SEO Targeting For Your Local Area
The role of local searches is growing day by day, so it’s hardly surprising that local SEO is making website owners sleepless. The best tips for local SEO are just common sense. It is clear that everyone is striving to squeeze the most out of the results served for places that are clearly associated with the area of operation. What should you do while running local SEO?
The article answers the questions:
- What influences local SEO?
- How to properly prepare a website for local SEO?
- How to optimize the website for the positioning of local phrases?
Creating a dedicated subpage
If your company’s activity covers a region that can be divided into smaller zones – be sure to use it. First of all, create landing pages that will be targeted at customers from individual cities, and in large cities, even districts. Pay attention to the appropriate meta-tags, which should contain the most frequently asked questions by customers, encouraging them to visit the website. Also, don’t forget about proper external linking.
It is also good to diversify the content. It is known that some elements will be repeated, incl. address, phone number, company name, as well as the overall content frame, but try to differentiate your content so that your landing pages will differ in some way. It is also worth using photos from a specific region – this will allow a potential customer to quickly associate your local offer with a place of interest to him. Remember also about properly constructed ALT attributes.
Apply for reviews
You will certainly not be surprised to learn that most users, before making a specific choice, look for information on the topic in question, also taking into account nearby locations. Contrary to appearances, opinions and testimonials are very important and often help in making the final choice. It is inherent in human nature to follow other people’s opinions. This fact is also worth taking advantage of when creating local SEO. At the same time, it is worth taking care of your own image on the outside – in this case, Facebook, Google, TripAdvisor will certainly be useful, i.e. websites where customers can post opinions about specific companies. So let’s ask the client to leave opinions after using the service, especially when the customers are satisfied with the results. Especially since the reviews added using Google My Business are visible in the search engine itself. Also useful are the statements of customers that you can place on your own website, thus making your own business more credible in the eyes of other people.
Use local structured data
Another one of the tips for local SEO often overlooked is the use of structured data. Structured data is extended information that may be used by e.g. local businesses. By using this tool, you can make it much easier for robots to understand the content of your website. This automatically increases the chance that information about your business will appear in the search results in a more user-friendly way. However, the use of structured data requires special care, as in this case, it is very easy to make a mistake. A useful tool is undoubtedly the structured data validation tester, which is worth using when implementing them.
Try to get local backlinks
If you intend to focus on local SEO, the basis should be linked to your website that will be associated primarily with the place of business. You must take action to obtain them. How to do it?
Tips for local SEO in your community:
- Sponsorship – many companies provide various services, not necessarily in return for financial gratification. You can try this solution by performing specific tasks in exchange for a sponsored link. Remember that valuable links are often more useful than tapping off a few jobs for which you will receive a one-time reward.
- Local events – by engaging in a local event or creating it from scratch, you will surely attract the interest of local media and the users themselves. This is a chance for you to appear on local sites and free backlinks.
- Collaboration- cooperate with local partners, you will certainly not regret it. This is a great way to exchange links according to certain rules.
Do your job diligently
If customers are satisfied with your services, they will definitely share information about you, which may result in an increase in reviews and positive opinions. Remember that local business is all about trust.
Be sure to involve the local community
Local SEO is also associated with content marketing carried out for a given region. If you’re blogging, use this alternative and create a site-specific post. At the same time, take care of interesting information and attractive photos. Also, don’t forget about the catchy picture that will accompany your post.
Take care of the mobile user experience
The best tips for local SEO involve mobile. Do not forget about users who use mobile devices, i.e. owners of smartphones and tablets. The number of queries directed to the Google search engine on mobile devices is constantly growing – it is a clear signal that this group of recipients should be included in SEO activities.
If your website is structured in such a way that the mobile user can easily find what they are looking for – you will surely achieve the intended success. For the sake of mobile users, first of all, the large size of fonts, intuitive navigation, and quick loading of information should be taken into account. You can also use the advantages of mobile devices – for example, if you create several landing pages dedicated to specific regions, place individually selected CTA buttons on them. The individual buttons may contain information such as “Press the button to call the branch in Wilanów”, while the link with the prefix “tel:” will allow you to dial the following number, thanks to which the user will easily and quickly make a call.
It’s not hard to see that there are many considerations to consider when optimizing a website for local queries. Looking at the benefits of this solution, we can confidently say that these activities are most desirable, as they allow users to find your website and use its resources.