Recent Google search algorithm changes have been devastating to many small businesses’ website search rankings. You might have seen your site drop from page one of Google search results into oblivion, with Google favoring large companies and user-generated content sites like Reddit instead.
As a small business owner, you might be tempted to pay thousands of dollars to a so-called “SEO expert”. Then, when your search rankings don’t improve after their “fixes”, they’ll tell you just to wait longer – “It could take a year or so for the results to show up”. After that time with no results, they’ll be long gone.
Don’t waste your money. Instead, try these free and low-cost strategies to get more visitors to your site and more business for your company.
The Solution: Local SEO
So how do you get customers in this new search environment? The solution is to stop trying to compete with competitors on a national or worldwide level and instead concentrate on LOCAL SEO.
Here are my latest tips to help local customers find your business online. Notice that I’m not necessarily talking about search engine optimization for your website, although that is one important component.
1. Make sure your Google Business Profile is up to date and relevant to search!
If you want your business to show up for certain keywords in Google Maps, include those keywords in your business name in Google Business Profile. For example, if you want your company to show up when someone searches for “electronics recycling” in Google maps, include those words in your company title in GBP, i.e., “Acme Electronics Recycling” (even though “Electronics Recycling” may not be in your real company name). That did the trick with a client of mine.
Also, make sure your profile is up to date with your current hours, address, phone, etc.
This is a no-brainer and costs nothing so you can do it today!
2. Get some recent Google reviews; here’s how
A client of mine was struggling to get their company to show up more prominently on Google Maps searches. Scanning the search results list, I noticed that every company above them in search results had Google reviews, whereas their company had none! That was the missing ingredient!
If you have no Google reviews, get some. They lend legitimacy to your business and tell Google you are a real company, increasing the chances your company will show up on Google Maps after a search.
I have another client who had reviews, but they were all over three years old. Having better and more up-to-date reviews might help with SEO as well. Make sure these are real, legit, reviews, and not fake reviews from an employee, etc.
How do you get reviews? Ask your best customers to do you a favor and write a review. Here’s a great example of how to get a lot quickly:
I recently hired a junk hauling company to take away some construction waste. The foreman was super courteous and friendly, and at the end of the job asked if I would mind leaving a review. I was happy to since his price was the lowest and he gave great service. He showed me a card with a QR code, which I scanned, and it brought me to his Google profile page, and he watched me give him a five-star rating. I was happy to do that, but how could I not with him standing right there? Anyway, he’s got solid five-star ratings down the line. That’s how it’s done!
What about Yelp!?
I don’t have proof that being on Yelp! helps with SEO, but it sure can help bring customers in itself. Yes, it can be a pain to manage the occasional bad comments, so you should try to solicit some positive reviews to counteract those. After you get a bunch of Google reviews, use the same method I described above to get Yelp! reviews.
3. Don’t forget about Apple Maps
While Google Maps is still king, you shouldn’t forget to register your business with Apple Maps.
4. Join your local chamber of commerce!
It would be great for your company to get a backlink from the Wall Street Journal, but that’s not so easy.
Instead, I’ve had an amazing return on investment by joining my local Chamber of Commerce. When one of my future customers searched for “freelance web developers in Santa Monica”, my company’s listing in the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce directory came up on the first page of Google!
Not only that, the directory has a backlink to my website which helps legitimize your website in the eyes of Google. It may cost hundreds of dollars to join your local chamber of commerce, but it’s a much better investment than paying an SEO “expert” or service, IMHO.
Join your local chamber of commerce and get on their business directory!
If there are any other legit local industry organizations that have online directories, it would be good idea to get on those. For example, the Better Business Bureau.
5. Post on social media
The particular social networks that are best for your company depend on what industry you’re in. If you choose the wrong one, your efforts could be wasted.
If you’re a restaurant, Instagram is a no-brainer. It’s a “must” for any company selling products with visual appeal. For these businesses, it might actually make financial sense to hire a professional to manage your social media posts.
If you’re a B-to-B company, LinkedIn might be your best bet.
I’ve already talked about how Reddit has supplanted many blogs in Google search. If your company solves a “how-to” problem, Reddit might be good. You need to be careful about overtly posting ad-like content there, though; make sure your company really solves the problem the original poster is trying to solve.
What about Twitter and new “Twitter-like” social networks such as Threads and Bluesky? I would get accounts on those, but not put in much extra effort to post. If you can set up automatic posting so that when you write one post, it posts on those as well, that is fine. One example of this type of service is Buffer.
6. Continue to optimize for keywords, especially local cities and towns
The old-school technique of putting keywords in your content prominently is still relevant, as long as you don’t overdo it. As far as local SEO is concerned, you should mention the names of the cities and towns that you serve on your home page.
I still encounter small business websites that don’t mention what city and state they’re in! Instead, they describe their location as “South Bay”, or “West Side”. That’s suicide for local SEO! You need to explicitly mention the cities and towns (and state) that you serve!
Make sure your physical address is in the footer of every page of your site too.
7. Case studies
If you want to add some on-site content to help with SEO, I believe that case studies are the way to go instead of blogs, and they’re more fun to read. Tell a story about how your company solved a huge problem for a local customer, and use lots of keywords.
8. Physical networking
Okay, this won’t help with SEO, but you shouldn’t forget about old-fashioned in-person networking for getting new business. Believe it or not, not everyone has Instagram or LinkedIn. There is still great business to be gained in the real world for sure!
I got my biggest client in 2023/2024 by attending a networking event put on by my local chamber of commerce!
One of my colleagues gets the majority of her new business from an organization she heard about from her local Rotary Club.
Get out there and network in person!
Why Blogging Is Dead for SEO
If you hire an SEO “expert”, one of the things they’ll tell you to do is start a blog on your site. That was the old-school way to improve SEO that might have worked years ago. Now, it’s almost a complete waste of time (as far as local SEO is concerned) for two reasons:
First, it is a shotgun approach. Let’s say you spend a ton of money on a great blog that, by some miracle, gets readers from around the country or world. Well, most of those folks aren’t in your local area and therefore aren’t potential customers. If you have a nationwide business, that’s another thing, but for a local business, 99% of the blogging effort is wasted on folks who won’t ever be your customers.
Second, and more importantly, Google has severely de-prioritized blogs in their search results in favor of user-driven content sites like Reddit and Quora. After Google’s updates, many blogs lost 95% of their visitors overnight. You can do almost any Google search on “how to do ____” and Reddit will come up before the blogs that used to.
Now, I’m not saying that blogging is completely worthless. There are valid reasons to have a blog (I personally have several, including this one). I’m just saying that if you expect a blog to help with your SEO, that help will be minuscule, and there are much better ways to use your time and money to improve SEO.
Let’s get on to some of those.
Conclusion
Give these tips a try and let me know how they work out for you in the comments. Be sure to check our Google ranking before and after you do these. – Brian
I am a freelance web developer and consultant based in Santa Monica, CA. I’ve been designing websites using WordPress and from scratch using HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript since 2010. I create websites and web applications for businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) from California Institute of Technology and a degree in Engineering Management (MSEM) from Stanford University.
