Marketing is one of those professions where a lot of little pieces are needed to make a giant project go forward. You have to make sure the writing is sharp, the design is perfect, the correct audience is targeted, the goals are being met, and the finances are in place. Like a Jenga tower, if you select the wrong piece, the whole thing could topple over.
The same can be said for search engine optimization efforts. You may be doing well with one specific keyword, but by neglecting another keyword, you may not be reaching the amount of people you want to reach. One of the most neglected parts of SEO is local searches – we’re such in a hurry to reach the top of the heap for a certain keyword nationally that we don’t realize our neighbor down the street is beating us when someone searches local.
Despite what you may think, local SEO is much different than a generalized SEO plan. First, the rankings in local SEO are constantly changing. You can be in the top position one day, but some upstart may boot you from that slot in one month’s time. What you have to remember about local SEO is it’s not just the proper keywords you need. You need to show your business is local. Here are a few things that can help you with your local SEO:
- Reviews. As we’ve said before, reviews are essential for any business. And this is absolutely the case in local SEO. According to Search Engine Land, Google takes reviews into account when showing people the best results for their queries. Try it yourself – just type in your area’s restaurants and see the top three results. Chances are they have some sort of star rating attached to them.
- Location landing pages. We’ve found some success with these. On your website, you want to tell people where you’re located as well as what cities you service. Trying to create a landing page solely for that location. But be careful, you want to use original content on this landing page. If it’s just a page to rank on search engines, Google will know.
- Google My Business. Yes, we know how much of a pain Google Plus is. But to be a part of Google My Business is essential. Not only will this place you on Google Maps, but you will also get statistics on how your website is doing on Google. It gives you info such as how many people searched for your number or driving directions.
If this seems a little too much for you, maybe you’ll need a helping hand. Why don’t you give ENX2 Marketing a call? We’ll set your local SEO straight.
