How to get local traffic and views?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Michael Martinez: If you`re writing a blog to attract attention to your company, compile a list of questions potential customers often ask you and write a blog post about each one.
  
  Use the questions in the titles.
  
  Include 1 or more pictures (with captions) that help you answer the questions - professional to customer.
  
  It`s not necessary to talk about pricing. Instead, talk about the pros and cons such as why it should be done, what goes wrong when it`s not done properly, and why it`s best to pay a professional to do it.
  
  6d
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  Dean Gladwyn: Michael Martinez Brilliant. Taken on board
  
  6d
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  Greg Stoffels: Dean Gladwyn - here`s a great free tool to scrape Google of questions people also ask related to your services eg. Carpet Fitting
  
  https://simpletools.io/people-also-ask?
  
  SIMPLETOOLS.IOSimpletools.ioSimpletools.io
  
  6d
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  Greg Stoffels: If that doesn`t work for you there`s another tool & you can specify country specific queries eg uk
  
  https://alsoasked.com/search?search_id=nq3kNQBKG7oAOpY5wqp16YvwjdVx5Z09&language=en®ion=gb&term=Carpet%20Fitting&new_search=true&user_level=guest
  
  I`m not affiliated to any of these suggestions.
  
  Also a great comprehensive set of free tools as you start to clarify your business needs can be found here...
  
  www.seoreviewtools.com/
  
  ALSOASKED.COMAlsoAskedAlsoAsked
  
  6d
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  Dahlian R. Lamy: Dean, in my opinion, it would actually be fairly easy to rank a Basingstoke carpet fitter website on page 1 of Google.
  
  I can tell that Google is literally begging for websites to answer that search term and is just spitting out whatever is remotely close so that it can populate its search result pages.
  
  Points to notice...
  
  Basingstoke population = 113K (not too big).# Basingstoke carpet fitters with websites = looks like less than 20.# business websites on page 1 for basic search terms such as "carpet fitter basingstoke" (without quotes, off course) = less than 5.
  
  The majority of websites on page 1 are directories like yell, trustatrader, houzz, etc. The current carpet fitter businesses are NOT doing a good job of optimising their websites and so they are being easily outranked by these big directories.
  
  When it comes to local search, Google wants to gives the searcher results that get them to their answer as quickly as possible. It does NOT want to send them to a directory for them to search again on that site.
  
  I`m speaking from experience with ranking local business websites over the past 7 years.
  
  Over and over again, I`ve seen well-optimised local business websites get to page 1 within days of being indexed by Google... without any backlinks, without blogging, etc.
  
  *** Plan of Action ***- Focus on the actual website.
  
  - Have keyword-rich (not keyword-stuffed) content about the services offered. Include variations of your target keyword. For example, if your target keyword is "carpet fitter Basingstoke", then variations would include: "Basingstoke carpet fitter", "carpet fitter in Basingstoke", "Basingstoke carpet fitting services", etc. Use some that fit naturally into the text,
  
  - Have Title tags which include your target keyword/s as well as the location. Your title tag does NOT have to be only 60 characters long... the googlebots don`t stop reading after the 60th character. However, keep your target keyword to the start of your title tag.
  
  - Have meta descriptions which include one or two variations of your keyword as appropriate.
  
  - Submit the updated webpages for re-indexing via the Google Search Console.
  
  Hope this helps.
  
  6d
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  Dean Gladwyn: Dahlian R. Lamy this is really helpful. How does carpet fitter for Andover and Salisbury look also?…
  
  4d
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  Dahlian R. Lamy: Hey Dean, you can actually see for yourself. Go to iSearchFrom(dot)com - replace (dot) with .
  
  Enter the country, your keyword and the city you want to search within and click search.
  
  Again, you`ll see that for both Andover and Salisbury, who each have a population of about 50K, the situation is similar with many directory sites on page 1.
  
  Only one carpet company is specifically targeting the keyword "carpet fitter Andover" or "carpet fitter Salisbury" - DG Carpets & Flooring - but there`s something wrong with their website at the moment.
  
  A couple other carpet fitters come up for those keywords because they have related keywords like "carpet fitting in Andover" or "carpet corner Salisbury" or "Salisbury carpet company".
  
  So, yes, in my opinion, it would be fairly easy to rank for those keywords and related ones.
  
  In response to your question: "Would you be able to offer your services in helping the site rank on page 1 of Google for these search terms?", please message me to discuss.
  
  4d
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  Dean Gladwyn: Thanks to everyone who posted this is btilliant
  
  4d