• Business Growth & Optimisation

5 Local SEO Tips for Small Businesses

5 min. read28.09.2021
By Team Zeller

Here’s how to make sure your business shows up in the right search results.

The digital revolution of the last decade has made finding a solution to a problem simple. Whether you’re looking for a local mechanic, the best coffee nearby, or a last-minute gift, a quick Google search will reveal your options — and it’s the same for your customers. In fact,  97% of people now go online to look for local businesses.

Understanding how to market a small business locally is crucial to attracting new customers. As restrictions ease across several states, people are primed to spend their money supporting local businesses. With so many consumers turning to the web for recommendations, it’s critical your business ranks highly in the search results that best match your business. This is where local SEO is key.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a strategy that helps you land a higher spot on Google’s search results pages, and it’s something that any local business can benefit from. Your goal? Get in the Google 3-Pack for the search terms that best fit your business.

What is the Google 3-Pack?

When you type a search into Google, the results page delivers the most relevant results. Google has always worked this way. However, over time, it has discovered a way to provide even more relevant search results for queries.

After analysing trillions of searches, the brains behind Google realised the importance of proximity; people tend to search for things “close to me”. This is called a query with local intent, and it’s the reason why Google’s algorithm now factors in your location when you make a search — so it can provide the most geographically relevant results. Thanks to location sharing, Google now does this for you — whether you include a location in your search or not.

Here’s where the Google 3-Pack comes into play: it’s a method Google uses to display the top three geographically relevant results at the top of each page.

For example, if you’re looking for fresh laksa for dinner, searching “laksa delivery” in Google will turn up a list of locations near your house. If you searched the same term from your city office, Google would return different results relevant to that new location.

While registering your location may seem like a relatively new development, local search has been a fixture for years — yet customers were tethered to their desktop computer to do it. These days, thanks to the rise of mobile usage, mobile search has become an extremely powerful tool for local businesses.

Here’s how to get your business on the maps of local searchers.

1. Have an active Google My Business listing

First thing’s first, you need to activate your Google My Business listing. Follow the steps in our blog post to get started.

This alone will do wonders for your SEO ranking, which has a waterfall effect on the health of your business overall — as it’s how the majority of customers will find you. In fact, people are 70% more likely to visit businesses that have a Google My Business listing.

Aside from SEO benefits of activating your Google My Business listing, in doing so you are making your business more accessible to customers. Once you complete your listing, people will be able to view important details about your business — including opening hours, contact numbers, website links and images, helping them to make a decision about whether your business has what they want or need.

2. Get reviews

Reviews are highly persuasive marketing materials. If Google users have endorsed or rated your business, an average star rating will appear on your profile. If it’s a high rating, chances are it’ll make you stand out from other businesses on the 3-Pack. It’s a powerful metric that could be the difference between a glance online and a sale.

Consumers tend to trust the word of another, impartial consumer over businesses themselves — so it’s important you maintain a strong online reputation. In fact, almost 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, so you can essentially consider every positive review a personal endorsement. That’s why reviews have the power to drive foot traffic, perhaps more than any other detail on your Google My Business listing.

3. Localise your content

Localised content can sway your Google search ranking. Put simply, this means you need to include your suburb and any other common area name in your website copy. Or, you could take this a few steps further and create blog content that naturally weaves local terms into the copy.

If your business has multiple shopfronts, it’s important to build dedicated local landing pages for each of your different locations. These pages should feature important details such as your address, phone number, optimised title tags, and meta descriptions. For example, if you own a café brand that operates in different locations, not only should they each have dedicated Google My Business Profiles, but they should each have a dedicated page on your website.

4. Localise your links and backlinks

Links and backlinks are inbound and outbound redirects to and from other websites and they can build trust and authority around your business, increasing your business’s chance of appearing in the 3-Pack. Ways you can cultivate links include sponsoring events, supporting local charities, or partnering with other businesses. The more locally relevant those links are, the better.

When a backlink to your page appears on other websites, it creates another channel of web traffic — which in turn boosts your SEO performance, so even if you don’t appear in the 3-Pack, your organic ranking will still be high on the search results page.

5. Keep your online profile up-to-date

Once you have your online profile up to scratch, it’s important to keep it up to date. When your profile is accurate, it can amplify your business’s visibility in Google search results — driving more foot and web traffic. However, if your profile directs customers to your businesses when the doors or closed, or to your old location, you risk losing valuable business. Therefore, it’s important to keep your details consistent across all online profiles, especially while lockdowns and easing restrictions can affect opening hours.

It’s also important to ensure you’re regularly updating your profile. The fact that there are photos on your profile could see you receive as much as 35% more clicks and 42% more requests for directions than businesses that don’t. So, when a new product line or menu item is released, take a quick snap and share it to your profile to attract more customers.

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Zeller Terminal: Your EFTPOS Payments Solution, and So Much More

Meet your newest recruit: a sleek, reliable multitasker that takes payments, processes sales, cuts costs, grows tips, splits bills, and boosts your brand. Once upon a time,  EFTPOS terminals did one thing: accept card payments. In 2024, they have become the beating heart of a business’s finances, incorporating myriad tools and features to help merchants not only deal with the increasing volume of card payments, but also make informed business decisions, deliver premium and branded customer service, and get you paid faster. Zeller Terminal is one such device that’s leading the way in payment technology in Australia. Integrated into Zeller’s financial ecosystem, which offers a  point-of-sale system ,  transaction account  and  savings account ,  debit cards  and  corporate cards , a  contact directory  and  mobile app , Zeller EFTPOS Terminal is a key component of an all-in-one system that gives businesses real-time visibility of their cash position, important sales insights, and near-instant access to their funds. So much more than an EFTPOS machine, Zeller Terminal is a key growth driver for your business, and below, we explain twelve reasons why. Top 12 benefits of Zeller Terminal 1. It saves your business money. Zeller Terminal is yours to own outright for the low cost of $99, or $199 if you choose Zeller Terminal 2, which comes with a built-in point-of-sale system. There are no monthly rental fees, no lock-in contracts, and no hidden costs. Once you start taking payments, you will only ever incur a 1.4% transaction fee for all card types – including AMEX – or 1.7% for over-the-phone transactions. Plus, with Zeller Terminal’s flexible surcharging capability, you can choose to pass on all or part of your merchant fee to the customer. Unlike many merchant services providers which lock you into surcharging for an added fee, Zeller’s zero-cost EFTPOS  option can be turned on, off, or customised at the press of a button. 2. It accepts every payment method. Zeller Terminal gives your customers the option to pay however is most convenient for them. To make payment, a customer can: tap their smartphone, watch, or other  NFC-enabled device  to the terminal tap their contactless debit and credit cards to the terminal insert a chip card into Zeller Terminal and, if needed, securely enter their PIN swipe their card and enter their PIN, or sign directly on the screen (available on Zeller Terminal 1 only) call you and read their card details over the phone 3. It simplifies checkout with a free, built-in point-of-sale system. Traditional point-of-sale software can be costly to growing businesses, which is why Zeller Terminal 2 incorporates a simple POS solution right into the hardware, for free:  Zeller POS Lite . Designed for micro, small, and mobile businesses, this easy-to-use POS solution records sales and delivers a fast and secure customer checkout experience. With Zeller POS Lite, you can: Manage a library of items directly on the terminal or via Zeller Dashboard or App Customise your product offering with modifiers and variants Design your home screen grid to allow quick access to frequently used items Generate itemised receipts which customers can receive via email, SMS, or QR code View detailed sales reports to understand what you are selling and when Create and manage discounts Get set up instantly – Zeller POS Lite comes automatically installed on Zeller Terminal 2 4. It boosts your brand with customisable receipts and screensavers. Zeller ensures your brand is central to the payment process by allowing you to customise both your receipts and your machine’s screensaver. Whether they’re printed or sent digitally as an email or SMS, Zeller receipts can incorporate a custom image at the top of the receipt, as well as business details, social media handles, a brief message or returns policy. Similarly, Zeller Terminal’s large digital screen can be customised with an image of your choice, allowing you to engage your customers with your brand while you scan their items or pull up their order on your point-of-sale. Much more than a simple payment device, Zeller Terminal is an innovative marketing tool that can be leveraged to instil your brand messaging. Customise your Terminal screensaver and your receipt to align with your brand. 5. It splits payments. Gone are the days of making your customers get out their phone calculator to figure out who owes what after a group meal. Zeller Terminal’s  Split Payments  functionality gives customers the option of splitting by custom value or by number of people. Not only is this more convenient for your patrons, but it speeds up the payment process, freeing up the EFTPOS terminal for it to be used by other staff. Additionally, by giving each individual customer the option to pay their share, it gives them all the opportunity to provide a tip. Everyone tips differently, so by giving more power to each customer, it is not only a more democratic process, it's likely to result in cumulatively greater tips for your business. 6. It settles the bill, tableside. Zeller Terminal’s  Pay at Table  feature is revolutionising the dining experience. Where before waitstaff would have to jostle between the diner’s table and the point-of-sale machine to settle a bill, Zeller Terminal now allows you to see total outstanding bills, take payments and close tables — all on one device. Rather than the customer paying at the counter or finalising the bill in the traditional, time-consuming manner, waitstaff can deliver the bill and the mobile payment device, all at the same time. The status of a table is updated in real time and synced across all machines, reducing human error and optimising the whole operation. 7. It makes processing refunds easy. Zeller Terminal supports both complete and partial refunds – and you, as a business owner, have the ability to restrict who can provide a customer with a refund. It’s an added level of protection for your business. Refunding a payment doesn’t cost your business anything; Zeller doesn’t charge any additional fees for refunding a customer. 7. It gives you real-time insights. Track key metrics from your Zeller Terminal in your own Zeller Dashboard or on  Zeller App . By providing powerful real-time data and a searchable transaction history, Zeller equips you with the tools you need to better manage cash flow, identify cost-saving opportunities and sales patterns. With most payment services providers, daily transaction information is unavailable until totals are tallied up at close of business — and important business information can only be found in a monthly merchant services statement. Having the ability to see how your business is performing at a glance enables you to quickly understand your short-term cash flow, progress sales targets to meet (and outperform) business objectives, and ultimately make smarter business decisions. 9. It gets you paid faster with same-day settlements. When you settle your funds into a Zeller Transaction Account, your day’s takings from Zeller Terminal will be deposited into your account the very same night, 365 days a year. If you choose to settle your funds into a third-party bank account, you will receive them the next business day. Speeding up the settlement process means you have access to your funds faster, helping to keep your cash flow healthy, and helping to avoid delays to wage payments or supply orders. 10. It can be controlled remotely. If your business operates across multiple locations, you need an easy way to manage your EFTPOS payment terminals. Every one of your Zeller Terminals can be controlled from your Zeller account, ensuring consistency across your entire operation. Update your staff permissions, enable and disable surcharging, update the information on your receipts, and more from one easy, online location. 11. It increases your tips. Zeller Terminal makes it easy for customers to leave a tip. This is particularly useful for hospitality businesses — you don’t have to enable the feature, but the functionality is there. You can configure your Zeller Terminal to provide a range of tipping options, either prompting a customer to leave a tip calculated on a percentage of their purchase or allowing them to enter a custom amount. This is a proven tactic, designed to grow tips for your business. 12. It reduces paper with digital and QR code receipts. A recent study* revealed that Australia produces 10.6 billion paper receipts annually, but because of their chemical coating, none of them can be recycled. With consumers and businesses becoming increasingly aware of their environmental footprint, many are choosing digital receipts as a convenient and sustainable alternative. Zeller Terminal embraces this step forward by offering customers the choice to have their receipts sent via email or SMS (available on both terminal models), or they can quickly scan a QR code which appears on-screen after the payment has been processed and download their receipt directly to their smartphone (Zeller Terminal 2 only). *‘Life Journey of an Average Receipt’ report, commissioned by Slyp, undertaken by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Plus protection for your business. Zeller uses end-to-end encryption and industry best practices to protect transactions from the time they are taken at the terminal to the time your money is received. Whether you choose to use an open or secured Wi-Fi connection or a mobile broadband-based connection, all the information Zeller processes is encrypted to our servers. Our team adheres to industry best practices in cybersecurity and threat management, constantly monitoring transactions for suspicious activity and blocking fraudulent transactions. When payment disputes occur, our team of experts deals with the bank for you, helping you avoid costly chargebacks. We’re always looking ahead. Our team of developers are hard at work, continuously building new functionality to give your business an edge. That's why, when you sign up for Zeller, there are no lock-in contracts or commitments. We know you’ll love our solution enough to never want to leave. Learn more about how  Zeller Terminal  can help your business grow by accepting every card payment, quickly and securely, for one low rate. By sharing your details with us, we may contact you from time to time. 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