8 Simple Steps to Create a Winning Local SEO Strategy
The importance of SEO is very well known. A well-crafted and equally well-executed SEO strategy can do wonders to your online venture. All successful brands have a very well-crafted and executed SEO strategy that gives them an edge over their competitors. SEO is a long-term strategy that yields sustained results.
Similarly, for a geography-specific or small-sized business, a well-defined local SEO strategy can do wonders, just like national and international brands. Since the availability of resources is also low for such small local brands, we at WebMaxed Local SEO strategy team have been offering local SEO services to many local yet strong brands for quite many years now.
Any upcoming brand, entrepreneur or start-up that wishes to focus only on a specific geographic location like a city, suburb or even a block should first take help of a local SEO strategy rather than relying on a national SEO or paid promotions for its web traffic.
The local SEO strategy team has defined a set of 8 guiding principles for creating a winning Local SEO strategy.
Table of Contents
Get active on Google My Business (GMB)
Undoubtedly, today Google dominates all the searches conducted on the internet. Hence activating and optimizing the GMB page is the first thing that any business should do. Businesses that are authenticated by Google not only get better traffic but also get the important sidebar space in Google local search
Get customers to review your website
Positive reviews, ratings, and feedback from customers on your page adds weight behind your local SEO efforts. Hence, always encourage your customers to speak.
Clean up the internal link structures
The way inbound links influence the SEO capability of a website, the internal linkages also play a crucial role. Internal link structures not only make navigation easier, it helps in creating information architecture and establishing website hierarchy.
Optimizing meta description, title tags, and headers
They may sound very technical in nature, but meta descriptions, title tags, and headers play a crucial role while executing a local SEO strategy. Each element here is a potential contributor to your success.
Focus on local content
The way content is crucial for SEO, local content is crucial for local SEO too. As the Google search engine algorithm becomes smarter by every passing day, it is able to distinguish between general content and local specific content. Hence, when it comes to searches, it identifies and promotes local content over general content.
Include local keywords in the content
Including certain local keywords in your content is a good strategy. However, never overdo keywords as it may backfire on you.
Be mobile friendly
Studies have shown that in 2017, 50.3% of traffic was generated through mobiles. This increased to 52.2% in 2018. In the years to come, this number will keep on rising as mobile devices are becoming the primary access device for most people. Hence, it is important to make your website mobile-friendly by making it responsive, having optimized pictures & videos, better navigation, faster loading speeds and adding social media buttons.
Managing social media channels
Social Media not only helps in better customer engagement, but it adds to the trustworthiness of the brand and also helps in local SEO too. Well-managed Social media aids local SEO and leads to greater visibility & traffic.
These are the priority set of activities that every brand must do. However, the local SEO strategy team feels that since every brand is unique, it has its own unique local SEO requirements which need a thorough investigation. Besides being the service provider of choice for a lot of medium & large sized organizations across the globe, Supporting local brands with global ambitions is our passion and comes from the fact that we too were once a small local brand.
Hence, if you are a geography-specific brand and have ambitions to grow, then creating a robust local SEO strategy and its meticulous execution should be your priority No. 1.