Search enging optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective ways to market your business in today’s ultra-connected, online world. It’s also a marketing technique available to businesses of all sizes. Since the goal of SEO is to drive up organic search traffic to your website, it doesn’t rely on a massive ad budget to be effective. But it does require work, consistency and time.
That makes SEO a partitcularly useful enterprise for local businesses. Local SEO invovles a series of activities designed to help you outrank your competitors in search results for specific kewords – within a defined area. So you don’t have to be the top-ranking site in the nation or the world for your target keywords. You just need to beat out your local competittors to appear at the top of a search engine results page.
If you want to start ranking ahead of your local competitors, then here’s a quick marketing 101 for local businesses looking to boost their SEO.
How Local SEO Works
We don’t have to tell you why local marketing is important for a business, and the same logic applies to SEO. Essentially, local SEO, when done right, helps you increase the amount of relevant traffic you bring to your website from your local market. While local SEO has a lot in common with national or global SEO, there are some important distinctions.
First, local SEO will rely more heavily on locally oriented keywords, local affiliates, and search traffic originating within a defined local area. A company like Amazon can sell to nearly anyone in the world, but a local bakery can’t. For this reason, the local bakery will have to use location-specific keywords and off-page factors to match with the right users.
Second, the target demographics may be completely different. When doing local SEO, you can’t paint with a broad brush; you need to consider the specific population within your service area. Your local business’s target area could include neighborhoods where there’s a different primary language. There may be a pocket with an older demographic, such as a retirement community. Access to transportation could be an issue. Level of education could be a factor. When planning out a local SEO campaign, it’s important to drill down into your specific customer profiles with as much detail as possible.
Lastly, local businesses usually play with different budgets than global enterprises. But that’s okay, because they don’t need to cast as wide of a net to be successful. While a national business may spend tens of thousands of dollars on SEO every month, a local business may be able to generate good results for a few hundred, since it’s trying to attract traffic from a much smaller area.
Local SEO Marketing 101
Digital marketing for small businesses is becoming more and more competitive, and many businesses aren’t keeping up. Even today, 70% of small businesses still don’t have an SEO strategy. To compete in today’s business climate, organic traffic is a necessity. Here’s how to get started with an effective local SEO plan:
Develop a Strong Website
Even at the local level, a strong website is essential to compete. Google and other search engines want to match their users with the highest-quality content, and it would reflect poorly on their services if they regularly promoted low-quality websites.
For this reason, website maintenance for small businesses is more important than ever. Your website acts as the foundation for your entire digital marketing strategy, as all of your efforts will attempt to draw users to it. Don’t lose those hard-earned site visitors to a bad website user experience.
Not only that, Google has over 200 ranking factors that pertain directly to your website. A fast, mobile-friendly, and navigable website will help improve your SEO prospects significantly.
Most businesses don’t need to create a super-advanced website, especially when competing locally. However, competition is becoming steeper all the time, so a DIY website or one that’s older than ten years won’t cut it anymore, especially in bigger, more competitive markets.
A blog is an important addition to your website. It’s an easy way to add new content regularly (an important ranking factor for Google), and also share valuable information with your target audience. A blog isn’t 100% necessary so long as you’re regularly updating the website with new content in other ways. However, it does provide a useful tool for advancing a local keyword strategy.
Location-Specific Keywords
If your website is the foundation of your marketing strategy, then the foundation of a content marketing strategy is the keywords you use. How else will anybody find your website?
To rank for local traffic, start by using long-tail, location-specific keywords. Long-tail keywords are terms that are longer and more specific. And when you add a location to the keyword, it makes the term even more specific.
For example, a regular keyword might be “bakery.” That’s pretty general and a term for which lots of businesses are trying to rank. A long-tail, location-specific version would be “organic bread bakery in West Denver.” Sure, the long-tail version will have much lower search volume, but it will also have less competition, and the search results you get from that term will be more relevant to your business. Good local SEO is all about finding the sweet spot where there’s as much search traffic volume as possible and as little competition as possible, while still staying relevant to your brand.
By using a diverse array of specific keywords, you can drive targeted traffic to your website, and ultimately start to “own” that space in terms of online search results. Plus, the traffic you generate from these specific, local keywords will be more likely to convert into paying customers.
Use Maps
If you are a brick-and-mortor busineess, getting your company listed on Google Maps and optimizing your listing is essential for your organic traffic strategy. Location is one of the most important factors Google uses to match users to the right content. So search results will vary by where the search is taking place, i.e. where the person is physically located when entering a search query into Google. You’re missing out on valuable traffic if you’re not on Google Maps.
For example, a local pizza shop near a train station would miss a lot of traffic without listing their business on Google Maps. Every time a hungry person steps off the train and searches for “pizza near me”, they could easily be the first business they see.
By listing your business on Google Maps, you are verifying to Google that you are who you say you are, your location matches your website’s listing, and you are close to the people searching for these keywords. By adding your business hours, images, and additional details, you can optimize your listing for the best results.
Off-Page SEO
The content on your website is enough to take your SEO strategy pretty far, but if you want to get ahead (and stay ahead) of the competition, it helps to build your off-page SEO prospects.
First, and easiest, is to get your website listed on all of the relevant directories. Start with Google My Business and then use other popular sites like Yelp, but don’t stop there. Always optimize these listings by filling out as many prompts as possible, but make sure that the information is consistent across the web.
Second, get on any industry-specific or location-specific directories you can. This could include your local Chamber of Commerce or a small business directory. Getting on these lists will have the added benefit of driving some organic traffic, increasing visibility, and potentially earning backlinks.
Lastly, you need to build backlinks. These are the links from other websites to yours, and they essentially act as a vote in your favor.
As we already covered, Google wants to offer the best content to its users, and while its algorithm is impressive, it isn’t an expert on everything. For that reason, it relies on other websites to establish your authority by linking to your website’s content—the more links (especially relevant ones), the better.
You can start by reaching out to local affiliates and asking for links, guest posting, and otherwise creating high-quality content that other websites will want to link to. Over time, you’ll build a steady backlink channel, which will help improve your rankings dramatically. Digital marketing agencies specializing in local SEO can also help build backlinks through link-building programs – just make sure your agency is only linking from reputable, “white hat” websites.
Local SEO Services
If you really want to gain the edge over your competitors, then there’s no substitute for local SEO services from a locally orienteed digital marketing agency. With the right services, you can start ranking ahead of your competition as soon as possible.
With a strong website, solid off-page factors, and a professional content marketing strategy, you will cover all of your bases, allowing you to rise to the top on the keywords of your choice.
Also, by improving your website’s SEO value, you may see a noticeable improvement in your other digital marketing efforts. A strong website and a boost in organic traffic can help ad, email, social media, and other campaigns across the web.
Just remember: SEO is a long-term play. Effors today may not pay off for three to six months, but once they do, then often accelerate over time. It’s also not a set-it-and-forget-it task. Good SEO, especially local SEO, requires routine updates to be effective over the long haul.
Get Ahead While You Can
Now that you understand the principles of Marketing 101, you can apply them to your strategy and start ranking today. The sooner you do, the sooner you will see results for your SEO strategy.
Looking to figure out how this all might work for your business? Feel free to contact us with any questions or for help with your strategy!