Have a business that serves a specific location? It is important to develop an SEO strategy that can help you target local customers and rank higher in Google search. While all businesses can benefit from search engine optimization, certain industries like the Professional Service Industry (banks, accountants, attorneys, financial planners, and many others), Home Repair & Renovation Service Industry, Medical Industry, and Restaurant and Food Service Industry can benefit the most.
Let’s take a look at some important benefits that Local SEO offers for businesses, small and large.
- SEO puts you up higher on Google’s search result pages and helps you get more traffic to your site.
- Other local businesses can find you easily to create a coordinated marketing campaign that can benefit you both
- SEO helps you get positive reviews, rank higher, and earn more trust.
- You can save on advertising costs if your business is sufficiently high in the rankings.
- Your business can appear in local business directories.
- Voice searchers can find your business easily.
The above-mentioned benefits give a clear answer to the question, ‘why does my business need SEO?’Let’s now understand how to create a local SEO strategy for any business.
Follow the steps below:
- Prepare a list of keywords related to your business. For example, if you run a restaurant, your keywords may be Mexican Food, Chinese Food, etc.
- Perform an SEO audit on your site to identify any existing technical issues. If you are already aware of any issues, address them first.
- Conduct a competitive analysis using SEO tools to find out what keywords your competitors are ranking for. This analysis will help you determine which keywords are a perfect fit for your site.
- Add your location to the keywords and perform an SEO analysis to find out the search volume and keyword variations of Geo-specific Keywords (example: Mexican Food Seattle, best Mexican Food Seattle, etc.).
- Follow on-page SEO best practices to optimize your site for local searches. On-page optimization would include –
- Keyword mapping of individual site pages
- Unique & relevant titles and descriptions for each page
- Informative content about your products & services
- Relevant internal links on your site pages
- Images that are appropriate & compressed
- A short & targeted URL structure
- Localized landing pages can help you get more organic searches. To create perfect landing pages, you must optimize your page headings, include keywords in page content, etc.
- Create your GMB account, and be sure to add the correct business address, contact number, images, and other details.
- List your business with other online directories to gain more customers.
- Create a Link Building Strategy to increase the ranking of your site.
- Try to generate positive reviews across the directories your business is listed in. Also, respond to negative reviews in a professional & kind manner.