Since 46% of all Google searches are for local information, small businesses can benefit greatly from local searches. Without local search optimisation, your company may lose out on potential clients. A comprehensive SEO strategy is essential if your company wants to remain relevant. Hence, a local SEO agency in London can develop a comprehensive local SEO campaign in 2022 to boost your local visibility.
If you are running an online business or a physical website, then you must find out how you can target local searches with your marketing efforts. You can dominate your competition, rank better on Google, and attract more customers this way. The purpose of this post is to shed some light on what makes a truly effective local SEO campaign. Let’s dive in.
Why Local SEO?
Local SEO increases local businesses’ visibility on search engines, particularly those with physical locations. Best practices for local SEO can increase organic traffic from local customers.
To provide local results, search engines consider some elements such as local content, social profiles, links, and citations to gather information related to the area. Local SEO for small businesses allows positioning their goods and services in a way which will attract the attention of potential customers.
Does Your Business Need It Lcoal SEO?
The first thing to remember is that not every business needs local SEO. Businesses that cater to specific geographic regions must show up in local searches for keywords that consumers use in their area.
When Google determines how to rank a page in the MapPack, it takes into account a wide range of factors associated with local search rankings. In this regard, local SEO should be approached strategically to give your company a competitive advantage.
How to Make an Effective Local SEO Campaign
Below are a few local search engine optimisation strategies that can make your local SEO campaign more effective.
Google Business Profile Optimisation
Google Business Profile has emerged as the pinnacle of local search. With a Google Business Profile, you can help your company meet Google’s needs since Google willingly supports, verifies, and shares its content.
If you have an updated and optimised Google Business Profile listing, you may have better chances of ranking highly. Make sure people leave reviews so you can reply honestly and include the address of the business along with other relevant, naturally occurring keywords. Your Google Business Profile will benefit from this.
Directory and Citation Optimisation
The key to success is consistency. Check the accuracy and consistency of your citations across all four data aggregators. Discrepancies include incorrect telephone numbers, misspellings, abbreviations, and omissions of suite numbers.
Unless Google can identify which information about your company is accurate, it may not display your company in search results. If you find duplicate listings in online directories, remove them.
Create Well-Optimised Location Pages
If your company has several locations, you should make a page for each. The location page may include specific information about that location, such as the address, company hours, phone number, and parking information. Ensure that all the information on each page is original and detailed to improve rankings.
You should optimize each page, including your location pages, with relevant keywords, URLs, title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and sub headers.
Ensure your website is Mobile-Friendly
Almost everyone who searches for local businesses on Google uses a mobile device, usually a smartphone. Your website might lose a lot of visitors if it’s not mobile-friendly. Your website should be mobile-friendly, making it easy for people to get directions, read reviews, and contact you.
Analyse your Existing Website
Start by fixing what is broken on your site and ensuring a solid foundation. Conducting an SEO audit can reveal any technical or on-page SEO issues that impede your website’s success. It will help if you address these difficulties before creating new SEO content or backlinks.
With SEO tools like SEMrush, you can get a detailed report of all your site’s problems. Another option is to work with an SEO company in London to evaluate your website and provide you with a list of issues.
Conduct a Competitive Keyword Analysis
Local SEO aims to make you rank higher than your local competition. Identifying the keywords, they rank for and knowing how to target them is essential. You may use SEO tools such as SEMrush or Ahrefs to analyse the keyword performance, backlinks, and other factors of your competitors. You can also see what keywords your website is already ranking for.
Searching a competitor’s domain with your preferred SEO tool will reveal the organic keywords they are ranking for. You can then examine search volume and competition statistics for these terms to see if they suit your site. Ensure that the keywords you target are related to the services or products you provide, your company’s mission, and the queries of your target market.
Produce Local Content
Content producers may write less for search engines and more for users as Google becomes smarter. It is more effective to write about local or industry news than to write about general topics to attract local readers.
Your blog should feature regional events, news, employees, and other educational content to establish you as the local authority. Consider creating content at the top of the funnel that goes beyond your company’s product.
Link your Internal Pages Properly
An important ranking factor for SEO is having backlinks from other websites pointing to yours. Additionally, internal linking is essential. Additionally, you can improve local SEO by including links to other relevant pages on your web pages. Additionally, it distributes page authority and optimization across multiple pages as well as organises your website’s architecture.
Make Use of Visuals and Videos
Videos are becoming more important than ever for audience engagement, and websites with videos see faster revenue growth. It’s important to use movies and photos properly and optimise them.
Provide tags and text to files with names found in searches. Ensure that they load quickly and are of high quality. It will help if you consider including a video transcript with local information that Google can access.
Make Use of Social Media
When planning a local SEO campaign, Facebook pages and other social media are important. Your Facebook page might appear in Google searches and connect you with local audiences.
You can respond to enquiries quickly and post brief advertisements and promotions. Add links to your company’s blog or sales landing pages, and write about regional events to increase traffic.
Optimisation of the Title Tag and Meta Description
The content you write on your website can help your website get indexed, target a local search term, and appear higher in search engines. Make your content more search engine friendly by including high-volume keywords in the title, meta description, and body. Try showcasing case studies and client success stories if you struggle with geo-targeted content.
Final Thought
These are just a few of the many suggestions for improving local SEO. Create relevant content and blog, obtain backlinks, and set up dedicated pages for local services.
All the tactics mentioned above may contribute to creating a local SEO strategy, and while it may take time, its benefits are long-term. Don’t skimp on quality or overload your website with keywords. Long-term SEO is better than short-term fixes.
