How to Build a Winning Local SEO Strategy for Your Small Business

If you already have a website, you need to check whether it has a solid foundation that you can build on and if something is broken and has to be fixed before you continue building your local SEO strategy.

Before jumping into keyword research and optimizing your website, you have to make a realistic assessment for any technical issues that can hinder its success. As much as you want to start publishing new SEO content, promoting your business, and getting fresh leads from it, you need to take a step back.

How to perform a website audit, you may ask.

There are a myriad of free and paid tools you can use, ranging from simple reports to more comprehensive audits. A great starting point is Website Grader or Sitechecker to get an overall idea of what is working, what needs to be improved, and what you should remove. Both tools explain what each term means, so don’t feel overwhelmed when you first see the audit reports. Understanding the main components is easier than you think.

In order for your local SEO strategy to work, you need to not only rank in local searches but also outrank your local competitors. To do that, you need to know what keywords they use and where they rank.

SEO tools like Ahrefs and Semrush can help you do thorough analysis of your competitors to see the terms, where they rank, the domain authority of their website, and who is linking to their web pages, among other things.

No matter which SEO tool you choose to use for the competitor keyword research, the first thing you’ll see is a list of keywords that the website is organically ranking for. You can then look at each keyword and analyze its search volume and relevant metrics to decide whether it would be a good fit for your own website.

Don’t forget your main focus: keywords that fit your service or products and ones that reflect what your business is about as a whole. Your goal isn’t just to rank for good keywords. Your goal is to generate localized, relevant traffic to your website.

Now that you have made a list of the possible terms people would use to search for your business and services, it’s time to identify those that will benefit you the most. What does that mean? You need to focus on search terms (a.k.a. keywords) that match the search intent of users, have a high search volume, and reflect what you do. Let’s dive deeper.

No matter what everyone says, you need to choose keywords that:

1. Match the search intent of people

“Hire landscaper” instead of “landscaper,” for example.
How do you know that a person typing in “landscaper” isn’t interested in becoming one rather than hiring a professional to mow their lawn? Be very clear about what you do through the keywords you target. No need to go for ones that lead traffic of uninterested visitors your way.

2. Have a large monthly volume

There are a bunch of free and paid tools you can use to search for beneficial keywords. Some of those are Google Search Console, Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, Google Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, KeywordTool.io, and many others. There is no set volume you need to look out for — it solely depends on the overall search for your industry for your location!

3. Reflect your actual service/product

Let’s say your business only focuses on lawn care. Choosing keywords related to landscape design will, therefore, be misleading and not reflective of your service. Stay away from those traps because they can easily backfire.

Now that you have selected the main terms, you need to add your location to your keywords.

Since we are talking about local SEO, the whole point is in you advertising your business to people in your service area. This means adding your location together with the keywords you want to rank for, as well as phrases like “near me.”

If you want to target “affordable tree service,” for example, you can add variations like “tree trimming Krum, TX” and “tree trimming service near me.” Those keywords often have lower search volume, but that shouldn’t discourage you because it comes from users with the intent of converting.

So, how do you go from choosing your keywords to ranking for them? Good question. You need to edit or rewrite the content on your website, so it includes these phrases. The rule of thumb is to focus on one or two keywords per page to avoid keyword cannibalization. Don’t use the keyword too much on the page, as this can have a negative effect on your ranking.

Your keyword should ideally be in the URL of your page, in its title, meta tag and description, headings, image alt attributes, and the general body of the content. To make sure you haven’t overused your keyword, do this simple calculation:

(Number of words in the content of the page) / (Number of times the keyword appears in the content)

The result should be less than or equal to 2. That is the allowed percentage of keyword usage that Google likes to “see.”

Optimizing your website is another way of saying you will do on-page SEO. That is the effort of making sure your web pages are optimized correctly for the localized keywords you have chosen. Off-page SEO combines all the efforts you make to optimize your online presence outside of your website. This includes business directories, Google My Business, social media, ads, and more.

Now, there are several crucial steps in optimizing your website:

• Keyword mapping — the process of planning which keywords you will use for each page of your website. Ideally, there will be a target keyword for every page that is relevant to the content of that page.
• Optimizing Metadata — every page of your website has a page title and a meta description. This is the information that users see in search results. The goal of the meta title and description is to offer a brief summary of what the page is about, thus prompting users to visit the website. It’s important to include your target keyword in your meta description and title.
• Creating Quality Content — the backbone of any successful website optimization project is original, quality content. Focus on creating content that explains your product or service in detail, and don’t forget to dedicate a page with more information about your company, your story, your values, and your goals.
• Internal and External Links — the process of building and earning links on your website is called link building. It is important that you not only have outside websites link to yours but that you link internally between your pages. For example, you need to have links to your Contact Us and Blog page on your Homepage. This is considered internal linking, and it’s crucially important to do it.
• Image Optimization — when it comes to content optimization, that includes the images on your website as well. No matter how visually enticing your images may be, they are all the same to search engines. To make sure they like them too — you need to add keyword-rich alt text. This “tells” search engines what the image is about, and it also shows in case the user can’t load the image on their device. In addition to that, you need to be mindful of the image file size and name. This ensures that browsers can quickly render images and that crawlers can decipher what’s on the image better.
• Concise URLs — in local SEO, and SEO in general, everything that’s on the page matters to your optimization efforts. That includes the URL of the page. The rule of thumb is to use your target keyword and keep the slug as concise as possible. If the page is about your auto repair service, then the URL of the page will likely look like this: www.domain.com/auto-repair. For example, our web page dedicated to our local SEO service simply says: https://411locals.com/local-seo/

When it comes to using your website to generate leads for your small business, there is a lot more you can do. We have covered the topic in detail in our blog titled How to Use Your Website to Generate More Leads for Your Business. Take a look to learn more!

If you’re serving more than one area, it’s a good idea to create localized landing pages. These are web pages designed specifically to rank in local searches for a specific location. Localized landing pages should contain the geo-specific keywords you’ve chosen as well as engaging and informative content about your product or service.

In addition to keywords, the most important aspects of a well-performing landing page are using optimized H1, H2, and H3 headings, internal links, and making sure the page is just as responsible on desktop as it is on mobile search.

If you want to expand your local SEO strategy and rely not only on organic traffic but paid search as well, you can run ads to these landing pages as well. Make sure to have a compelling call-to-action that is to-the-point and universal across the page.

Having a profile on Google My Business is absolutely mandatory. It not only shows directly in local search results, but it is also an additional way for customers to find you. GMB is a free platform that small businesses can use to generate leads, customer reviews, and traffic to their website. Setting up an account is really easy, and if you already have one, it’s a good idea to take a look at it and update any dated information. It’s crucial to keep your company name, address, and phone number (otherwise abbreviated as NAP) consistent on your GMB, website, and other directories.

We have a separate guide on how to set up your Google My Business profile and optimize it properly.

In addition to GMB, there are many other relevant and important business directories where you can submit your business information. Some of the most reputable ones include BBB, Bing Places, Yelp, YellowPages, HomeAdvisor, and TripAdvisor.

Choosing which directories to join should depend on your industry and niche, as some platforms are highly specialized. It wouldn’t make sense to promote your plumbing business on TripAdvisor, but it will surely do you good to submit your company details to HomeAdvisor or Angie’s List. On the contrary, if you offer boat rentals, it would make sense for you to be on TripAdvisor as opposed to Angie’s List. Do you understand the difference? Great!

We have written a detailed guide on how to use online directories and how to choose the right ones for your business.

Earlier, we mentioned link building and the importance of having both internal and external links on your website. While getting external links is great and definitely worth the effort, it’s also important to build an internal linking structure on your website. This will make it easy for users to navigate between pages, which will make them stick around for longer.

When it comes to earning backlinks from sources outside your website, there are a few ways to approach that. You can earn links from directory submissions (they always link back to your website), reaching out to other relevant websites and business partners, and creating guest posts. If you’re heavily involved in your community, make sure to be in touch with local websites and ask them to link to you whenever they mention you or your business’ involvement in a project.

The number of online reviews your business gets is an important ranking factor for local SEO. That includes your website, Google My Business, and all other directory platforms where your business is listed.

When people research local businesses, 93% of them look for online reviews. They would often choose whether to choose you or your competitors based on the number of reviews you have and whether you respond to them or not.

Learn more about the importance of online reviews for SMBs in 2021 in our dedicated article.

Giving back to your community mattered even before the pandemic, but Covid-19 really reminded people and businesses of the importance of helping each other locally. The best form of advertising comes when people see your company values in action.

Community outreach not only popularizes your company among locals but also shows you care about the well-being of those around you. It is a way for you to personally connect with people and have them turn into future customers and recommendations. How to approach community outreach as a small business owner? We have a specialized community outreach how-to guide here!

In local SEO, not all ranking factors are created equal. Some are more important than others. Below is a short list of the main ranking signals in local SEO, plus their percentage of importance.