With a new year upon the world, many are considering what new tactics will be necessary to stay relevant in the world of SEO. Whether you are a humble content creator in charge of a blog or a marketing guru that manages a niche product store, it is important to know how to reach out to and successfully target various audiences. This couldn’t be truer than for local SEO tactics, which have changed considerably over the past few years. If your brand or business is trying to reach a particular local audience, then look no further than this article for ways to reach it in the coming year. Below, we’ll discuss how to prepare for local SEO in 2015 and what has changed thus far.

Take Advantage of Mobile

Because it has happened so quickly, many people have difficulty accepting one key element of the nature of changing local SEO: mobile will soon overtake desktop search as the primary form of internet traffic. Combining elements of social media with more powerful mobile devices, mobile traffic is now coming close to comprising 40% of all internet traffic. By pinging servers such as Google and Bing with content and through methods that target mobile devices more so than traditional devices, you too can make significant inward roads in your local SEO strategy. When you also consider that a disproportionate share of local SEO searches come from mobile devices, it already makes sense to focus on mobile traffic as if it were your primary source of traffic by device (because it likely already is).

Target Google My Business

Over the last year or so, Google My Business has become a significant element in the world of local SEO via Google. If you do not already have a Google My Business page, then it is seriously time to consider getting one. If you already have a Google My Business page, then you’ll want to consider revising and/or checking a few simple elements of it. For starters, make sure that your location is entered correctly on the map. Next, verify that all of the basic stats – your business name, phone number and physical address – are also correct. By adding any relevant information (such as hours of operation and payment forms accepted), you’ll also help the page reach a larger number of people while giving each of them a better idea of what to expect when using your site or visiting you in-person. Last but definitely not least, be sure to add relevant categories to your My Business page to ensure that it will be associated with the right types of local searches.

Reach Out to Other Listing Services

Finally, be sure not to limit your local SEO strategy to mere search engines. There are plenty of other sites out there that can provide additional clout in local SEO while also driving their own forms of traffic directly to you. A few examples of these services include CitySearch, The Yellow Pages/White Pages, Yelp, Foursquare and more. In additional, almost every social media network these days has pages designed especially for businesses, pinging servers on their own networks and beyond with details about your business. It never hurts to be listed, featured and active on as many of these sites as possible, so be sure to get established on as many as possible (but also remember to keep a list of all, so that if/when any business details change, you can update each instance accordingly).