This is intended as a short outline of the factors that can influence the position of your website in local searches. To be effective, these factors should be considered as a whole.

If your site has been running for upwards of 6 months or if you are planning to start out on the web then this brief guide will help you. There are never any guarantees but in over 20 years of building and promoting websites, the outlines below are what I have found to be, the most important factors when positioning a local business website. It's not scientific and I don't go into great detail but I'd be happy to explain more and have a chat about your particular circumstances - call me: +44 (0)115 9622835 or contact me...

Platform

If you use a 'free' website building systems such as Wix, Weebly or Squarespace, you may find your scope for optimising your site for local searches is limited. I recently rescued a site from Wix - the site owners had done a good job in building their site but due to its limitations the site wasn't getting positioned. I rebuilt the site and structured it properly then bingo, it started to appear on page 1. A note about Wordpress: the popular Yoast plug-in for Wordpress can be effective but too often it is installed and forgotten - it needs to be studied and tweaked to have any effect.

Hidden Structure

All the stuff that happens behind the scenes. Websites need to communicate with and be easily available to search engines. If the hidden structure, or in other words, the way the site is coded, makes it difficult for google to index your site then your site won't gain the position you want.

Geo-location Information

It's important your site contains accurate and properly formatted locational information that search engines can access. This isn't something that is easily visible to anyone browsing your site but a good web developer will know how to do this. In short, if google knows exactly where your business is, then it can deliver site visitors to you.

Content

There is no substitute for well written and relevant content. If you're unsure what that means for your business, then employ a copy writer or ask me: I write for many websites on a wide variety of subjects.

Fresh Content

A website that is easy to update, will help you when it comes to creating fresh content in the form of a blog or news section. It's essential that google can see that your site is alive and kicking.

Content Structure

The way your content is organised can have an impact on your position in google search results. Use relevant headings and paragraphs introduced by sub headings.

Domain Name

A domain name that contains a phrase or word relevant to your business sector will help your positioning a little.

Friendly URLs

A URL is the address of any particular web page. When properly formatted it can help search engines and people visiting your site. An example of a well-formatted URL is: https://www.chrisficklingdesign.co.uk/website-design-nottingham.html - notice the key words in the address?

SSL and https

Secure Socket Layer is a cryptographic protocol for serving your site to visitors in a secure way. You will generally see this in action when the website address starts with https rather than http.  Google is actively encouraging all site owners to use SSL and is giving a slight boost to sites served in this way.

Social Media

Using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and Google+ to make conversation with your audience and show people what you do, will raise the profile of your site and bring some traffic your way but not necessarily in a direct way. Sharing and communicating 2 or 3 times a week on each platform is the way to go.

In Conclusion

Implementing just one of the factors above won't necessarily make a huge difference but implementing them all, will have a positive impact on the position of your website in local searches.