Ranking locally on Google is the fastest way to increase your traffic and conversions to your website or physical location. Ranking locally has a different set of implementations to ensure long-term results. Here is a concise checklist for you to follow to make sure you are getting the most out of your local SEO no matter your location.
- Keyword research and discovery
- Optimize your website
- Optimize your Google My Business profile
- Build social presence
- Streamline review channels
- Seek backlinks
- UI/UX
Keyword Research & Discovery
Understanding the keywords that will provide relevant traffic to your website with the intention to convert. Taking the keyword “SEO” as an example, it may not be in our best interest to rank for a keyword like “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimization”. These don’t have much intent behind the searches and will probably lead to more generic results. Adding a city on the end of it shows people are looking in specific areas. So if someone searched “Denver SEO”, we may be able to convert that traffic much better. To go a little further, “Denver SEO Company” would be a perfect keyword for us since it is directly what we are. Denver SEO may have folks looking for how to rank in the Denver area, not necessarily looking for a provider. Denver SEO Company directly shows us these people are looking for an SEO provider in the Denver area. As long as these types of keywords have search volume, they can do quite well for your results.
Optimize Your Website
Optimizing your domain with the keywords to provide relevant traffic will ensure your local results are established. The more relevance and trust your domain can build up, the more trust and relevance your local efforts will have. Take some time to browse our previous optimization blogs to gain a deeper understanding of optimizing a website. Make sure you do not have any dead pages, make sure all relevant content is able to be accessed, and ensure you have all of the relevant meta information included for search engines to consume and display.
Optimize Your Google My Business Profile
Google My Business is a network created to feed search engines content and information about your business. Otherwise noted as the 3-pack, this information displays on multiple systems within the Google My Business system. Start by creating a profile, publish it to the web, set your area of service (if necessary), select business categories and subcategories, create a business description, upload pictures and posts where possible, verify account ownership, gather reviews, and create content within Google posts. This process is intended to be the fastest way to increase online visibility with limited effort. This allows people to quickly submit information and get profiles live. These types of profiles will show up on maps and many other areas. As these systems progress, more and more people are using these tools, so it is becoming increasingly more important to keep these profiles up to date.
Optimizing Ongoing Efforts
Once your domain is created and optimized alongside your Google My Business profile, it is time for continued effort to build your presence. Work to build your social presence by engaging with customers and clients on these profiles. Making the review process as simple as possible can quickly increase reviews and feedback on your account. Once you have developed notoriety it is much easier to reach out for backlink opportunities to get other websites talking about yours. This helps immensely with establishing trust with Google and other search engines. Continual efforts to improve your user experience can ensure you are staying ahead of the curve on new trends and efforts to convert your users in the most efficient way possible.
