What are local SEO tactics for small businesses in Nashville, TN?

Putting time into local SEO leads to ranking on Google and gaining organic traffic of interested customers. That can mean everything for a local business. But where do you start? We’ll walk you through strategies that will help you do local SEO, and we even threw in some tactics relevant to Nashville, TN. 

In Tennessee, 99.4% of businesses are considered small businesses. It can be daunting to stand out in such a crowded field, but we think that local SEO allows you to do just that. Climb the rankings on Google, and capture more attention from people that are looking for you. We can help you today. 

What is local SEO?

Local SEO involves tactics that cause local businesses to rank higher for their service area. Not only are companies practicing sound SEO strategies, but they are emphasizing their geographic location to capture search terms that relate to a local community. 

Which local SEO strategies should I start with for my small and medium-sized business?

Every industry and niche is different, but we put together a list that we think works for most companies. We know that any marketing effort can feel like a risk because you invest time and money into something new. So start with strategies at the top of the list, and work your way down. 

Start with Google My Business

Google rewards its platform first, and GMB offers a lot of features. Google My Business signals to Google that you’re a business and even maps your location (or general area). This helps with searches that include phrases like “near me” and allows you to rank in the map portion of a Google search. 

Google My Business also allows you to define your services and products to show up for more search terms. This is a technique you should build into your website, but you can start with this when you fill out your GMB profile. 

Encourage customer reviews

Always encourage customer reviews, but especially encourage Google Reviews. Reviews give you credibility to people browsing businesses, but it also causes Google to rank you higher. Google wants to provide reliable search results to its customers, and reviews are a big part of its algorithm. 

Make sure your information is accurate in online directories

Information like phone numbers, addresses, and hours should be consistent across the web. Not only is it for your potential customer trying to reach out, but Google will rank you lower for being inconsistent. So do a quick search, and make sure your listings are up to date. Are you listed in so many places that it can feel overwhelming to get the information updated? We can help. 

Add service or product pages

We see small businesses miss out on this opportunity all the time. Do you have a single-page website? We love a simple website too, but you may be missing out on a critical keyword strategy. Create separate service or product pages for each service you do. It may feel tedious to break down your website like this, but you will catch more keywords this way.  Here’s a good explanation of how to write service pages. 

Utilize local community outreach in Nashville, TN

Digital marketers might tell you that local marketing is dead, and the internet is everything. But what if you could do both? Find ways in your local community to advertise online so that you can reach your local audience and get a link to your website. Links to your website from other websites cause Google to rank your site higher because it reads that as a credibility factor. 

But how do you do this in Nashville? People often start with the Chamber of Commerce, like Williamson Inc. or the Nashville Chamber. But you could also sponsor a local event and get a link on a website. Edu domain websites can boost your online credibility. So this technique can work great for schools.

Use social media actively

An active social media account can promote your website on active local channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Google also sees the activity and uses it as a sign that local people support your business, which helps your online credibility. 

Conduct an on-page SEO audit

An on-page SEO audit looks at the mechanics of your website to closely examine the mechanics of your site. It looks at errors such as broken links, missing pages, meta description/ header mistakes, and more. An on-page SEO audit also examines how smoothly your website runs on mobile or just general page speed. Once you have an on-page SEO audit completed, you have an idea of what to fix on your company’s site. This might be out of your wheelhouse, but we’d love to conduct an on-page SEO audit for your business. 

Competitor analysis

Once you complete an on-page SEO audit, it’s a good time to look at what your competitors are doing. Take an inventory of which pages are ranking high for the keywords you’re most interested in winning. What makes these pages successful? Can you create content or web copy that is better than this? 

Create useful content with a local focus

Create content that demonstrates your knowledge as a professional and works in your understanding of the local area. This will do a few things for your site:

1. Build trust with those that read and engage with your content
2. You will organically target keywords that your local business needs to mention on your website
3. Signal to Google that your website is updated regularly

The most important thing to do while writing is to write to your customers, not Google. We dive into our philosophy about human-centered content here. 

Optimize URLs, Titles, Headers, and Meta Descriptions for SEO

Then make sure your content is optimized for SEO and pay attention to the headers you include. In your content management system, don’t overlook meta descriptions, title tags, and alt image tags. These are key for keeping your on-page SEO healthy.

Update posts and maintain internal linking

As you start to create more and more content, don’t forget to go back and update previous content pieces. Updating articles on your website can breathe new light into them, and you can add new keywords. This is also a great time to link to more recent pieces of content that you have created. Internal linking helps Google crawl your website more effectively and ultimately ranks pages higher. 

Add location pages

It may feel unnatural to list off every service in your business. (Honestly, we’re not big fans of keyword stuffing.) But there are some ways around this. You can create pages that summarize your services for the different service areas of your business. This is a great way to get locational keywords on your site. 

Create a backlink strategy

A backlink strategy is a method your company has to get links to your website. An ongoing backlink strategy can greatly affect your search engine ranking, and we’d love to talk more about how we help businesses with this. 

How can Crosby Digital Marketing help with your local SEO?

We help businesses get found online through Google. We can combine our experience with website development, search engine marketing, and local SEO to help your business get found by more people in Nashville, Franklin, and Brentwood. Contact us today to get started.