There are many important factors that will decide the immediate and long term success of a new or an established business, and if you want to be among the successful one, you need to stay on top of the latest trends along with local searches using local SEO strategy Guide.
Well, SEO is definitely not a new trend, but it is by far one of the most important aspects of digital marketing, and a key driving force behind long-term success in the online and offline worlds.
Search engine optimization has been around for a long time, and you probably already know just how important it is for startup growth, brand awareness, and your online reputation as a whole.
But have you considered the importance of local SEO? In highly-competitive markets, ranking high in local search can help you stand out from the crowd and become the leader in your community, allowing you to capitalize on the local opportunities.
But you have to do it right. Here are the essential tactics you need in your local SEO strategy to start climbing the local SERPs (search engine results page) and take your company forward in strides.
Claim your GMB page
First and foremost, have you claimed your Google My Business page? Google My Business is a platform that Google uses to identify credible businesses in the online world, and provide relevant, timely, and accurate information to online users.
If you don’t create a page on GMB or claim yours, you can’t hope to rank consistently in the local search results.
When you log into Google My Business, you will be able to claim your company’s page and become its administrator, adding all the relevant information Google needs to rank your company higher in the local SERPs.
Make sure to provide as much information as possible, and fill out every field. Provide quality imagery, and be sure that all information about your company is accurate.
Don’t forget about NAP (name, address, phone) consistency as well, because it’s important for your GMB information to be consistent with all other information about your business across the web.
Boost your site’s performance
It should go without saying, but you can’t expect Google to rank you high in the relevant search results if your website takes forever to load. Modern customers are nowadays spoiled for choice, even when it comes to local businesses, so they won’t wait around for your pages to load,
nor will they tolerate a website that performs poorly. If you want to rank high for your local audience, make sure your website is hosted on local servers to reduce load times as much as possible.
Next, build a simple website structure with easy navigation, and compress your images so that they load faster. SEO is non-negotiable nowadays no matter the industry you’re in, so don’t think you don’t need a performance-driven website even if all your clients or customers are coming through referrals.
A great way to reduce loading times for your returning visitors is to enable browser caching so that the browser doesn’t have to reload the entire page from scratch.
Focus on creating optimized content
Content creation is one of the most impactful ways to improve your standing in the SERPs, and it’s an essential tactic you can use to build brand awareness, trust, and authority in the local market.
This is something that business leaders have been doing for years now in competitive industries and regions around the world, like the US, Central Europe, and Australia.
Australia is a great example of this trend, in fact, given how business leaders need to invest in a granular approach to build visibility.
A company needs to create digital content specifically for the area where it has a brand presence, meaning that a localized Sydney SEO strategy will have the keywords, structure, backlinks, and other elements that are different from a strategy targeting Melbourne or Gold Coast.
The takeaway here is that you need to create highly targeted content for every market where you want to rank higher, every city, town, and region. Make sure to publish new content regularly to incentivize Google to rank you higher consistently.
Build localized landing pages
Much like publishing market-specific articles and other content, every new landing page you create needs to target a specific region. Localized landing pages are very powerful tools, as they allow Google to rank each in its market while at the same time improving the SEO score of your entire website.
Your website needs awesome business content, and that means launching new landing pages for your new products or services, locations, announcements and promotions, and more.
Because these new landing pages are a part of your site but have localized keywords, you can easily rank higher in every region at the same time.
Build a local backlink portfolio
Last but not least, one of the best tips for digital marketing success in general is to build a backlink portfolio that will drive “SEO juice” from other websites back to your site. However, when it comes to ranking high in local search, you want to localize your backlinks a little.
Search for publications and authoritative websites that have a thriving local presence where you can get a shoutout and a link back to your website in exchange for a guest post.
You can also try to partner up and trade links, you can give an interview, or come up with some other deal that works for both sides. This is a great way to get some do-follow links from local sites to help you rank higher in your market.
Over to you
Local SEO is a driving force behind SME success, especially if you’re operating in a competitive, growing market and you need to get an edge over the competition.
Remember, even if you’re running a brick-and-mortar business, the customers will first try to find you online. With all of that in mind, be sure to use these tactics to improve your standing in the local search results and take your business higher in 2021 and beyond.