Getting found: local search for small businesses
This group of pages is for the owner of a local business who wants people nearby to find the business in search engines. Two halves work together: your website, which Exponential helps with, and your listings on map and search platforms, which you manage on those platforms.
Contents
The pages in this group
| Page | One line |
|---|---|
| Local SEO basics | what search engines need from a local business site, as a checklist |
| Titles and descriptions with xrowmetadata | writing the text that appears in search results |
| Sitemaps and robots.txt | telling search engines which pages exist |
| Nice URLs and moved pages | readable addresses and what happens when you rename a page |
| Structured data: what exists | the JSON-LD that ships, and what a local business would have to add |
| Business listings outside Exponential | map and search profiles, kept in step with the site |
| Measuring visits | what Exponential records and how to add an analytics service |
What Exponential does and what it does not
| Exponential does | Source |
|---|---|
| Readable addresses made from page names; old addresses keep working after a rename | URL aliases and nice URLs |
Per-page title, description and sharing image with xrowmetadata | Page metadata and social sharing |
XML sitemaps with bcgooglesitemaps or xrowmetadata | XML sitemaps |
A robots.txt at the web root | robots.txt for your site |
| Fast pages through caching | Performance and caching |
| Exponential does not | Instead |
|---|---|
| Create or update your profile on map and search platforms | do it on the platform: Business listings outside Exponential |
Print LocalBusiness structured data with opening hours out of the box | a template change by your builder: Structured data: what exists |
| Guarantee a ranking | nobody can; good content and accurate listings help |
Where to start
- Make sure your listings on map and search platforms exist and show the same name, address and phone as the site.
- Read Local SEO basics and work through its checklist.
- Ask your builder to switch on
xrowmetadataand a sitemap, and to register the sitemap. - Check once a month with the SEO monthly checklist.
Related pages
- Local businesses: start here
- SEO basics for Exponential sites
- Promoting your store
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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