With the rise in mobile use, local SEO has become a major part of any business’ search engine optimisation and marketing strategy. As the best SEO services will tell you, local SEO gives you the opportunity to build a community around your business in your local area. What’s more, it can be a great way to take advantage of bypassing traffic and attract local footfall into your business.
Local SEO services can help any kind of industry, from a small craft store in town to an obscure restaurant in a city alleyway. This marketing strategy doesn’t just work for retail and hospitality businesses either, but can drastically help to attract attention to your service business as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Localising your search engine optimisation can offer a range of great rewards to your business. It can do more than raise awareness of your business within the local area, but it can help to attract a great deal more attention online which can provide an added boost to your comprehensive SEO strategies.
Whether you’re selling products or services, you can use search engine optimisation to rank highly for terms relating to your business. Thanks to geographical targeting, you can make sure that your content is aimed at a local audience to encourage a higher return rate. Thanks to SEO, you can dominate your chosen search terms and improve all related marketing efforts.
9 Quick Tips For SEO That You Can Implement Today!
Some of the tips are going to seem extremely obvious, especially if you’re experienced in search engine optimisation and content marketing. Still, they are all aspects which you need to check today, and can immediately start to put right!
1. Make Sure You Actually Have An Address In The Local Area – If you really want your search engine optimisation to have impact in your local area, you need to have a store or physical address there. It is fundamental that you have a consistent physical address for any area you might want to optimise locally.
You need to make sure that your address is in the area you are actually targeting. If you can’t back up your marketing in a specific location, then your efforts are never going to be as rewarding.
2. Utilise Google ‘My Business’ (GMB) – Google has hugely increased the value of its Google My Business pages. Now, any information you add to your GMB will be reflected onto Google Search, Google Maps as well as their social media platform, Google+.
When you have this page set up properly, you can make it easy for customers to find you on any kind of device they might want to use. That is absolutely essential when you’re trying to appeal to by passers using mobile devices if you want to attract footfall to your physical location.
If you want your GMB to play a key role in your local SEO services campaign, you need to make certain that:
- The Google My Business page is filled in with as much information as possible; that it is completely accurate and kept up-to-date.
- Your GMB location has actually been owner-verified.
- Your city or town title that you intend to target is mentioned in the GMB landing page’s title.
- Your Google My Business’ main categories are consistent with your products or services and that they are aligned with your keyphrases and targeted search terms.
3. Make Sure Your NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number) Is Consistent! – This is hugely important, not just for search engines, but for your customer experience as well. Your NAP should be the same across all platforms, from your physical marketing efforts to pay-per-click (PPC), email marketing and SEO.
To take it to the next level, you should use an exact template for your NAP wherever you use these details. That includes your website, GMB, Google+ or any other website and directory listings.
4. Include A Map To Your Business Location – As well as contact information, it can also be hugely important to include a map on your website’s contact page. This can not only be a great way to offer specific and precise directions to your business’ physical location, but can also work to legitimatise your business in the eyes of your customers.
To add a map to your website, you need to include code from Google Developers. Along with the map to your store, the SEO best practices, which also help with customer experience, include:
- Store Opening and Closing Hours.
- Driving Directions from Well-Known Landmarks.
- Phone Call Links for Direct Calling on Mobiles.
- Social Media Accounts, Links and Content Sharing Options.
5. Make Sure That Each Outlet, Product And Service Has Its Own Web Page – We’re getting a little technical now, and this is probably better suited to professional SEO services. If your business has different branches and locations, then a unique page for each one can be a great way to present accurate information. Similarly, you can then optimise each geographic page like you would a category or service page.
Distinct pages are an absolutely essential part of any search engine optimisation, and that remains true for local SEO services too.
6. Make Full Use Of Citations – Links are absolutely essential for search engine optimisation. If you can get links from high-value sites, especially in your niche, your website will become much more relevant for a full range of search terms.
By getting your business in global, regional and local directories, you will be able to add a little extra boost to your SEO and improve your business’ trustworthiness in the eyes of your customers. Citations like these are essential when building authority and improving your site’s credibility. What’s even better is that they can be a great way of attracting relevant traffic to your site as well.
When considering citations to improve your site’s visibility, make sure that:
- Your citations are consistent.
- You gain citations from good-quality websites which customers actually use.
- You can create content which will get your business mentioned in local blog posts and newspaper sites.
- You can attract local and niche relevant domains and websites to link to and talk about your business in a positive light.
7. Create Unique, Relevant And Valuable Content For Your Website! – As any SEO services professional will tell you, content is still king. The best way that you are going to make your website rank in search engine results pages is to create content which your users find engaging.
Here’s the thing, great content can offer incredible advantages to your business. However, bad content can quickly and easily cause the death of your business’ online presence. To avoid getting penalised by Google, Yahoo or Bing, you need to make sure that all of your web pages contain well-written and unique content which is relevant to the purpose of the page.
Creating content is an art form which can take up a huge amount of your time. What’s more, there are dozens of additional metrics you need to consider, including:
- Your Website’s Bounce Rate,
- Your Click-Through Rate (CTR),
- Time-On-Site
- Conversion Rate.
And that’s without even mentioning the huge advantages that social media marketing and signals can provide!
Organic SEO still plays a key role in Google rankings for both local keywords and national terms. Organic SEO should be the bedrock of any optimisation efforts that you undertake. A great deal of local SEO is based on the principles of organic SEO services, so it is always best to work with a team of search engine optimisation technicians and professional copywriters.
Make sure that you never stray into black-hat SEO strategies, however, as Google will heavily penalise your site. Developing a comprehensive white-hat strategy is absolutely essential for your business.
8. Make Full Use Of Business & Website Reviews – Google, Yahoo and Bing (in fact, all search engines) take reviews extremely seriously. User reviews are a great way for potential customers to learn more about a business. As Google want to offer the best user experience, they’d prefer it if only the most satisfying businesses took the top sports in their search engine results pages.
There are dozens of ways to get reviews, including just asking for them, but you definitely need to attract them whenever possible. Keeping your website’s standards as high as possible and giving your customers more than they expect will make sure that you get your reviews.
Remember; never, ever, ever write your own reviews. If you do, and get caught, the damage that it can cause your business’ reputation can often be critical. Ideally, you want your reviews to come from a diverse range of sites, including Yelp, Google Local Guides and GlassDoors.
9. Optimise And Take Advantage Of Inbound Links – To develop authority and a great reputation as a local business, you need to get local SEO signals from other local sites and organisations. There are plenty of different ways to get links from local businesses, including hosting local events or even sponsoring a local sports team. Building relationships is extremely important when it comes to organic SEO, and it can offer a real advantage for your search engine rankings.
When developing your link-building for local SEO, make sure that you have:
- Good-Quality and Authority inbound links to your domain.
- Good Links to your GMB landing page URL.
- Location-based keywords in the anchor text of inbound links.
- A diverse range of inbound links from all kinds of sites, including businesses, social sites and directories.
Create The Perfect Landing Page For Local SEO!
Your landing pages play a huge role in your search engine optimisation efforts. They are the first pages that your customers will see when clicking on a link, a PPC advert or arriving on your site from a social media post.
We said earlier that you’d need local SEO landing pages for every physical presence you own. Well, the reason that so many bigger brands don’t rank as well as they should for local keywords is that their landing pages are somewhat lacklustre.
There are two main features to consider when it comes to landing pages, as any provider of SEO services will tell you. These are:
1. Local SEO Ranking Factors.
2. Landing Page Conventions and Best Practices.
You need to create pages which are not only naturally visible, but can also be completely functional when generating leads and providing valuable, persuasive information.
Local SEO Ranking Factors
If you want to create the perfect landing page, you need to make sure that your landing page optimisation efforts include:
- You include the city/county in the landing page title.
- You improve the topical keyword relevance of domain content.
- Ensure the quality of inbound links to the landing page’s URL.
- Keyword or keyphrase in the landing page title.
- Include keywords and geographic keywords in H1s and H2s.
- Keep the load time as low as possible.
Landing Page Conventions
For the ultimate landing page design and layout, you need to follow the best advice as laid down by the pay-per-click (PPC) marketing industry. Try to create a one-stop solution for your customer’s conversion. Make sure that you include the following features to improve your conversion rate.
- Ad Copy & Context.
- Page Headlines, including H1 and H2s.
- Product Features.
- Product Benefits.
- Your Location Map!
- A Call to Action (CTA).
- Social Proof, including reviews and social signals from Facebook, Twitter, et cetera.
- Evidence of your team’s experience.
Get In Touch With SEO Junkies For Complete SEO Services Across The UK
Here at SEO Junkies, we can provide a complete range of SEO services for businesses of all shapes and sizes. We specialise in helping businesses climb positions in search engine results pages (SERP) and attract more clicks, conversions and sales. Thanks to the customer search engine optimisation services that we can provide, you’ll find your business becoming much more visible to internet users as well as more easily discoverable in your local area.
For more information on any of the services that we can provide, get in touch with our team today! We can offer a full range of digital marketing services, including:
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Services.
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing.
- Email Marketing.
- Bespoke Copywriting.
- Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO).
- Social Media Marketing.
- Complete Digital Marketing Training.
You can reach our team of digital specialists on 0118 380 0203. Alternatively, you can email any questions or concerns to sales@seojunkies.com and we’ll get back in touch as soon as we can.