Episode 037 - Local SEO
===
Welcome to SEO Day Studio with your hosts, the Findability Queen Denise Millet, and the entrepreneur Whisperer, Kim White. This is a space to hear the questions that fellow entrepreneurs have about SEO and get them answered. So many discussions involving techy topics like SEO are loaded with jargon and unnecessary complexity.
So much so that anyone outside the tech industry has difficulty getting to the real meeting inside the information. Denise believes that every entrepreneur can benefit from search engines. Once they hear how they work in a clear and straightforward way. She's on a mission to help entrepreneurs get the content They spend hours creating included in search engines, so when their customers search online, they're findable because she believes if they can't find you, they can't do business with you.
So stay tuned. The fun starts now.
Welcome to the SEO Day podcast. I'm the official mailbag keeper, Kim White, and I'm here in the studio with the Findability queen herself, Denise, Millet. Denise, it's great to be here with you today to help entrepreneurs and business owners learn about SEO and find out it they can do this.
So thank you for all you do for all of us.
Hey Kim, thanks for being here and doing it with me. I appreciate it. And it is Tuesday, your SEO day. So this is the day we hope everybody will listen to the podcast and while they're listening, they can do a couple of SEO things to, to get things going.
I love it.
Well, I dove into that magic mailbag and came out with basically a show dedicated to one of our dear friends who is asking questions. And that is the icon herself, Cat Corchado. Yes. She is a fitness and movement specialist. She is. She's just amazing.
Mm-hmm.
She has an online community and she does local classes.
She does all kinds of things. So this episode is dedicated to cat and her first question was, if I want to sell a service to my neighborhood businesses, do I need to change my SEO?
Yes, in the sense that you want to think about the people that are looking for something in your neighborhood and what they're, what they usually use to search.
So if someone's looking for an online service, then they're going to say maybe virtual or online, right? But if they're looking for an establishment, they might use those words like near me when we search for restaurants near me or. Fitness trainer near me, or the name of the town that you're in, doesn't have to be your dress, but it could be something that they're looking for that frames it locally for them.
And then you also want to think about, sometimes they might be using voice search if they're on their phone. 'cause sometimes a lot of local things, for cats instance, it's fitness and classes, et cetera. But other people doing local selling or locations might. Might be used with their phone to get to a map location or to get something narrowed down.
So you want to make sure you cover all those bases.
Great answers, Denise. So her next question was, do I need a Google Business profile?
This is a great question. a go. Let's talk about what Google Business Profile does for you or can do for you. It does establish your business in. Google's view, right? So they'll see you as a business.
It's the connection to their map program for you to be a location. It also gives the possibility of, I'm sure you've looked for things and you've seen the hours and the location and the about thing when you search on maps, but also in search itself. So if you search by your business name. You'll get this profile show up and you can include things about your business there.
So it is very helpful, especially if you're doing local, because if you have an address in there, it can also connect you to maps, and that's another way to bring people to you. So it is a good thing to do if you want to do it.
And we want to put a little caution in here. You don't want to use your home address to send people to you unless your business is at your home, because you never know who's on there looking.
Thank you for that. I should say you should use a local mailbox address or a. Postal address or whatever you can in there unless you're physically in a location doing business beyond your home.
So question number three, Denise, is do I need to use my phone number on my website?
I'm going to share my opinion.
My opinion is no, I don't think that, you should share your phone number. With anyone out there for the same reasons Kim was just talking about your address, because there are people that are going to misuse that information. It also opens you up to, getting on lists that you don't want to be on and having to deal with spam calls and all that other stuff that we're all plagued with to be, I am actually going to shut down my voicemail soon, but, like that kind of thing.
So I would say no, I don't believe that's something you should share. I think you should have an email address or you can have an email address that's a. Available to people on your website so that they can reach out to you that way. But I wouldn't put a phone number on there.
I concur. I'll just say that.
Let's head over to a word from our sponsor for today.
This episode is brought to you by the findability Queen Denise Millet. Visit her YouTube channel youtube.com/@findabilityqueen for her collection of short videos, answering questions about findability and SEO for entrepreneurs every day.
Welcome back.
We're still here talking about SEO and local issues. That's what I'm going to call them for today. Let's move on to our next question. It's still from Cat Corchado, who the show is in honor of. Cat Ask, I'm planning a business networking event. How can I get it to show up in search engines?
It's a good one too, whether it's virtual or local in person, you want to make sure that you have a page on your website that is dedicated to the event.
So that the search engines will read it and you have all the information that you think somebody's going to search for. So they're looking for what type of event are they look looking for, in this case, a networking event. Are they looking for a fitness thing or a webinar or. a sales event, a discount event or you're showcasing something, whatever you think their words are going to be.
Don't have to be the name of the event, but should be in the titling and in the, and within the text so that people can, the search engines understand what it is, and then when people search for it, they will be able to get it. That make words today?
No, that was great.
It should be on your website.
You should put it on your website because that is what's read all the time, and it should. It should live there.
Help this search engines help you.
Right.
Well, the last question today is, and I think this is a great question, if I have a speaker at my in-person event, do I use their name as a keyword in the headlines on my website or the event name?
Could be a little spicy here, Kim. I
can't wait.
You, want to honor your speakers, so they should always be included in the webpage or in the description or wherever you're showcasing the event on your website. But you want to use the name if that's something that people are going to be looking for. If that person isn't a known name, then.
Yeah, that's not what they're going to be typing in. It's not as important as maybe where it's located, who's, what it's for, what the purpose is, all those things. So I think you always want to honor your speakers. If someone is, a celebrity and that's someone, local people or people around you are being interested in.
Absolutely. But I think you want to be careful not to waste the beginning part of the title and some of the headlines with those names if they're not going to be searched off.
I love the answers today. Thank you so much, Denise, for answering all these amazing questions. We're going to close the mailbag for today, and we'll jump back in next week.
You as always, did a great job of making it clear what SEO is and how we can use it for our businesses. So thank you.
Thank you, Kim, for being here with me this week again, and for organizing that. Heavy mailbag. I know your official mailbag keeping position is a heavy lift. I appreciate it. I really love that people are listening to our, the podcast that we're doing together and that they're sending us questions.
And I also know that. To get started, you really need to have a good set of keywords. So I've created a guide that's going to help people get started if they're hesitating or just give them another angle to think about. So it's called Quickly Find your Perfect Keywords, the Simple and Easy Guides Being Findable, and it's going to give you shortcut, a shortcut to get some keywords for your business.
So head on over to the link in the show notes and get your copy today. Thanks, Kim.
Thank you for joining Denise and Kim in the SEO Day studio for today's discussion. If you would like one of your SEO questions answered in the future episode, head on over to denisemillet.com/questions to let us know. The link is also in the show notes.
We hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of the SEO Day podcast. Follow the show so you can hear when new episodes get released and stay in the know about SEO. Until next time.
