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How to complete your own local SEO audit

Here are some simple steps you can take to make sure your website covers the basics of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

If you are looking to get started in the world of search engine optimisation (SEO), there are some simple steps you can take to make sure your website covers the basics. The first place to start is with a local SEO audit to see where your website stands in your local online search world.

Step One – On-page Optimisation

Your website needs a title tag, meta description and header. For the best SEO results, try to keep your website’s title to fewer than 55 characters – including spaces and your meta description is best if it’s under 155 characters. For local SEO, you will need the title tag to contain keywords that are relevant to your location and your business and be geo-modified for local SEO, this means including a geographic location for your service, eg:  Dentist West End Brisbane 4101.

Step Two – Check that your contact information is correct

This seems obvious, but to rank highly in your local area, include has much correct local information as you can in the website header, footer, contact us page and in as many relevant spots as possible.

Step Three – Off-Page Optimisation: Google+ and Google My Business

Your business needs to have a verified Google+ account to rank highly in your local area. A Google+ account is free. You can get one here: https://plus.google.com

Google My Business is another very useful SEO tool will take you through the steps you need to complete for your website to appear on Google Maps, and Google Search. It’s free and will guide you step-by-step, clearly explaining the type of information you need to include.

If your business has multiple listings, get rid of them. This sometimes happens if your business has moved locations or changed names. There should just be one listing for your business and it must contain the correct information.

TIP: Check that the URL (web address) showing up on Google My Business is the same as the website your auditing.

Step Four – Citations

A citation is a mention of your business or organisation anywhere on the internet, with or without a link to your website. Examples include:

  • Your company name
  • Company name and phone number
  • Company name, phone number, address and link

The more citations you have, the higher your website will rank. You can find out everything you need to know about citations here and check the existing citations for your business on Moz Local.

Step Five – Backlinks and penalties

For this final step – you will need to access a site explorer tool such as Ahrefs to check your website’s anchor phrases and anchor text. Keyword rich anchor text is not good for your search results. Now, it’s actually possible to over-optimise your website, which you do not want to do because Google will penalise you for it, ranking your website lower in search results.

There are lots of online resources that are related to SEO. Some of the good ones are:

  1. Google Webmasters
  2. Moz
  3. Search Engine Watch

The best thing you can do to achieve a great Google ranking is to have it designed and built properly in the first place and populated with quality content – relevant to your audience. Building award-winning websites that rank highly on Google is what we do. Give us a call (07) 3844 0577.

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