Reaching Out to Nearby Customers
Local SEO is becoming more important to business success. There are 5.9 billion searches a day using Google. Some — if not many — of those searches are being conducted by users in your local market who are looking for information about products and services. The best way to ensure those users connect with your business it to build organic local SEO.
Four Things You to Enhance Local SEO
There are at least four steps in the local White Hat SEO process that helps search engines associate your site with both keywords and a geographic location.
1. Understand Keyword Research
Local White Hat SEO requires strings of keywords that combine topic relevant phrases with geographic locations. Do the research to find out what users are searching for — are they more likely to type “florists in Dallas” or “Dallas flower shops?” Select several keywords to optimize for, but also include other relevant phrases to boost search traffic. If your keyword is “florists in Dallas,” other relevant phrases could include:
- Dallas wedding flowers
- Flower shop in Dallas
- Flower delivery in Dallas
When we do keyword research for clients, we typically amass several thousands keywords and then sort by relevancy, trend, and competitive difficulty. Also don’t forget long tail keywords, as they may be easier to rank and drive qualified traffic to your website.
2. Optimize Content Appropriately
Don’t just pepper keyword phrases over your pages. Integrate the words naturally into helpful content that includes how-to, articles, product descriptions, and blog posts. Keywords should be included in meta tags, meta description, headline, photo description and a few times throughout a post, article, or page. But be careful not to keyword stuff as this can get you into Webspam trouble.
3. Use Search Engine Provided Tools
Claim listings on review and search engine sites, such as Yelp, Yahoo and Google. Create a local Google+ page for your business, and link your blog and website to relevant pages and social media profiles (especially the big four: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube). The more streamlined your online business presence is, the better you’ll do in search engines.
4. Understand What the Consumer Sees
Test keyword phrases to see where you come up in search results and review your listings on review sites and Google. Google changes things like its SERP design from time to time, and understanding what customers see can help you better target brand messaging.
It takes some work to get local White Hat SEO efforts off the ground; White Hat SEO is never done as it evolves and changes over time. It’s worth the effort, however, when new customers start finding you on the Internet, resulting in new business at a fraction of traditional lead costs.
What local White Hat SEO tips would you add to our list?
