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A step-by-step guide on:\nHow to create a Yelp account\nHow to claim your business on Yelp\nHow to verify your Yelp business account\nIn this post we will take you step-by-step through the process of claiming your business’s Yelp listing. \nIf you want to improve your business’s online presence, the first step is to \nclaim your business listings\n on all the relevant sites like Google, Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc. to begin owning your online reputation and responding to reviews.\nPlus, research shows that businesses that claim their listings on multiple online business reviews sites make 58% more money. Yet less than 1 in 4 local businesses secure and update their online review listings.\nHow to claim your business on Yelp\nStep 1) Search for your business\nStart by going to the Yelp page for business owners: \nbiz.yelp.com\n.\nyelp business owner login screen\n\nOnce there, type in your street address and business name then click Get Started.\nStep 2) Select your Yelp business listing\nStart typing the name of your business in the search field provided.\nyelp login business screen\n\nWhen your business appears, click the Claim this Business button to claim your business on Yelp.\nNote: \nIf your business listing does not appear\n in the dropdown list below, then you will need to add it yourself. For more instructions, scroll down to the “How to add a new Yelp business listing” section.\nStep 3) Create a free Yelp business account\nEnter any existing email address you own (ex: @hotmail.com, @yahoo.com, @businessname.com) to create your free Yelp Business account.\nyelp login for business screen\n\nPlease note: The email address you provide when creating your Yelp account will NOT be visible to your customers. List the best recovery email in the event you forget your login password.\nHow to add a new Yelp business listing\nStep 1) Add your business listing\nyelp business owner login screen\n\nIf your business doesn’t show up in Yelp’s business listings, that means you’ll need to add it yourself.\nIf you \nhave\n a Yelp Business account: Click Log In\nIf you \ndo not\n have a Yelp Business account: Click Add your business to Yelp at the bottom of the search field\nStep 2) Enter your business information\nOnce you’ve logged into a Yelp Business account, you’ll be able to enter all of your business information on this screen:\nadd a business to yelp screen\n\nDouble check to make sure you’ve entered your information accurately and click Add Business. \nNote: The email address you provide when adding your business on Yelp will NOT be visible to your customers. Provide the best recovery email address in the event you forget your login password.\nStep 3) Confirm your email address\nClick the Confirm email address button to receive your confirmation email.\nyelp business owner confirm email screen\n\nStep 4) Check your email inbox\nCheck your email inbox for a Yelp New Business message and click on the link provided within the email to log into your Yelp Business account. This will automatically claim your business on Yelp. \nBut claiming your Yelp listing is only the first step. You’ll next want to verify your business to take full advantage of Yelp’s features.\nHow to verify your Yelp business account\nYelp requires that you verify your Business listing to claim, manage, and update any of the listing information.\nStep 1: Verify your business phone number via phone call or text\nyelp business owner confirm verify phone number screen\n\nPlease note: Do not start this verification process if you are not at the business location at the time you request the verification phone call and/or if your business number cannot receive text messages. \nWork-around: If you ask Yelp to call your place of business, ask an employee in advance to pick up the Yelp verification phone call once you send the request, then have your employee call you back with the verification code.\nyelp business owner login confirm verification code screen\n\nEnter the verification code provided from the Yelp phone call or text message and click Continue.\nStep 2: Upload your photo\nIn order for you to reply to customer reviews, Yelp requires business owners to upload a profile picture.\nyelp login business owner account settings screen\n\nOn the top menu, click Account Settings.\nyelp business login add photo screen\n\nIn the Account Information section, click Add photo.\nyelp business owner login add photo upload screen\n\nYelp then gives you a “Right” and “Wrong” example of a photo to upload. Click on Add Photo to select a picture you have already saved to your device (computer, phone, iCloud account, etc.).\nOnce your photo has been uploaded and saved to your Yelp Business profile, please give Yelp 24 hours to review and approve your photo. \nTo check the progress of this status, log into your account and try to respond to a review. Before you are able to type a response, Yelp will notify you if additional information is required to respond to your customer review.\nSee our additional guides: \n\nHow to claim your Google my Business listing\n\n\nHow to claim your business listing on TripAdvisor\n\n

How to claim your Yelp business listing

In this article:\nWhy small businesses should consider Google Maps advertising\nHow does local business advertising on Google Maps work?\nHow much does it cost to advertise on Google Maps?\nPlacing local ads on Google Maps is a relatively recent phenomenon, but the reason for its explosion in popularity is clear. \nGoogle Maps is SIX TIMES more popular than other navigation apps. Mobile \n“near me” searches\n are the new normal, with 200% growth over recent years. Location-related searches have grown 50 percent faster than overall mobile searches overall over the past year.\nWhy does this matter? Because three out of four people who use their smartphone to search for businesses or services nearby visit a store within a day. So Google Maps advertising can be a great way to attract local customers to your business.\nHow does local business advertising on Google Maps work?\nWhen you search for local businesses with queries like “tire shops near me” or “mexican restaurants in [city]” (whether in the standard Google engine or in Google Maps), the search engine serves up the top results along with a map of the local area. \nWhere your business ranks in these search results depends on a variety of factors, including: your star rating, the number and quality of your reviews, your customer engagement, your “normal” website’s performance on Google, and whether you’ve optimized your Google My Business profile for \nlocal SEO\n.\nHowever, if you choose to pay for local business advertising on Google Maps, your store will often appear as one of 2 or 3 (maximum) featured results at the top of those local listings. \nIn our testing, for typical small businesses, you will likely be the only ad displayed at the top of that small list of featured choices. \nDesktop/primary Google search engine results will display like this:\ngoogle maps advertising 1\n\nSearches within Google Maps specifically will display like this: \ngoogle maps advertising 2\nSince studies show that the vast majority of shoppers click on the first business listed in search results, it may be worth it to invest some of your marketing budget to advertise on Google Maps and drive more traffic to your store or your website.\nHow do I set up Google Maps advertising for my business?\nThe first thing you need to do is \nclaim your Google business listing\n. (Click for our easy how-to article.) This may sound like an obvious step, but surprisingly, a recent report showed that only 44% of Google business listings had been claimed. \nAfter you’ve claimed your listing, you should optimize your profile by adding \nthe top 5 things every small business should include in their Google business listing\n. \nNext, \nset up a Google Ads account\n for your business. Then, you can \nenable location extensions for your Google Ads account\n. This will tell Google that you want your ads to be featured in local searches. \nFinally, \noptimize your keywords\n, set up what locations and areas you want to target, and \nbid by location\n.\nIt’s important to \nlearn the difference between “call extensions” and “location extensions.”\n For most small businesses, we recommend you use location extensions primarily. \nIn addition to being more visible on the world’s most-used mapping app and attracting local customers looking for what you offer, you can use your Google Maps ads to test different keyword strategies and click-through techniques with minimal effort.\nThe next thing you need to be aware of is, it’s not going to be free. Let’s talk about potential costs.\nHow much does it cost to advertise on Google Maps?\nThe cost for serving up local ads on Google Maps is based on your budget, your preferences, your local market, the level of competition, and multiple other factors (most of which Google will not divulge). So we can only speculate about what it will cost for you. \nGoogle Maps ads’ Cost Per Click (CPC) is also figured differently depending on how your customers click through from your Google Maps ad, whether it be “Get location detail” clicks, “get directions” clicks, mobile “click-to-call,” or website clicks. \ngoogle maps advertising 3\n\nHowever, Google’s own tutorials show examples with CPCs of $4 or more, so we can assume that is a real possibility. Luckily, you can easily set daily maximums to limit the total potential cost. \nFor example, you can set a $100/day limit (or whatever you want) so if you get a ton of clicks, you won’t exceed your planned marketing budget. Once you hit your limit, Google Maps will stop displaying your ad until the next day or whenever you have set your max spending to reset. \nThis is important because at a theoretical CPC of $4, if you get 500 clicks you’ll be spending $2000 a day.\nRemember these are just \nclicks\n, not \nsales\n. But if you have a high-converting website you want to drive customers to, or if you simply want to boost your visibility and brand recognition with local customers, this type of advertising could be well worth it for you.\nAnother advantage of Google Maps advertising is that they make it very easy to set up a profile, modify displayed content, and track results, even if you don’t know very much about marketing.\nConsider adding your local product inventory to Google Maps\nIn addition to allowing you to customize your ad content and make your map “pin” stand out against your competitors (at additional cost), Google also lets you link your in-stock inventory to Google ads. \nThis means customers searching for specific items in stock can get shown that info as part of your featured advertisement. For pharmacies, shoe stores, or other local retail shops, this can be very useful. \nClick to read Google’s how-to on \nlinking your local inventory\n.\nSources:\n
\nhttps://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/06/01/google-maps-local-search-ads\n
\nhttps://themanifest.com/app-development/popularity-google-maps-trends-navigation-apps-2018\n
\nhttps://themanifest.com/app-development/how-advertise-google-maps\n
\nhttp://info.brandmuscle.com/StateofLocalMarketing2017_Download-Report.html\n

Google Maps advertising: an intro for local businesses

In this article:\nWhich Google reviews can be removed\nHow to flag Google reviews for removal\nHow to remove fake Google reviews\nHow to improve your online reputation and get more good Google reviews\nA bad Google review of your business can leave you feeling helpless, frustrated, and even angry. And who can blame you? You’ve worked hard to build your business’s reputation. And with 9 in 10 consumers saying they trust online reviews as highly as recommendations from friends and family, Google reviews make a real impact on revenue for local businesses.\nWhen a business owner ends up facing harsh feedback online, the first question many of them ask is: “How do I remove Google reviews?” or “Can I turn off Google reviews for my business?” After all, if someone spray painted “Don’t shop here” on the front of your business, you’d do whatever it took to scrub, sandblast, or paint over it as soon as possible.\nsarcastic young woman giving thumbs down for removing google review\n\nIt’s an understandable reaction, but unfortunately removing negative Google reviews isn’t quite as straightforward as rolling up your sleeves and grabbing a fresh bucket of paint to take care of some unsightly graffiti.\nLet’s start with the most simple question:\nIs it possible to remove Google reviews?\nIt’s complicated.\nOccasionally, it’s possible to remove Google reviews, but only in instances where you can definitively prove that the review in question violates \nGoogle’s review policies\n. We’ll go into detail about what that means in a moment, but first let’s be clear about the kind of reviews that \ndon’t\n violate Google’s terms of service.\nIt is not possible to remove Google reviews simply because they’re negative, unfair, or even if you feel the customer is totally misrepresenting their experience.\nbeautiful young women leaving an unkind online review for remove google reviews\n\nIf the review is from someone who actually patronized your business and is sharing their perspective, then chances are that review is there to stay. And if that’s your situation, then your best bet is to engage the customer in good faith and respond to the bad review.\nUsing a good reputation management solution is excellent way to manage all your reviews in one place, saving you time while helping you stay on top of your online reputation. Software makes it easy to respond to your reviews and encourage more reviews from your best customers.\nPlus, new research shows that negative reviews aren’t necessarily as harmful as you might think. Businesses with between 10 and 25% negative reviews make the most money!\nYou might also like: \nHow to respond to negative reviews\n\nWhat types of Google reviews can be removed?\nWhile you can’t remove Google reviews just because they’re negative in tone, Google will remove reviews they determine have violated their terms of service as outlined in \nGoogle’s review policies\n.\nLet’s take a look at the primary types of reviews that Google prohibits:\nFake Google reviews, false reviews, or manipulative reviews:\nSpam reviews (content posted multiple times from different accounts), conflicts of interest (reviewing your own business), impersonations (representing the views of someone other than yourself).\nblack gloved hand leaving fake review on laptop for remove google review\n\nMisleading Google reviews or inaccurate reviews:\nReviews or photos that clearly represent a different business or location.\nOff-topic reviews:\nContent not at all related to a customer’s experience patronizing the business in question.\nRestricted, illegal, derogatory, or explicit content:\nPhotos, content, or links to restricted, dangerous or illegal activities. This also includes threatening or discriminatory language.\nHow to flag and remove Google reviews that violate the terms of service\nIf you’re sure that a review of your business violates Google’s terms of service, your final step is to flag the report for Google’s review. You can do this a few different ways.\nFlag a Google review from your Google My Business account\nSign in to \nGoogle My Business\nIf you have more than one listing, select the location you’d like to manage\nSelect \nReviews\n from the menu
\n(Image)\n\nFind the review you’d like to flag and click the three dots in the corner\n(Image)\n\nClick \nFlag as inappropriate\n(Image)\n\nFlag a Google review in Google Maps:\nSearch for your business on Google Maps\nSelect your location and scroll to the \nReview summary\nClick the \nReviews\n link under your average rating
\n(Image)\n\nScroll to the review in question and click the 3 dots in the top corner
\n(Image)\n\nClick \nFlag as inappropriate\n(Image)\n\nComplete the form that appears and click \nSubmit\nIt can take several days for Google to evaluate the review, so you’ll need to be patient. But you should eventually receive a response from Google about the status of the flagged review and a decision about whether or not they’ll remove the Google review.\nTake reviews seriously, but don't freak out about a bad one\nIt’s helpful to know that Google does have safeguards in place to protect you from the most egregious type of online behavior. But it’s important to keep in mind that, with rare and unfortunate exceptions, it’s not likely that you’ll be able to remove Google reviews from your listing most of the time.\nNo matter how harsh a review might be, it’s important to think of it less as graffiti sprayed across the front of your store and more like digital word of mouth.\nangry young hispanic woman with megaphone making thumbs down gesture for remove google review\n\nIf you were to overhear someone in your neighborhood complaining about your business, even if you could paint over or delete that person’s unkind words, it wouldn’t really solve anything. It’s the same with trying to remove Google reviews.\nWe always recommend that you treat your Google reviews like you would an in-person complaint. Maintain the high ground, and follow our guidelines for \nhow to respond to negative reviews\n, and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can turn the conversation around.\nThe most cost-effective way for small businesses to improve their online reputation is to encourage genuine reviews from customers. When you get a more accurate, positive picture of your business, you start attracting more new customers and improve your star rating.

How to remove Google reviews

In this article:\nWhy consumers comment on Instagram\nWhat to do about negative comments on Instagram\nHow to remove negative comments on Instagram\nDealing with comments on social media isn’t always fun, especially when those less than satisfied customers seem to make it their mission to ruin your online reputation.  \nWe’re here to make that task a little easier. Throughout this article, we’ll walk you through best practices for dealing with negative comments on your business’s Instagram posts and how (and when) you can delete those comments. \nFirst, let’s provide a quick overview of commenting on Instagram. \nWhy consumers comment on Instagram\nLike most social platforms, Instagram allows its users to comment on their own and others’ posts. Within the confines of Instagram’s use policies, people can say whatever they want in a comment on any posts that they follow, including your brand. \nThis is awesome when your customers are happy about their experience with your business and share all the feels on your Instagram posts, but that isn’t always the case. \nSometimes a customer has a bad day or someone on your team messed up. So they express these less-than-warm-fuzzy feelings the way everyone does in the 21st century: publicly on social media. \nAs much you may dread these occurrences, your customers just want to be heard. They want to feel that their opinion is valued and that someone paid attention to them, particularly when they’ve had a bad experience. \nAnd that brings us to the next point. How should you deal with negative comments on your Instagram posts?\nWhat should you do about negative comments on Instagram?\nDon’t worry, we will walk you through the proper approach to deleting your negative Instagram comments. But before you get to that point, you need to think about a couple of things first. \nDepending on the type of business you run, there are multiple ways you can deal with negative comments on Instagram. But you should always (and we mean ALWAYS) respond to negative comments that come across your feed. \nGoing back to the point that your customer just wants to be heard, you should always take the time to respond to their comment within a 24-hour period (and much sooner than that when possible). \nHow you respond to those comments and deal with them after that involves some nuances, depending on your business type. \nFor example, if you run a medical practice and have a disgruntled patient leaving bad comments on an Instagram post, you’re going to want to handle that a lot more delicately than you would if you run a retail shop or pressure-washing business. \nRespond professionally and reach out to resolve legitimate complaints\nThe main option: taking care to show your professionalism and let your customer know that you hear them and wish to resolve the issue fully. Craft an appropriate response and comment your reply.\nNOTE: Always take the high road, even if you feel hurt or unfairly accused in a review or comment. Remember, other current and potential customers are reading both the negative comments \nand\n your responses to them, and will make assumptions based on your approach.\nFind more helpful tips in this article: \nHow to respond to negative reviews\n\nAfter you post a “high road” response (along the lines of “We’re so sorry you had a bad experience! We work hard to make sure all of our customers are satisfied. Please contact us privately so we may resolve the issue”), you should take that one step further and actually follow up with your customer to make sure their issue was resolved, especially if there is any fault on your end. Own up to it and help your customer out. \nWhen the problem has been resolved, your customer may update their comment or remove it all together. If they don’t, but you have done your part to try and remedy the situation, at that point is when you can remove a negative review. \nInsert your personality into your comments\nAnother option for dealing with and responding to negative commenters is by meeting them on their level–all in good taste of course. \nOne example that many of us are familiar with is Wendy’s. They get saucy in their responses to commenters and their followers love it! \n(Image)\n\nObviously, you don’t want to upset your customers, but if your brand is one that allows you to insert some personality into your comments, then keep up with your image and do that. \nIf there is a big problem and it’s not just a spammy comment, then reach out to the customer and work to resolve the problem still. Just have a little fun in the comments section when the appropriate opportunity arises. \nHow to delete comments on your own Instagram posts\nOkay, let’s say you did work with your customer to resolve the problem and you’ve responded to the comment promptly. Now may be the appropriate time to remove an Instagram comment that could be potentially harmful to your brand. \nYou always want to make sure that you provide some public evidence first to show that you care about your customers’ experiences and want to fix any problems that arise. \nBut once that’s done, you may wish to delete the comment, particularly if you have resolved the concern but the customer elected not to modify or delete their negative post.\nThe beauty of Instagram is that you can delete any comments that show up on your own posts. (We’ll talk about what to do on posts you don’t own shortly.)\nTo delete a comment on Instagram, all you need to do is select the “more options” icon, symbolized by three dots. And then click “Delete.” This will automatically delete the comment.\n\n\n\nHow to deal with negative Instagram posts made by others\nIf someone does mention your brand or business in a negative comment on their own Instagram post, you won’t be able to delete their post (of course), but you can report it by clicking the same three-dot “more options” menu. However, it will only be removed if it goes against \nInstagram’s policies\n. \n\nThe next best option when someone mentions you in a negative way is to post a witty and/or helpful reply to their post, and then reach out to them personally with an offer to resolve their issue, and ask them to remove the content. \nImprove your online reputation with consistent fresh reviews\nYou can’t control what people post online. And sometimes that can have a large impact on your business. \nOne thing you can do is help those happy customers balance out the negative by working to earn consistent positive reviews. This helps you stay on top of your online reputation amidst all of the people that are just having a bad day.\nAnd remember, fresh reviews matter more than old, positive reviews. People who find you online want to see that you're still in business and are working to solve any problems that may arise.

How (and when) to remove Instagram comments on your business posts

In this article:\nWhat’s swag and how can it help?\nBest swag ideas for salons\nTips for best use of salon swag\nMarketing has tons of different facets that can be utilized and bring success to your business. One of these facets that a lot of brands don’t take advantage of is swag. This branch of marketing can increase customer loyalty and brand awareness. Keep reading to learn how. \nWhat’s “swag” and how can it help your salon?\nSwag is basically promotional merchandise. You purchase things like pens, t-shirts, water bottles, and more, put your logo on them, and give it away or sell it. In the world of salons, the swag possibilities are endless. More on that to come. \nSo, how can swag help you market your salon?\nSwag has two large purposes, as mentioned previously: increase customer loyalty and increase brand awareness. \nFirst, let’s talk customer loyalty. When you give away free items to your customers, particularly items that they enjoy and find value in, they feel appreciated as a customer and more loyal to you as their stylist. Plus, who doesn’t love getting free stuff? \nSecond, brand awareness. As your customers are out and about in the community sporting your swag, whether that’s a t-shirt that they purchased from you or a free bumper sticker with your logo on it, that gets seen by other people. These can be great conversation starters if someone asks about the cool logo your customer is wearing and it gets your brand out there so people will recognize it when they are looking for a new stylist. \nMake the swing to get a few swag items going and let them work for you. \nBest swag ideas for hair and nail salons\nThere are tons of swag ideas that your hair or nail salon could start doing. Check these out to get an idea of what might work well for you. \nBeauty supplies\nThink about the supplies that a customer might use on a regular basis and turn it into swag. You can provide this fun free item to them that they’ll enjoy and your branded swag will be a reminder when they need to get that next haircut or nail fill. \nHere are some great examples of inexpensive beauty supply swag:\nNail files\nPersonal care kit (nail file, nail clippers, cuticle trimmers, etc.)\nCompact mirror\nComb\nHair ties\nYou can start your search for these items at 4imprint.com and AnyPromo.com. \nBeauty products\nOutside of beauty supplies, you can also provide products for your customers to use, like lotions and lip balm. Wrap them in your logo and, again, provide that regular reminder that you’re still around and ready when they need their next trim or nail style. \nGive some of these beauty products a try and see how your customers take to them:\nLip balm\nHand lotion\nSunblock\nHand sanitizer\nNail polish\nCheck out 4imprint.com and AnyPromo.com for your branded beauty products. \nApparel\nApparel is definitely one of the more common swag items, and with good reason. It gets seen more by other people and really help with the brand awareness side of swag. Depending on what you choose, apparel can start to get expensive, so these might be items that you choose to sell to your customers or at the very least use for a customer rewards program. Maybe after trying three different services, the customer gets a t-shirt. \nHere are some fun apparel items that you can try:\nT-shirts\nHoodies\nRobes\nHats/beanies\nAprons (especially for employees to use at the salon)\nFace masks\nAgain, get started at 4imprint.com or AnyPromo.com for some great bulk discounts on these items. \nBumper stickers\nBumper stickers are another item that has the potential to get seen by a lot of people. If you have customers that are loyal to your salon (and let’s be honest, salon customers are some of the most loyal customers you can find), then you can bet they’ll sport your bumper sticker, especially if you have an attractive logo/sticker for them to show off. \nAt \n4imprint.com\n you can get bumper stickers starting at $0.15 each. \nPens\nEveryone loses pens. Thus, everyone needs pens. As your customer is checking out or signing their receipt, give them a pen to keep in their purse. It’s a small gesture that will remind the customer of your business every time they see that pen. \nPlus, you can find awesome pens like these \nnail polish pens\n from AnyPromo.com to make it more fun. \nPop socket or other phone accessories\nThink about your ideal customer. Are they on their phone for hours each day? Maybe they’d benefit from some cute phone accessories like these:\nPop sockets\nRing holder\nAdhesive wallet\nPhone stand\nEarbuds\nChargers\nCheck out the plethora of phone accessory swag at \nAnyPromo.com\n. \nTips to make the most of your hair or nail salon swag\nYou need to be thoughtful about how you purchase and use swag for your salon. It is a marketing strategy after all. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you get started. \nKeep your brand top of mind\nGet swag that really helps represent your brand. Unless you’re that quirky, touristy salon that got Instagram famous, then you probably want to keep your swag items in the salon realm, like the items mentioned above. \nSwag items like shot glasses or coasters that work great for a restaurant may not do as well coming from a salon. \nStick to a couple of options\nLimit your options to a couple of items (or even just one) to start. You don’t want to dive all in with a ton of different swag items only to be left with the hundreds of freebies that no one wanted. Start small and see how your customers react to them. Then, if the response is positive, consider adding a new item now and then and test that out. \nHave a purpose for each item\nMake sure each item you give away or sell has a purpose, whether that’s bringing in additional revenue (if you are selling it), increasing customer loyalty, or increasing brand awareness. Don’t purchase swag just to have it. \nUse a customer rewards program\nMake the most of your swag with a customer rewards program. You could reward customer referrals with a t-shirt or give a customer goodie bag of beauty supplies and products with their third visit to your salon. These types of reward programs encourage repeat business and word of mouth referrals. \nIncrease customer loyalty with email marketing\nAs you work on ways to up your marketing game, keep email marketing in your plans. Email marketing can help get the word out about new products, services, or swag that you have and it helps build and maintain customer relationships as they stay informed about your salon. 

Best swag ideas for hair and nail salons (including helpful tips!)

In this article:\nMost important SEO metrics\nFree SEO auditing tools and how they work\nSEO (search engine optimization) is an important part of any business’s online marketing strategy. It’s how you show up on Google, and other search engines. And that’s one of the first places people are looking for your offerings! \nSo, how can you determine if your SEO looks good and what you need to do to improve it?\nFirst, is business good? Are you getting organic leads on a regular basis? If not, then an SEO audit might be in order.\nWhat are the most important metrics to track when it comes to SEO?\nYou can track several metrics to determine if your business is properly optimized for the search engines. It all starts with having a good website (and a Google My Business listing if you have a local business). This is the foundation for helping your business get found online. \nSo, what determines good website health?\nMobile-friendliness\nThis means your website is easy to use across different devices. You can find your way around and have a good experience on your website whether you are on a large monitor or a cell phone. \nPage speed\nPage speed is how quickly your pages load. Most people will leave a website if it takes longer than 5 seconds to load. Ideally, it should take less than 2 seconds. \nPage crawls\nIt’s important that Google and other search engines are able to crawl the pages on your website. This is what helps them get indexed so they can show up in search results. \nOrganic traffic\nOrganic traffic is website visits that come from the search engines. If you don’t have any organic traffic, it’s probably because it’s not showing up in the search engines. \nDomain authority\nThis is a metric that Google uses to determine the strength and trustworthiness of a website. This is a 0-100 scale, with most local businesses falling anywhere between 5 and 35 depending on how much SEO work they’ve done.  \nBacklinks\nBacklinks are links from other websites that go to your website. These are a huge factor in your overall domain authority. The more trustworthy backlinks that you have, the better your domain authority will be, the more opportunities you’ll have to rank in the search engines. \nCitations\nCitations are listings for your business in online directories. Think Yelp, Yellowpages, Google My Business, even Facebook. It is important that each of your citations has the exact same NAP (name, address, and phone number) in order for Google to verify your information with these other directories. \nKeyword rankings\nYour keyword rankings tell you how well your website shows up in the search engines for a particular search query. The higher up you are in the search engines, the more traffic you’ll get to your website. This generally results in more business too. \nTop 10 free SEO auditing tools that can help you track important metrics\nLet’s dive into the free tools that can help you check these metrics and your overall SEO health. \nWebsite auditing tools\nThere are tons of solutions out there that will do a free audit of your website. Most of them will require your email address so they can send you more information about their services or free courses that they offer.\nThese website graders give a general look at your mobile-friendliness, page speed/performance, and SEO potential.\nHubspot Website Grader\nHubspot’s Website Grader will score your website on performance, SEO, mobile, and security. It will break each of those items down in the report to show you how you can improve in each area. \nGo to \nwebsite.grader.com\n to enter your website URL, email address, and get your score. Hubspot will also provide links to free resources that they offer to help you learn more about SEO and managing a website. \n(Image)\n\nNibbler\nNilbbler grades your website on accessibility and mobile usability, experience, marketing, and technology. It then breaks down each of these items to show you any potential issues with your website and how you can make improvements. \nGot to \nnibbler.insites.com\n to test your website. \n(Image)\n\nTools for traffic analytics\nTraffic analytics tools will show you how many people are visiting your website each day, week, or month and where that traffic is coming from. \nGoogle Analytics\nGoogle Analytics has tons of metrics that you can pull, from traffic analytics to user behaviors and demographics. \nFor the traffic analytics side of things, this tool will allow you to filter specific timeframes to see how much traffic you had and where that traffic came from. It will breakdown your traffic by these sources:\nOrganic (from the search engines)\nDirect (people who bookmarked your website or type it in directly)\nSocial (traffic from social media to your website)\nReferrals (from links on other websites)\nPaid (from any paid Google ads that you might be running)\nCheck with your web developer to see if Google Analytics is set up on your website. And if it’s not, make sure it gets done. \nGo to \nanalytics.google.com\n to check your Google Analytics web traffic. \nSemRush\nSemRush will do an overall look at your traffic, backlinks, keyword rankings, and more, but most of these features come with a paid subscription. You can enter your website in for free to get a snapshot of what your monthly organic search traffic looks like though. \nJust go to \nsemrush.com\n, enter your website, and create an account. \n(Image)\n\nDomain & link tracking tools\nThese tools will help you determine what your domain authority is and what your backlink profile looks like. \nMoz Free Domain SEO Analysis Tool\nMoz is a big leader in the SEO world and has developed several tools that professional marketers use every day to monitor SEO and website health. But they also have a few free tools that you can use. One of those is their Domain SEO Analysis Tool. \nThis tool will give you your domain authority, the number of other domains that are linking to your website, how many keywords you are ranking for at a national level, and a spam score for your website. \nJust go to \nmoz.com/domain-analysis\n and enter in your website’s domain name. \nTry comparing your domain to competitors that are showing up well in the search engines to give yourself an idea of how much work you have to do to keep up. \n(Image)\n\nAhrefs Backlink Checker\nAhrefs is another SEO resource that provides several different tools to track a lot of these metrics that we’ve mentioned. Again, a lot of their services are paid features, but they do offer a free backlink checker, allowing you to see how many links you have to your website. They’ll also provide a domain rating. \nThe numbers here will be different from Moz’s Domain Analysis tool because they use different bots to crawl the web, so they might not have all of the same information. \nGo to \nahrefs.com/backlink-checker\n and enter in your website’s domain name to check it out. \n(Image)\n\nLocal SEO & citation checking tools\nThese tools might be the most important for any business that provides local products or services. These will show how well your business is showing up in important online directories and if your information is correct. As we mentioned earlier, it’s very important that your NAP is consistent across all of these directories. \nMoz Online Presence Checker\nMoz again for the win! Moz also has a free tool that allows you to check your citation health and whether or not your business is listed on important citation websites. \nMoz will list the top directories and tell you which percentage of those are correct, incorrect, or missing. And it will provide the information that is listed for your website in each of those directories. \nGo to \nmoz.com/checkout/local/check\n to check your online presence score. \n(Image)\n\nYext\nYext is another tool that provides a similar service as Moz’s Online Presence Checker. They’ll provide a free scan of your citations so that you can see where your business is listed and if your information is correct. \nGo to \nyext.com\n and scroll down to “Are there wrong answers about you in other places?” Then enter in your business information and get your free scan. \n(Image)\n\nKeyword ranking tools\nKeyword rankings tools will help you to know how well your website is showing up in the search engines. If you’re not in the top 10 results for a given phrase, you’re probably not getting a ton of traffic from it. \nMoz Keyword Explorer\nMoz will run a keyword check on your website with their Keyword Explorer. All you do is enter in your website URL, and Moz will generate a list of all of the keywords that you are ranking for on a national level. (Unfortunately, they don’t break this down by cities or states, so you can’t take a deeper dive to see how well you show up locally – but a Google search in an incognito window will show you local results.)\nGo to \nmoz.com/explorer\n to get started. \n(Image)\n\nGoogle Search Console\nSearch Console is another free resource from Google that is amazing. It will breakdown all of your organic traffic from Google so you can see exactly which phrases people are searching that bring your website up in the search results. It will also tell you which phrases result in clicks and traffic to your website. \nAnd, if you export the list of queries that search console gives you, you can see what your position in the search engines is (again on a national level) for each phrase. \nThis is another one where you might need a web developer’s help to get it set up, but once you’re in, this is one you’ll check on a regular basis. \nJust go to \nsearch.google.com/search-console\n to get started. \nAdditional resources to help your business with SEO\nIf you are excited about SEO and want to learn all you can to help your website show up better on Google, then check out these other free SEO tips:\n\nLocal SEO: 15 free tips for better search rankings\n\n\nHow to get more reviews\n \n

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