Practical Local SEO Tips To Boost Your Business’ Visibility
In the digital age, an effective marketing strategy must include a high-performing website that can be found by local customers. Local SEO happens to be one of the best ways for businesses to grow their customer base and succeed in the highly competitive online space.
According to Search Engine Journal, one in three Google searches focus on a place or location, for example: Car Parts, Brisbane. Because of this, capitalising on these searches through a local SEO strategy makes smart sense for small businesses that may be competing with scores of others in their industry, all located in the same city.
Since SEO is a complex beast with many different approaches, this post will focus on some of the important local SEO strategies that business owners can take to turn online searches into tangible leads and enquiries.
Onsite local SEO strategy
1. Use geo-specific keywords for local SEO
As you might expect, effective local SEO starts with inserting relevant geo-specific area keywords in the content, meta descriptions, and page titles of your website. For example, a plumbing business in Brisbane might want to change their home page title to “Plumbing Services: Commercial & Domestic Plumbers in Brisbane.” This would be more effective than something like “All plumbing work – on time every time.” Going with the former means that someone searching for plumbers in Brisbane would be more likely to find the business under a greater number of different search phrases, like the following:
- Plumbers Brisbane
- Domestic Plumbers Brisbane
- Commercial Plumbers Brisbane
- Plumbing Services Brisbane
In addition to using keywords that are relevant to your business in your page’s metadata, it also makes sense to target locally based phrases in the headings and body of the website’s copy. For example, a header might read “Brisbane air conditioning repairs,” which should then show up in the search results for anyone using it.
A warning though: keywords should sound natural and not repeated too much, as they can be flagged by Google as over-optimisation and could even result in a penalty. Always insert keywords when relevant but not in a spammy way.
2. Use local area pages and landing pages
For businesses operating in several different locations, creating local area pages is a great way to direct relevant enquiries to the appropriate landing page. This approach can also work well for stores who may have different branches in separate suburbs.
This means that if someone is searching for air conditioning companies in South Brisbane, they will be directed to the South Brisbane landing page of a URL. For example, someone searching for air conditioning South Brisbane would be diverted to this URL https://www.hhaircon.com.au/air-conditioning/south-brisbane/ instead of the main home page. Suburb specific pages can be created for additional locations to cast a wider net and drive more local SEO enquiries across multiple suburbs. But again, be sure that the content is unique and not just copied from your competitors or Wikipedia.
3. Regularly add new relevant content
Research has shown time and time again that regularly updated websites receives favourable visibility by Google (and the other search engines). This means new articles, blogs, videos, and other forms of content uploaded on a regular basis. This new content also gives you the chance to insert location-based keywords into the site as explained above, or give a written summary of recent jobs the team has completed with images or even video. You could also ask a client to write a testimonial or review.
An example of this could be; “Large Scale Commercial Air Conditioning?Installation At Stafford High School”. Content like this works on two levels – it provides visitors to the site with interesting information to help them understand what it is you do, but also assists in keeping your site updated with fresh content, which helps rankings in SERPs, especially in the days after new content is published.
4. Markup data (schema)
We won’t get too technical here, but essentially schema data is a way to display snippets of information relating to your business in the search engine results page.
Instead of just the Page Title, URL, and the 150 character meta description, inserting a special coded Markup language allows you to add prices of products, reviews, location information and other data which can entice people to click through to the site, especially when grouped with other listings without these snippets. (See picture below)
Example of Schema Data for Local SEO
These can be created by your digital marketing agency or yourself through Schema online code generators and uploaded to each page by pasting the code generated. Not all businesses are suitable or relevant to use the schema language codes, but for those selling specific products or displaying a location, it’s something worth investigating.
Off-site local SEO strategy
1. Secure your local Google listing
It’s also essential that local businesses secure a Google Business listing on Google (formerly known as Google Places).
Businesses with Google listings have increased the likelihood of being shown in the Google Maps listings (see picture below). While these listings show your business location on a map, many types of valuable information (similar to the rich snippets above) can be displayed. Some of these include a telephone number, pictures of the business, physical street address, and reviews—all visible from the Google Search results pages (SERPs).
While being displayed in the Places listings is not always guaranteed with a Google Business page, this local SEO strategy does help drive local enquiries from customers in your area.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that if someone searches the business name directly and a Google Business Page has been claimed, this will usually be the first to appear and can provide customers with the information they are looking for right away. Businesses with several locations should create separate listings for each store or branch to capitalise on local SEO traffic.
2. Use link building and listings for local SEO
The more listings your business can have online, the better. Not only does it increase the chance you’ll be found, but it will also help your link development efforts, which is one of the biggest factors in ranking highly on Google. Reputable free listing sites for local SEO include Yellow Pages, Yelp, and TrueLocal but there are many more, and some specific to certain industries.
If you use any products, e.g. Protec Automotive Paint used by a smash repairer, ask for your business’ website link to be included as a stockist on the manufacturer’s site. Doing this is an easy link building strategy that should not be overlooked.
It’s also worth submitting your website link to relevant and quality local directories such as those mentioned above. Many in the industry have claimed directories are dead. However, links from the right directories are worth their weight in gold, especially if they are local and for your industry or niche.
Not all of these are free, but the most useful directories for local SEO are locally based and include a space to leave your business address. Some of the smaller ones for specific suburbs or local communities are often overlooked but will greatly benefit your local business. The key to success here is submitting to quality directories designed to help people searching for businesses, not cheap databases designed purely for spammy backlinks.
3. Seek reviews and leave reviews
Reviews from customers are another way for your business to dominate local searches. Ask happy customers to leave a review since the more of these, the higher your ranking is likely to be, and the more likely your listing will display in the lucrative Google Maps listings. If you are offering a good service or product, more business will follow as more people leave reviews. Also, if you leave reviews on other businesses you have worked with, this will increase the chance of gaining a reciprocal review at a later stage.
If your business leaves a good review on another Google business, it may even be selected to feature on their website under a testimonials section – with a link back to your site.
As we have said before, relevant links equal effective SEO, and effective SEO equals more online visibility and more business.
A word of caution though. It is best practice (not to mention against Google’s Policy) not to buy reviews of any sorts and never review yourself (or have any of your staff do so). It’s also essential to respond to negative Google reviews in a positive way.
4. Cultivate a social media following
Businesses should attempt to build genuine relationships via social media with clients and customers as well as others in their industry. This means a conscious effort by your team to reach out to customers through their professional profiles on LinkedIn and Twitter. Commenting on content, blogs and social media posts from people you’d like to win business from is another worthwhile approach. Joining in discussions to help answer questions can raise the profile of your business to the online community, it also shows you are engaged and willing to help and can entice new clients and customers to do business with you.
Finally, always answer customer questions on your accounts, and genuinely try to assist by sharing helpful content that you have created on your website’s blog.
If it all sounds like a lot of work, then you would be right. Effective Local SEO takes continuous effort, refinement and tweaking. But the efforts are well worth it and pay off in the growth of your business, more customers, better jobs, and new opportunities. For these dividends, we can’t help but think that’s an effort worth making!
