It probably goes without saying that you already know how important having great local SEO is for your business. Without it, your company could miss out on receiving tons of qualified and targeted local visitors who are actively searching for companies just like yours.
With the proper local SEO foundations in place, you can increase your visibility and capitalize on low-cost organic search engine traffic. If you desire top rankings in Google Local search results, be sure to follow these five proven SEO strategies for placements listed ahead of your local competition.
1. Don’t Ignore These Crucial Local SEO Audit Tips
Performing a specific local SEO audit is a smart way to ensure that your pages and site have optimization for high rankings. The auditing process helps identify any weakness in your website and determine areas for upgrades or maintenance.
It isn’t enough to do a one time audit and not follow up with the needed adjustments to achieve higher visibility in local search results. Instead, continuously perform checks to ensure your web pages are correctly optimized.
Organic search traffic is highly valuable. That’s why it’s worth your time and effort to achieve the highest rankings possible in mobile and desktop search queries. When working in a competitive market and industry, like Orlando SEO marketing agencies or photographers in New York, you should focus on building a local following to hit your business goals.
2. Create Local SEO Pages on Your Site for Maximum Visibility
Custom-crafted local SEO pages should be designed to help visitors find your business quickly. Many searchers add qualifiers like “near me” to indicate geographic interest in the products or services they’re researching online.
Appeal to these users by creating custom landing pages that fully satisfy their query, converting them into enthusiastic customers. A fast-loading, mobile-friendly web page with solid local SEO can boost your sales faster than many other strategies. When creating these pages, there are other considerations to keep in mind:
- Understand the Importance of Precise Title Tags: Include the most critical keywords in your titles. By doing so, search engine crawlers can identify the products or services you sell and offer your pages as top results.
- Use Long Tail Keywords: Long tail keywords or search phrases help build organic traffic as well as strengthen your overall rankings in your local market.
- Optimize for mobile: Engaged local customers are on their phones looking for businesses. A responsive website with AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) helps accommodate website visitors on viewing screens of all sizes. Further, AMP pages help decrease latency and other performance issues for people visiting on mobile phones.
To boost your relevance in a specific area, consider adding the names of cities, towns, or the general geographical area you service. By doing so, you’re providing an excellent service to visitors and search engine crawlers alike.
Search engine crawlers read and index your text. Once indexed, they use the data to provide the most relevant results for searchers.
3. How to Choose and Use Local SEO Keywords on Your Site
It’s expensive to target search terms through traditional PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising. To make the most opportunities for low-cost organic traffic and maximize any advertising spend, it’s always best to choose precise keywords.
By doing so, you can avoid targeting the wrong demographic. Instead of working to rank for hundreds of different terms ‘out of the gate,’ focus your attention and budget on the keyword phrases and top-performing website pages that drive significant revenues.
Spend an appropriate amount of time using Google’s Keyword Planner or your preferred alternative. Evaluate the terms to determine which ones are most relevant and profitable for your niche.
Keep in mind that all data is valuable. If you notice a lot of search terms or queries that don’t seem applicable – or profitable – for your organization, it is worth investigating. In the best case scenario, this could indicate new opportunities for growth. In the worst case, it could mean you have some issues with your site that need to get addressed.
4. Don’t Forget a Listing in a Powerful Local Directory
Placing a listing to your website in appropriate local, trade, and internet directories can help your business website achieve higher visibility in the major search engines. These days, business owners have more options available than ever before for getting listed at third-party trusted sites.
- Local Chamber Of Commerce: The local Chamber of Commerce is a credible and authoritative local organization. Most Chambers offer members a link to their website as part of their membership package.
- Yelp: Yelp is a highly-regarded directory because it helps to generate referrals for local businesses. The site is known for reviews, which are potent citations that build trust and sales.
- Manta: Much like Yelp, Manta is a local directory that serves visitors from around the United States.
- Yellow Pages: While the use of printed phone books has fallen out of fashion, companies are well-served to get their business listed on the online version of the Yellow Pages.
Generally, if a directory listing can generate decent traffic, it’s suitable for helping boost your local SEO.
Be sure to avoid “link farm” style directories. If the site doesn’t send traffic and offers no other value than selling listings, keep searching. When making directory submissions, the rule of “quality over quantity” always applies. If it appears to be a low-quality directory, you’re better off moving to the next one.
5. Grab a Free Local SEO Template to Make Citation Building More Efficient
Why not stand on the shoulder of giants when you optimize your business website? Using a free local SEO template assists you in the process of citation building. Follow the guidelines and build the types of citations that boost traffic and authority. Speak with an SEO expert to determine the optimum strategy for your business.
Local SEO is gaining importance as more customers flock to Google and Bing search looking for businesses nearby. If your company shows up, they’ll give you a try. As your traffic increases, you’ll want to monitor your rankings and consider purchasing SEO reputation services.
It’s one thing to gain rankings, but it takes a commitment to quality and a long-term strategy to maintain them in the face of relentless competition.
