing the work of keeping your information consistent, accurate, and optimized across thousands of directories.

Additional Local SEO Services

Location-Specific Landing Pages
Review Management
Duplicate Listings
Location-Specific Landing Pages

If your local business has multiple locations, it’s important to have an individual landing page for each location. The content on that landing page should have information that is specific to the geographic area the business is located in. Our SEO strategists will make sure you have the on-page optimizations you need, like location maps, CTA buttons, social media widgets, and keywords in your page title, so your location-specific landing pages rank and convert.

Review Management

Monitoring and responding to online reviews is an important part of local SEO strategy. You can outsource your review management to LinkGraph, and we will make sure your local business leverages each feature of these major review platforms to improve your customer support and your overall keyword rankings. From responding to reviews, reporting fake reviews, and optimizing profile pages, our local SEO experts will help you make the most out of your reputation.

Duplicate Listings

If you have more than one business listing on an online directory like Google My Business, Google will penalize your website and not show your local business in search results. Most often, these duplicates occur through automation or data changes, but it’s important to identify them and remove them as to not confuse Google crawlers or potential customers. Our local SEO experts will make sure that there are no duplicate listings across any of these essential directories, so you can avoid a penalty while new customers find the accurate information they need about your local business.

Pricing

Local SEO services work by targeting content for individual physical locations. Structured and unstructured citations must be set-up for each brick-and-mortar location or service area that you’re interested in targeting. Local search optimization pricing varies by the number of locations you need to get to the top of the local search results.
GBP Audit
One-Time Cost
$150 One-Time
100%
Local SEO Optimization
0
Web Search Optimization
  • Per Location
    • Proximity Audit 
    • UTM Tracking Analysis
    • Services Suggestions
    • Category Suggestions 
    • Operational Hours
    • Contact Numbers and Addresses
    • Listing Verification 
    • Review Analysis 
    • Social Profiles & Links
Local SEO Package
Billed monthly, from:
$150/month
100%
Local SEO Optimization
55%
Web Search Optimization
  • Per Location
    • GBP Audit
    • UTM Tracking Implementation*
    • Services Updates*
    • Operational Hours*
    • Accurate Contact Information*
    • Description Optimization*
    • Local Heat Map for 1 Keyword
    • 300 Local Citations
    • Monthly Listing Management

*Requires Management Access to your listing.

Local SEO Package Plus
Billed monthly, from:
$300/month
100%
Local SEO Optimization
100%
Web Search Optimization
  • Per Location
    • GBP Audit
    • Everything included in Package 1
    • Competitor Monitoring
    • Review Monitoring
    • Review Response*
    • Google Image Optimization*
    • Google Post Creation*
    • Local Heat Maps for +2 Keywords

*Requires customer input.

Need a customized local SEO campaign? LinkGraph can help.

Multiple Locations / Listings
Have hundreds of listings?
Contact us for bulk pricing options.
  • Structured Citations Audit
  • Structured Citations Clean-Up
  • Reputable Industry Citations Sprint
  • Monthly Citation Monitoring
Geo-Targeted Link Building
Already have your local business listings covered, and only need unstructed citations? We can help!
  • Hyper-Local Resources
  • Localized Content
  • High-Authority Link Building
  • 30 Day Delivery

What sets LinkGraph’s Local SEO Apart

Citation Distribution Network
All of our local clients get the benefit of their local citations submitted over a wide network of thousands of the most trusted search platforms, business directories, and navigation systems. Our network includes the essential up-to-date directories where your company needs to be listed. Wherever users go to search for businesses, we will make sure your listings are found there.
Local SEO Resources
We help our clients improve their site with our free SEO resources and learning hub. Understand why local SEO is so important, learn how to structure a paid media campaign with geo-targeting for your location, or better understand what on-page optimizations you can perform from the comfort of your own computer to help you appear in local searches. We love sharing our expertise and resources, so check out our ebooks, articles, and webinars in our learning hub.
Proprietary Software
All of our clients have access to our innovative SEO software. You can use our SEO tools to implement the best practices of SEO across all of the marketing channels for your local or small business. Improve your on-page content, check your backlink profile, and understand your domain authority metrics with our powerful tools. We help you take your SEO strategy to the next level.

FAQs

Local SEO Basics
Local SEO Services
Local SEO Campaigns
Google My Business
Other SEO Offerings
What are the most important things I can do to rank well in search as a local listing?
  • Set up your Google My Business account and Bing Places account
  • Add your business name, address or service area, and phone number to your site
  • Create dedicated location-specific landing/contact us pages
  • Register with additional online business directories (Yelp, Foursquares, White Pages, etc.), especially any specific to you industry
  • Encourage happy customers to leave reviews on your GMB business profile page
  • Building location-oriented backlinks
  • Build out additional location-specific content and web pages on your site
What are structured citations?

Structured citations are citations that have been specifically formatted to be read by other sources (such as search engines). Structured citations are often referred to as business listings, such as the ones you’d set up on Yelp or Facebook.

There are four main “aggregators” that many business listing platforms and search engines pull from. These aggregators are: Infogroup, Acxiom, Neustar Localeze, and Factual. While structured citations are an important part of a comprehensive local SEO strategy, make sure you don’t forget to address your onsite fundamentals (Name, Address, Phone Number, Business hours) and claim your Google My Business (GMB) listing before diving deeper into structured citation building.

What are unstructured citations?

Unstructured citations are references to your business that have a location-component to them, but which are not formally structured with explicit location-markup. Examples are social mentions from local users, mentions of your business in location-oriented articles or blog posts, and mentions of your business on hyper-localized sites (such as community blogs, or local newspapers).

Additional unstructured citations can be obtained through geo-targeted link building campaigns, as well as your own organic outreach to boost your online presence (such as participating in or sponsoring community events).

Why do structured citations need to be monitored?

Information is added to the internet all of the time, and new sites pop up that host structured data. You want to make sure that you monitor all major sources for incorrect information, duplicate listings, and make sure you’re included in any industry-reputable business listings (especially if your competition is listed).

Conflicting local information from structured sources causes search engines to feel less confident in your information/business and thus less likely to serve that information to users. LinkGraph monitors all of your citations in order to ensure that they are helping, rather than hurting, your rankings in local searches.

How is local SEO different from traditional SEO?

To put it simply, traditional SEO focuses on the visibility of your web presence on a national or even global scale. Local SEO, however, connects your web presence with users who are nearby. Proper SEO campaigns, of both local and traditional varieties, place an emphasis on some common strategies: link building, quality content, and keyword targeting, to name a few. But local SEO requires some specialized methods that help you connect with potential customers in the immediate vicinity.

For example, when you search “best restaurants” on Google, you’ll notice that you don’t find lists of the best restaurants around the world. Instead, Google will pull up results for your immediate area, using your present geographic location. Since it’s unlikely that a restaurant in Dubai can offer much for a searcher located in Michigan, Google relies on local search capabilities in order to provide you with the most useful results for their queries. 

Local SEO maximizes a business’s ability to rank highly in these sorts of searches. Some of the most important local SEO strategies include:

  • Claiming your Google My Business profile
  • Obtaining and monitoring reviews on local websites and directories
  • Targeting keywords relevant to your local customers
  • Adding your business’s contact information to local directories such as Yelp or Angie’s List
  • Earning backlinks for authoritative, local websites. 

While both traditional and local SEO place an emphasis on obtaining backlinks from authoritative voices, it’s particularly important for local businesses to have links from local sources such as regional newspapers or directories. This will do much work in terms of boosting your rankings in local searches.

What is a local SEO campaign?

Our local SEO campaigns look to improve the visibility of your organization within your immediate geographical area by targeting a specific location. This can be a state, city, county, or country. So when a user in your area searches for your type of product, service, or business – you can show up in their search results.

This hyper-local targeting is incredibly effective for brick and mortar businesses, as well as businesses with defined service areas and local markets.

What do your local SEO campaigns include?
  • Competitor analysis
  • Keyword research and conversion analysis
  • Keyword targeting
  • Content development
  • Content optimization
  • Google My Business Set-Up and Optimization
  • Structured Citations and Business Listings
  • Distribution network of hundreds of national and vertical directories
  • Content Marketing/Localized Link Signals
  • Social Media Management
Why should my business focus on local SEO citations?

Building and optimizing localized listings improve your chances of ranking in Google’s Map Pack results for your target location(s). The process is called local citation building, and it revolves around creating accurate and important information about the company, such as business name, address, hours of operation, URL, and phone number. It also entails updating any incorrect or outdated data that can negatively impact results. This is done across a series of directory sites including yellow pages, Yelp, and other sources.

What's the best way to know if my local business citations are up-to-date?

Ready to see how your local citations are doing? Simply use the LinkGraph Directory Listing Scan to receive up-to-date information on your site’s citations.

Our team of local SEO experts, highly educated content writers, and experienced support staff work together to provide a solution that will help you reach your goals while assisting you in each step. We do this by focusing on what Google and other search engines value: providing the exact, relevant information a user is looking for, in an easy to consume fashion that helps them reach their goal.

How do I know if local SEO is right for my business?

While it’s easy to understand what we mean by local, it can be confusing to discern whether or not a local SEO campaign will benefit your bottom line. If your business falls within these industries, then local SEO is likely something you’d benefit from:

  • Legal Services
  • Real Estate
  • Medical and Health Practices
  • Industrial
  • Electrical, HVAC, and other Home Services
  • Heavy Equipment
  • Pet Services
  • Bars and Restaurants
  • Multi-Location Businesses
  • In-Person Beauty Services
  • Franchise Businesses
How do local SEO campaigns work?

Our campaigns work because we take the time to understand your business and local area. We look to recognize the specifics of your demographics and your local audience. As storytellers, we immerse ourselves in the idea of your concept and build the perfect content to create the exact publication that reaches the ideal audience.

Ultimately, the success of each local SEO campaign involves three major components, each critical to reaching your goals:

  • Customize the Content: We create content for local companies that is relevant and localized. Therefore, the publications will always be of value and will position the business well.
  • Measure Progress: As we execute the campaign, you will always have access to tracking and monitoring the work end-to-end. Our customer dashboard gives business owners full access to our local search marketing strategies, so you can measure the progress of your local SEO campaign to get the best result.
  • Rapid Search Ranking Improvements: We use tailored strategies, including high-quality backlinking, to quickly increase the organic traffic to your website while focusing on long-term publication development that drives even more qualified traffic from search queries.
Is Local SEO really an affordable investment for my small business?

Yes. With search ads you are renting space at the top of the search results, an expense that once spent is gone. With search engine optimization you are investing in search equity that will produce results indefinitely.

Having your business correctly listed in Google Maps, online directories, and having accurate information pop up when a user searches for your business is an important factor for securing local customers. The majority of people now begin the purchase process online with a search. Users searching for local businesses and products are shown local results. Better yet – when your site is local search optimized a user doesn’t even have to click into your site to reach your business.

With ads a user will still have to click and read or discover additional information, but search optimization means that users see your information straight from the search results page, like your phone number and address and even ratings from review sites.
Working with an SEO company can be a bit of an investment up front, but that investment is foundational for your business and will last.

How can I measure ROI for local SEO efforts?

Local SEO ROI can be a little more difficult to measure than traditional SEO services. Well optimized local businesses will display enough information to users within the search results themselves — that users may call or visit your business without ever clicking into your website.

So how do you tell if your SEO efforts are working and producing return? The first sign of success is that your search impressions will increase in not much time. You can see if your search impressions are increasing by reviewing your performance in Google Search Console. The next sign of success is that your search ranking position for your targeted search terms begins improving. Look for your site climbing in the SERPs.

Finally you’ll be on the first page of search results, and you’ll see both your foot traffic, online orders, and/or calls to your business increase. This process will repeat for each set of keywords or locations you optimize for, including new offices or locations

Why should I choose LinkGraph as our local SEO company?

We’ve helped hundreds of local businesses from roofers, therapists, lawyers, toy stores, gyms, liquor stores, and even cities looking to attract tourism. We understand the best practices of digital marketing and are an award-winning SEO company because of the work we’ve done to create tangible results in revenue and growth for local business owners.

We can easily handle the standard local SEO items:

  • Google My Business optimization
  • On Page NAP optimization
  • Setup with local directories

But we also specialize in high authority link building and content optimization, and link signals are more significant for your rankings than structured citations. Our team can also help you pick keywords to optimize for that will provide you the greatest short term and long term return, and design campaigns to optimize your budget for ROI.

As a web design agency, we can make sure your site performs well across desktop and mobile devices.We also provide a free software suite you can use to improve your local content, even if you aren’t looking to be a client. You can use the software to optimize your onsite content, see the SEO gap between you and your competitors, and even conduct keyword research.

What is Google My Business, and why should I use it?

Google My Business is a free set of tools allowing you to reach customers, provide them with info related to your business, and learn more about the ways in which people interact with your concept. Completely free, this tool allows you to set up a business profile which gives users the ability to find your business through both Google Search and Maps.

If you’ve ever searched for Thai food near me (or a similar query), then you’re likely familiar with the way in which Google displays local search results. With their recent “3-pack” update, Google will display three tiles of local search results, all of which containing business information such as address, phone number, and hours of operation, in addition to other information depending upon industry (restaurant ratings, appointment availability, etc).

This free service is especially important to make use of as it is one of the best ways to increase your brand’s visibility. Often with local businesses such as restaurants, salons, and markets, customers make their decisions based upon their ability to quickly find contact information and website info, all of which can be clearly delineated using Google My Business.

Can Google My Business help me to reach more customers?

With Google being the dominant gatekeeper to information on the internet, Google My Business not only can help reach more customers, but it is one of the most essential tools in your arsenal of attracting eyeballs to your business. Remember, even though your business is local, this doesn’t mean that you don’t have competition. Without a Google business profile, less people will stumble upon your business organically. Instead, they’ll likely find nearby competitors.

With all that said, there’s more to utilizing Google My Business than simply listing your business’s name, address, and phone number. That’s where LinkGraph can help. With our in-depth knowledge of this SEO tool, we’ll help you display photos, link your business profile to your website, and help your business rise above the local competitors through keyword targeting.

Am I the only one who can make changes to my Google business profile?

While it may sound counterintuitive, users can potentially make changes to your business listing without you signing off on their approval. Bear with us for a moment. The goal of Google is to provide users with the most relevant and accurate information corresponding to search queries, so if several users notice discrepancies between a Google business listing and what they’ve actually experienced while patronizing said business, then they can suggest changes. For example, after visiting a restaurant and observing boarded up windows and padlocked doors, they may report that the business has been permanently closed.

What this means for you is that you should regularly check your Google My Business dashboard, as this is the most reliable place to receive notifications regarding changes to your business listing. While Google will send you emails in the event of such changes, these are easy to miss, and the last thing you want is for potential customers to be operating off of dated or erroneous information.

With LinkGraph local SEO services, we’ll actively monitor any adjustments made or suggested to your business profile and ensure that your web presence always reads accurately. Nothing should stand between customers and your business, and we help facilitate these interactions.

What can I do about fake reviews posted on my Google My Business profile?

The first question you should ask yourself is whether the review is in fact fake or if it simply says something unflattering about your business. You’re passionate about your business, so it’s only natural to take it hard if someone says something critical of it, let alone in a public online forum viewable to anyone who searches for your brand. If the review is not in fact fake, then there is likely little you can do to have it removed. Your best course of action is to simply respond to the reviewer.

First, you should thank them for the time they’ve put into their review, provided their words aren’t obscene. After all, honest feedback can be taken into account in order to improve your business. Then you should provide a genuine apology, whether the issue was poor service, a misunderstanding, or something else. You can even offer to fix the situation for the customer. For example, if you run a restaurant, and the reviewer took issue with an undercooked dish, offer to remake the dish on the house, and maybe even throw in a free drink. All of this lets other people reading your reviews know that you’re committed to quality customer service. Who knows? Maybe the dissatisfied reviewer will even take you up on your offer and add an update to their initial review.

With all that said, if the review is in fact a fake one you can flag the review as inappropriate through your Google My Business dashboard. From there, Google will reach out to you, asking you to explain the situation and, most importantly, why you’re so sure this review is fake. If you present a convincing argument, then Google just might remove the negative review, though this whole process will take several days.

What other SEO services do you offer?

LinkGraph offers a variety of SEO Services, and all of our strategies white hat!

How LinkGraph Excels at Local SEO

We specialize in business citations and local optimizations that help brands increase their sales, revenue, and local market share. Whether you want more foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar store or to appear in the Google Map Pack, local search engine optimization can help you reach the customers who are already looking for services in your area. Presently, local searches account for nearly half of all Google searches, making it all the more important for your brand to strategize accordingly. You’ve already established yourself as a trusted local business. Now, you’ll want to make sure people can easily find you.