Local SEO strategy – the essentials

If your business has a local customer or client base, Local SEO can benefit you. If properly optimised, local listings can be a significant driver of traffic and revenue to your website or business locations. In this article, we’ll cover some essential actions you can take to make sure your local listings are delivering for your business.

Dedicated page for each location

Create separate URLs for each business location. ‘Virtual’ locations don’t count; you need to have a physical location where you interact with customers.

These pages should have unique and location specific content, an embedded map, location specific contact details, and photo images of the location.

Local content strategy

Local SEO content helps your business get discovered by customers.

Local keyword research can identify the search queries that bring users to your site, which helps create location specific content, title tags and meta descriptions.

Local specific case studies, reviews and testimonials can be a great way to demonstrate expertise and authority with a local audience.

Use structured data markup

Adding local business structured data markup code to your business location pages makes it easier for search engines to identify what type of organisation you are and what you do. This is a helpful way to help optimise your website for local SEO, as it’s another local ranking factor.

Tip: It’s important to keep your schema mark-up up to date with any content changes on your site or updates to Google’s documentation. Subscribing to Google’s Webmaster Blog will keep you up to date with any new additions and enhancements your structured data can include.

Ensure data is accurate & consistent

Over the lifespan of a business, it’s likely that multiple contact numbers and addresses have been used at one time or another.

Review these details periodically and keep local business names, addresses, and phone numbers (NAP) consistent across all business listings, social media profiles, and websites. It is widely considered a search ranking factor for local SEO, so although this can be time consuming if starting from scratch it’s important to get right.

Manage citations

Citations are an online reference to a business that include a business’ name, address, and phone number (NAP), and they are another local ranking factor.

They often take the form of business directory references, and can be found on sites like Google Business Profile, Bing, Yelp and Facebook. If set up correctly, citations are easy to manage and can generate significant referral traffic.

Tip: Incorrect or inconsistent citation data can have a negative impact on local SEO performance, so it’s important to set aside time to clean up the data and monitor regularly to see results.

Local linking strategy

Boost local SEO performance with a local linking strategy. Local backlinks are slightly different from standard backlinks in that they tend to come from sources in your service area or local target market.

Not only do local links drive relevant and local referral traffic to your website, earning local backlinks can help to establish your business as an authoritative resource in your area.

Tip: Reaching out to local newspapers, community forums, and local business directories are a great starting point.

Create/Claim a GBP

Creating a Google Business Profile (GBP) account is essential for local SEO. Having a Google listing for each of your business locations allows you to showcase important business information like opening hours and company descriptions in Google Maps and page 1 of Google search results.

If a listing has already been created for your business location, you can claim and verify ownership to gain access.

Make sure to optimise these listings by completing all fields with consistent NAP data.