As a business owner, we all struggle with one very common, unavoidable obstacle – competitors. It’s a dog-eat-dog world and as a local business, it’s crucial to be the biggest dog in town. Going up against companies that have auto-generated local listings or businesses that have been involved with local SEO in Utah for years will be tough to beat.

Another obstacle many local companies need to problem solve for is Google’s ever changing list of ranking factors. For small businesses trying to show up locally, Google can completely disrupt your strategy with algorithm updates such as the Possum update, which allowed for businesses outside city limits to compete for local spots if they service that area.

Local SEO in Utah – The Scene

Let’s say you run a small Mom and Pop Sporting goods store.

Now, there are loads of sporting goods stores out there, and typing this phrase into Google will provide a large number of results.

Amongst these results, you’ll typically find large chains occupying the top spots – in Utah, where we are based, stores like BIG 5, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Pro Image Sports occupy positions in the top 5 search results for this phrase.

Despite this, our local independent sporting goods store outranks them all and is the first result I see when I search for a sporting goods store.

Why? Because search engines pay huge attention to the geographical location of the searcher, and our sporting goods shop owner was smart enough to recognize this and take some simple steps to ensure maximum visibility for his store in our area.

So how can you take advantage of local SEO in Utah? Well, in the below local SEO checklist, I’ll take you through the key things you do to make your site rank highly in your area.

Let’s start with Google My Business.

1.      Google My Business for SEO in Utah

Creating a Google My Business (GMB) profile takes ten minutes max, and is one of the easiest things you can do to ensure visibility in the local search results.

When you set up your profile, you supply your business address to Google. Google then sends a card to your business address containing a PIN which you use to verify the address.

Once that’s done, within a couple of days you should see your business included on the map that Google displays when users in your area enter a search for your type of service.

Keep your Google My Business Up-To-Date

Every day, customers across the internet rely on business listings for the correct information. It’s extremely important for your Local SEO in Utah that this is easy and quick for the searcher to identify.

By logging into your GMB account, you can make sure your name, address and phone number are correct. You should also include a brief but informative business description, a link to your website and your hours of operation.

Make your listing appealing; your logo should be the avatar/profile picture and you can also update your interior photos, exterior photos and product photos. These should be high-quality images because pixilated, blurry images unprofessional and can affect your ranking.

2.      Claim your Local Listings

There are many places online to list your business. Here are some of the major ones:

• Your local chamber of commerce. Companies that belong to their local chamber of commerce are viewed as more trustworthy to local consumers. You will also enjoy other benefits, such as networking opportunities hosted by the chamber of commerce.
• Yelp for Business. Yelp is not just for restaurants. Prospective customers use Yelp to search for dentists, locksmiths, movers… pretty much every business you can think of. 
• Bing Places for Business. Bing search represents nearly 7% of all searches, so it is worth putting in the effort to claim your Bing listing. The good news is that you can import your Google My Business listing. Or, you can manually claim the listing. You may also be able to snag a Bing Advertising credit too.
• CitySearch. As the name implies, Citysearch allows consumers to search for businesses by city. On their front page, you can find quick searches for restaurants, doctors, construction companies, and more.
• YellowPages.com. Remember the huge books with yellow-colored pages that listed every local business? The online version is now called “YP – The Real Yellow Pages.” They also allow consumers to leave reviews.

Remember to set up a local listing for each of your business’s locations. Also, there are industry-specific local listings, such as Zillow for realtors, that you should also take advantage of and claim. This will help you climb the ranks and dominate local SEO in Utah

3.      Gain More Online Reviews

Google thinks very highly of reviews, as google puts it—

“High-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location.”

(Source: Google My Business Help)

In our opinion, we believe this is a big hint that Google treats Google My Business reviews as a ranking signal. So, it’s important to encourage any customers who is happy with your product or service to leave a review. Your company may offer a discount for leaving a review on, for example, Yelp. A proprietor may have a sign up by the register asking customers to leave a review.

You can make review requests part of your email marketing with a link to the specific review page, or you can use marketing automation to generate automated review requests from customers who are the happiest with your products and services.

4.      Create Captivating Local Content

Captivating content on your website can increase the time customers spend on your page: the higher your numbers, the higher your ranking.

• Write high-quality articles based on topics relevant to your business to engage readers and emphasize your expertise.
• Blog about local events as they pertain to your brand. For example, a bike store that blogs about a local cycling event.
• Create a virtual tour that you can post on Google My Business, YouTube, your website, and across your other social channels. Virtual tours aren’t just for real estate listings (but of course, they can be). Give a tour of your business. It doesn’t have to be a fancy production.

5.      Optimize Your Website Using Local and Long-Tail Keywords

It’s important to make sure the descriptions of your products and services on your website reflect what people are actually searching for.

There’s no point, for example, in referring constantly to ‘bicycles’ throughout your website, when people are actually searching for ‘bikes.’

To avoid making these sorts of mistakes, you’ll need to use a keyword investigation tool like SEMrush oit will let you find out what the most popular search phrases for businesses like yours are, and how difficult it will be to rank for them locally as well.

There are several ways to improve your local SEO in Utah on your website, including:

• Name your home page something other than “home.” The title and description you use should both accurately describe your business and hold their attention. This heading is what prospective customers will see in their search engine results, so make it descriptive, keyword-rich, and concise.
• Include local keywords like town names, neighborhood names, local sports team names, etc.
• Add specific and relevant tags and keywords to all your website pages.
• Use long-tail keywords. These are longer phrases that describe your products or services in a way that a person might search for them. “Best place to buy pizza” or “the most comfortable running shoes.”

6.      Utilize Social Media Platforms for SEO in Utah

Social media platforms are free, so it’s not ground breaking news that they can be a good way to stay in front of your audience. Google will crawl and pull search results from your social platforms, such as Facebook profiles and reviews, your business’ LinkedIn, YouTube and even your Instagram account and your recent posts.

7.      Try to Get Local Online Coverage

It’s definitely worth approaching local news sites asking for some coverage of your business (or content).

Given their local angle, many of these news sites will be more than happy to provide you with a backlink – and this backlink might pass on a significant amount of ‘link juice.’ News sites, even local ones, tend to have a lot of domain authority, because a lot of other sites link to them — and a link from one of these can really boost your position amongst the search results.

It can be a lot easier to get coverage for your business in a local article than a nationwide one — but doing so can nonetheless give you some very valuable backlinks.

It’s also likely that Google’s algorithms will take note of the context in which these links appear (ex. on sites which are about your local area) – and associate your site with that location.

8.      Make sure your site is Mobile Friendly

The majority of searches in 2020 are now carried out on mobile devices; and according to Hubspot, 61% of mobile searchers are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile-friendly site.

Google prioritizes sites that perform well on mobile phones as well.

So, if your website is not performing well on a smartphone, you can lose out when it comes to local SEO in Utah. Accordingly, you should make sure that your website is responsive (adapts automatically to display correctly on all smartphones) and loads very quickly on a mobile device.

You can use Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool to check how your site currently performs on a mobile device.

Still In Need Of Help Optimizing Your Site?

Unsure of where your site truly lies in terms of Local SEO in Utah and organic visibility? Take some time to fill out a form and get in contact with us to set up a FREE consultation.