If you want to rank higher in your community and the surrounding area, the key is using content that will boost your local SEO. Before we get to content, some basics need to be employed for your content to have an impact on your local SEO.
Take a NAP
NAP is simply an anacronym for Name, Address, Phone. Search engines can identify where your business is and therefore rank it in searches for your geographic area. By registering your business with Google My Business or Bing Places for Business, it also legitimizes your business with the two search engines. It is vital before any SEO campaign that your business is registered with both sites.
Pack it In
Recently Google changed its seven-pack to a three-pack. What does that mean? A pack is shown on a Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) when you search for anything in your area, such as a plumber. Once the search has been done on the SERP, you will see a map with plumbers in your is plotted on it. Below the map are three business in a box. It used to be that seven business was shown in the box, and it helped the SEO of local businesses. Now that the “pack” has been reduced to displaying three local businesses, it makes your site’s content even more important. Let’s look at some ways you can optimize your content for local SEO.
Land on the Area
If your business isn’t showing up in Google’s three-pack, you are going to lose out on quite a bit of business. How do you counteract that? Create landing pages with content specific to your geographical location. Let’s say you’re a plumber in Orlando, Florida. It would be best to create multiple landing pages for your area. Start with a landing page for your city: Orlando, then a landing page for your state: Florida and then for your region: Central Florida. You could even take it a step further and add a landing page for the neighborhood your business is in, but that may not be needed.
Frequently Local
Make sure to include locations in your frequently asked questions (FAQ). Make sure that in questions such as “Can a plumber fix my leak?” you change it to “Can a plumber in Orlando fix my leak?” Be sure that it seems organic and not stilted in your FAQs. Be careful not to list your city’s name so many times that Google or Bing sees it as keyword packing which will be penalized.
On Sale
If you are having a sale, be sure to list it on your homepage and any relevant landing pages with location names included. This action will help when people are searching for something in their area where your business has a brick and mortar location.
Discount It
Another way you can improve your local SEO is by offering discounts. For example, suppose you are a florist in Birmingham, Alabama. In that case, you can offer a fifteen percent discount to people who live in the area on your site’s homepage or the relevant landing pages. Not only will this help your local SEO, but it’s also a great way to get people through your doors and convert into customers. This concept also works with any local events you are hosting or are taking part in.
Blog It
This concept is fairly simple but highly effective. Having a blog on your site about your industry or related issues gives you ample opportunity to list your city, state and region, even neighborhood. Be sure to update your blog frequently; this will help your SERP with Google and Bing who reward frequently updated sites.
In Conclusion
Improving your local SEO is just as simple as making local keywords more frequent. Also, you will want to register your business with Google and Bing.
For more information on how Incend Media can help you Boost Your Local SEO contact us today.