With the introduction of Google My Business and other Google changes, local SEO has changed quite a bit recently, so now is the time to start revamping your local SEO strategy. Google is working hard to ensure the results delivered to the user are relevant, and you need to be on top of the game to show up in results. Are you doing the right things to improve local rankings?
8 Tips for Revamping Your Local SEO Strategy
Tip 1 for Revamping your local SEO Strategy
Use The Right Keywords
Revamping your local SEO strategy should begin with keyword research.
Use your competitors to find the right combination of keywords. Keywords should ideally have good search volume, low competition, and be highly targeted.
Your keyword strategy will play into the rest of these items.
Tip 2 for Revamping your local SEO Strategy
On-Page Website Optimization
With Google’s recent changes, many local searches will show the local pack, which now is three businesses instead of the seven to 10 it used to be.
Getting ranked in the local pack should be the number one goal of local SEO besides just showing in the organic rankings.
Proper on-page optimization is critical to increasing your chances of ranking in the local pack.
Have keywords and location in your titles and onsite content, and ensure any links back to your pages are relevant.
You should have an accurate Contact Us page with your name, address, phone number, and Google map. Include the address in the footer and make sure the address is consistent throughout the website.
Sign Up for a LOCALSYNC location scan and find out how correct your information is online.
Tip 3 for Revamping your local SEO Strategy
Business Directories
Many local Google results will show directories beneath the local pack, including local directories like Yelp, BBB, and Citysearch.
Getting listed in these directories will help your business.
Listings specific to your city, state, or industry can also help improve your backlinking as long as the directory domain is reputable.
LOCALSYNC Pro ensures that your business is listed correctly in these directories as well as in-car GPS systems.
Tip 4 for Revamping your local SEO Strategy
Reviews
Reviews are the online equivalent of word-of-mouth marketing. Not only can they help improve your business’s reputation, but they can also increase your chances of showing in the local pack of results. You will need to make an active effort to collect reviews.
If you rely on people voluntarily leaving reviews, your competitors will pass you up. Consider this an active part of your SEO strategy. Reviews on Google My Business will be the first thing a user sees in a Google search for your business. You need to manage your reviews and respond to reviews (both good and bad ones).
Tip 5 for Revamping your local SEO Strategy
Google My Business
Getting your business listed in Google My Business (GMB) should be an absolute priority. More people are using search engines to find out local information about a company, like address, business hours, or phone number, so a GMB profile filled out and optimized will help.
Tip 6 for Revamping your local SEO Strategy
Mobile
More traffic is going mobile, especially for your local business, so ensuring the user interface on your mobile website is user-friendly will help with local search results.
Most modern WordPress website themes (we use Divi from Elegant Themes) are fully responsive and work on mobile devices.
There are also landing page builders, either as a plugin for your WordPress website or as a stand-alone applications designed for mobile users.
LOCALSYNC Link is a marketing web application we use to build landing pages for our clients designed for mobile. There is a free plan that you can use to get yourself online in 5 minutes.
LOCALSYNC landing pages are simply the quickest and easiest way to get online with a web presence designed for phones, tablets, and desktops.
Easily create landing pages designed for mobile users that convert.
Tip 7 for Revamping your local SEO Strategy
Content
There are ways to update your existing content to help with local SEO.
As voice search and interactive home speakers increase, searches like restaurants near me are becoming more critical. Look at blog posts, media content, and service pages to optimize searches for “near me “or “close by.” Don’t overstuff these terms, but if the pages have locations already in there, you should be able to work in these terms naturally. To utilize these keywords in new content, blog posts are the perfect opportunity. Topics like “choosing the best plumber near you” or “comparing suppliers near you” are good topics.
In the age of AI-generated content, you should leverage those tools to assist you in creating helpful written content regularly. We said “assist,” not “do it for you.” Tools like Content at Scale can help you write long-form helpful content for your customers that passes AI detection tests.
An AI writer that is so human-like that it passes AI content detection. Simply enter keywords and get a 2,500+ word blog post.
The future of content creation has arrived.
- Long Form Content
- No AI Detection
- Human-like Content
- Plagiarism Scans
- WordPress Sync
- Automated Internal Linking
- Great Support
- Expensive (but you get what you pay for)
Keeping content short and relevant with locally-focused keywords is crucial, but don’t overstuff the keywords. Remember the purpose of the content. Videos may be a good content choice since they give users information quickly and are mobile-friendly.
Tip 8 for Revamping your local SEO Strategy
Technical SEO
Technical SEO work is essential for local businesses, just like regular SEO.
Adding schema markup to the website for local SEO will vary depending on your website, but it should be a priority. URLs should have targeted keywords, and the HTML and CSS code should be friendly enough for bots to crawl your site correctly.
Just like with regular sites, page speed is also a factor. Ensure images are optimized, and browser caching is handled to increase page speed.
If you are using WordPress (which works great for most businesses), several great SEO plugins handle the technical SEO for you automatically. Our favorite is Rankmath which we use on this website and all our client websites.
Learn more about Rankmath here:
With over 1.5 million happy users (we use it too!), RankMath is a WordPress SEO plugin that makes optimizing your content easy.
- Free Version Available
- Well Supported
- Easy to Use
- Effective
- Paid Version Needed for more Advanced Features
What to Do about Multiple Locations?
If you have multiple locations, you may not want individual sites for each business but one strong site that houses all the locations.
To optimize, have content dedicated to each location with specific promotions or host or sponsor events in the different cities to add to the website.
You can also write blog posts that apply to specific locations.
Want to learn more about managing multiple locations?
We have a great article here.
Revamping Your Local SEO Strategy – Final Thoughts
Local SEO is playing a bigger and bigger part in Google search ranking results as Google improves its algorithms to deliver better and better results. The goal of Local SEO (actually all SEO) is to create an online business platform (your website), that you own (your website, NOT a social media profile) that serves your customers. That means:
Making sure that your customers can find the correct information about your EVERYWHERE.
Having a fast, optimized website that looks great on mobile devices.
Having content for your audience to enjoy that helps them (a professional, consistent content design that resonates with your customers).
