The Top 10 Tips For Using Local SEO To Get Customers

Getting ranked on the front page of Google in your local market can lead to fantastic influx of new customers. By making a few changes to your company’s digital approach and boosting your local SEO, you will be able to reap great benefits by attracting unique and local customers. James is one of our clients who has experienced the results first-hand:

We’ve put together the top 10 tips to help you rank your business and help you get more quality customers.

1. Do your keyword research and have a plan for capturing rank on those keywords.

Do your homework on your competition. Websites like SEMrush can be a great tool to obtain information on your competitors and see what they’re using to get ranked. By simply typing in the link to a website, you can instantly view a site’s top organic keywords, main competitors, backlinks, anchor text, indexed pages and much more.

Note that to get the full experience of the SEMrush tool, a small fee is charged. Another great tool to conduct keyword research is Google AdWords. Here, you can type in a specific word or phrase and the tool will produce a list of relevant keywords relating to your original phrase. The tool shows results such as how competitive each keyword is, how often the keyword is searched monthly around the world and how many times per month it is searched locally.

Without quality content you will not rank on your keywords.  No rank = no customers. Content is king! This is a great way to help get you on the top page of rankings.

2. Have specific content pages for each target keyword.

Another method to get your site on the top page of search engines is to have specific content tailored for each of your target keywords. In today’s world of keyword targeting and SEO, it’s likely not enough to just simply place a targeted keyword somewhere and achieve a great rank.

The way today’s search engines conduct their rankings are more complex than ever and a way to get ranked is to create relevant and specific content pages for each of your target keywords. Unique content provides a unique value and this is ultimately what search engines look for. Make sure your page is the only URL that the content appears on.

3. Structure your website content for your keywords.

By having your content structured for targeted keywords that people are searching for, this is yet another way to see your rankings drastically improve and help put you on the top page of Google. For local SEO it is important to have keywords that relate to your geographic area.

There are 7 important keyword targeting elements.

Keyword placement is crucial in the page title and should be used at least once in the primary title as close to the beginning as possible. This increases the chances a reader clicks your link but also helps search engines rank your relevance. The headline tag, or H1 tag, should be relevant to your page title and ideally would contain your keyword. Studies have shown that the more relevant headlines are with page titles, the higher the ranking.

Placing your keywords in the body text is important too, however the quality of your content is what will keep readers on your page. Don’t overdo it by throwing your keywords in places they don’t need to be.

Including your keyword in your URL and on page images and image alt attributes will also help with search engine relevancy. URL’s are often used on the internet as anchor text via copy and pasting, while having your keyword in image titles and filenames will help your page appear in image searches and support your overall ranking.

Including target keywords on both external and internal links as well as in your meta description will help rank your page and can persuade readers to click your link.

4. Have a specific call to action on each content page.

When people are on your website reading your content, the goal is for them to be so intrigued that they take action. Providing quality content can help get a reader to this point, but it is crucial to include a call to action on each page your content appears on to encourage readers to do something about it.

Having a specific call to action on each one of your content pages benefits you because it encourages readers to think about acting on something, which drastically increases the chances of them contacting you. This is ultimately what you want!

5. When it comes to backlinks, quality beats quantity.

It cannot be said enough: quality wins over quantity.

A quality backlink should meet at minimum a few of the following criteria: is from a relevant source, is from a trusted source, sends traffic, phrase match anchor link text used, in-content (surrounded by content and near top of content), PageRank included, has other high quality backlinks included in the piece, is from multiple sources, isn’t reciprocal, isn’t surrounded by too many other links, and isn’t easily obtained.

Link building is revolved around getting more people to link to your site by positioning your content. In other words, one quality post can actually get more quality links to your site than 10 posts that include poor content.

Having quality backlinks carries a heavy weight when it comes to ranking your site. By meeting some of the criteria mentioned, a quality backlink will help your site get closer to the top of front page rankings.

6. Build local directories and citations every month.  Yes, every month!

Creating backlinks is incredibly essential in general SEO, but it is equally as crucial when it comes to local SEO. The business you are going to generate is going to come from local people, and how do locals find information? By looking at local sites.

Building local directories on a consistent basis keeps your information fresh and can not only put you atop front page rankings but will increase your chances of getting great reviews, something people and search engines both love.

Local SEO relies on links from other local websites to boost its local rankings. Here it becomes not so much about linking from high quality websites but more so from sites that are relevant to your business locally.

Local directories and citations become a very important factor in ranking locally. By citing your business, your business name, address and phone number (NAP) will be referenced. When you do this, make sure to keep all of your citations consistent to help boost your ranking. It helps to keep these updated monthly so you don’t have any old information that could affect your business.

A fantastic tool to use to view existing citations that you have is Bright Local. You can keep track of all of your current citations and update them as you go.

Here is a great article on local SEO and the importance of backlinks:  http://searchengineland.com/local-seo-rank-local-business-218906

7. Make sure your website is mobile friendly.

Fact: More Google searches come from mobile devices than desktops.

Fact: Google will penalize you if your website is not mobile-friendly.

10 countries, including the United States and Japan, saw a higher number of Google searches on mobile devices than desktops. With the advancement of today’s technology this is no surprise. People continue to choose their mobile device for searches and it is mandatory that your website is mobile friendly. Nothing turns a visitor off more than a website that does not load properly and just looks like one big mess.

Having a mobile-friendly website makes it more convenient for visitors to see you, especially with so many searches originating from mobile devices now.

Don’t let your website and all of your hard work get punished by Google because you failed to make your site mobile-friendly.

Is your website mobile-friendly? Use Google’s mobile-friendly test tool to find out.

8. Make sure your website load time is less than 2 seconds.

In addition to a webpage not loading properly and looking like one gigantic mess, perhaps nothing is more frustrating and virtually guarantees a viewer to leave your site is to have a slow load time.

A great tool to see how fast your site loads is Pingdom.com. Simply type in the website you want to test and the tool will grade its speed performance, display the load time, size of the page and even how many times that website has been tested using this tool.

The tool also provides an overall page analysis and you can view the history of its page load times.

Having a fast load time will actually help keep people on your page and increase the chances of leaving great reviews.

9. Understand that some of your customers will never actually make it to your website.

Your goal is to rank in the 3 pack locally with more ratings and reviews than your competitors.  This generates immediate phone calls from people that want what you are offering right now!  All of the work you do on your website is to generate phone calls and direct connections with customers.  The leads you get from your website are secondary.

10. Setup your Google My Business page and get real reviews from real customers.  This is a MUST.  This is what generates the majority of clients.

In order to see more success locally, you need to have a Google My Business page as part of your local SEO strategy. A Google My Business page will let searchers see where you are located, provide them with contact information and allow them to read reviews from real customers. You will not effectively get in the top 3 without this!

Nearly 90% of clients trust online reviews and check them before making a purchase, and 85% say they read up to 10 reviews. The fact that people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations is outstanding and something you need to take advantage of.

Here is a great article on the impact online reviews are having: http://searchengineland.com/88-consumers-trust-online-reviews-much-personal-recommendations-195803

Having a Google My Business page allows searchers to quickly find your information and read positive reviews. This is an absolute must as part of your local SEO if you want to show up in the top 3!

What now?

The world of SEO is becoming more complex each day and it is important to have people who know what they’re doing looking after your business online. Ensuring you have great local SEO is key to generating quality customers. If you’re interested in finding out more, check out the following link: https://www.connectionincorporated.com/seo/