If your business caters to a certain geographic area or local client base, optimizing its digital presence for this target market is key to standing out in search results, driving targeted traffic to your website, and drawing in customers to storefront or service offerings. Local SEO will give your business an edge against its competition by standing out among search results while simultaneously increasing targeted customer visits to website.
Contrasting traditional SEO, in which website content is the key element for ranking, local SEO utilizes tools such as Google My Business, citations and review signals to increase visibility and rankings in local packs and snack packs. Many of the same factors come into play between traditional SEO and local SEO, so keep this in mind as you develop your marketing strategy for local targeting.
Start by identifying the keywords your potential customers use to locate your business online. Conducting keyword research requires an in-depth knowledge of both search behavior of target audiences and competitive landscape. Therefore, making keyword research part of your local marketing strategy should become part of its routine practice.
Once you’ve created a list of keywords, it’s time to implement them on your website. You can do this by including them in title tags and meta descriptions, URLs and page titles – plus in blog posts and other content on the site itself.
Be mindful to utilize local keywords, like town and zip codes, rather than more generic terms like “digital marketing agency.” For instance, ranking for these terms wouldn’t make much sense if only serving Boise area businesses. In writing your content you could include local modifiers like emergency call or accounting services to target more local searches.
At a time when mobile-first indexing reigns supreme, it’s paramount to create a responsive website that works on all devices – not only desktops. To do this effectively requires using mobile-friendly images and loading speed optimization. Furthermore, adding structured data markup can improve its ranking on local searches.
Participate in local events and organizations: one effective way of promoting your local business. Host or join community events and boost visibility and brand recognition while meeting customers locally.
As well as these techniques, Rio SEO’s Open Local platform offers tools and resources that can enhance local SEO through features such as creating listings and managing reviews/ratings. Monitoring competitor activity and benchmarking your own performance are two additional uses for local SEO strategies. To get more information on starting and expanding a local seo business, take a look at this helpful guide from Rio SEO which contains everything needed to get going in this lucrative field! Having an effective SEO strategy in place is essential for businesses of any kind – while results might take several months, or even years, they are certainly worth their investment in the long run!
