7 Ways to Optimize Your Website for Local SEO

Reading time: 4 minutes

SEO as a practice is incredibly valuable when you’re looking to build brand recognition, guide visitors through your sales funnel, and a variety of marketing aspects of your business. However, if you’re looking to garner more recognition within your local community, then it’s time to consider looking into your local SEO. Optimizing the local visibility of your business doesn’t happen overnight, but with a clear strategy and optimizing of your brand, you can build a better brand in your regional community.

Local SEO is Unique

Having a website allows your business to be searchable for the entire world, businesses of all sizes thrive by capturing customers within their local community and surrounding areas. That means you need to create a consistent digital presence, while also connecting with your regional audience to let them know you’re open for business. Local SEO focuses your digital marketing and advertising efforts on a relatively small area so you’re making your website discoverable to local audiences. Here are the top seven methods we recommend to help you optimize your website to pull in local customers.

1. Create a Google My Business/Bing Places for Business

While building a high-quality, user-friendly website or social media presence is a great start for your local SEO, you need to rank with the major search engines to truly optimize your presence. Fortunately, Google and Bing make it easy to get started. When you start by building a robust Google My Business or Bing Places for Business, you can educate your local audience on your products and services without them never needing to convert to your website. 

2. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Reviews

Search engines have always adored businesses that gather reviews and testimonials. This “community pride” in your business shows that your local audience is engaged in your business and enjoys your products and services. If you’re currently low on reviews, you can simply ask your previous and current customers directly or ask them to leave a review on Yelp! or Google.

3. Create (Excellent!) Local Content

Are you looking to drum up business in a particular region? You need to create a content marketing strategy that targets and writes for your preferred audience. If you sell outdoor products and want to target Colorado consumers, consider content that connects the use or enjoyment of your products with the regional environment. It’s also important to remember that while any content is better than no content, low quality content can actually work against your website or digital marketing goals. So, investing in high-quality, professionally crafted content and a content strategy will be the best way to add value to your website, connect with your readers, and educate them on your products and services. 

4. Actively Focus on Optimizing for Mobile

It’s no secret that optimizing your website for mobile experience has transcended from trend status to digital marketing necessity. According to Hubspot, mobile devices accounted for 54.4% of global website traffic by the end of 2021, so it’s more than a worthwhile investment. What’s more, this amount jumps to almost 75% when you consider food and beverage, as well as hospitality brands. That means your website’s design, navigation, and essential information all need to be optimized for mobile accessibility. 

5. Identify & Optimize for Local Keywords

Depending on the region of the country you’re from, you can either refer to a soda as a “coke” or a “pop.” When you sell a product or service with a regional term, it’s essential to choose the right keywords so you can ensure you’re only targeting the right audience. By utilizing the Google Keyword Planner resource, or your preferred keyword research tool, you can easily streamline your keyword search. You’ll want to focus your research on which keywords are most effective in your region and even compile a list of bid estimates should you want to run digital campaigns in the future. 

6. Prioritize Listings in Online Business Directories

While Google and Bing continue to be the two major search engines, there are plenty of industry-specific search directories to support your local search efforts. This includes a variety of sites like YellowPages, Yelp!, and TripAdvisor where you can update and personalize your profile and capture more of your audience. At the bare minimum, we recommend you include your business name, contact information like email address and phone, as well as your website and hours of operation (where applicable). Fortunately, local digital marketing partners often have tools that will help you submit your listings to many of these online directories at once.

7. Maintain Specific Products & Services Pages

Sometime in the mid to late 2010’s, the scrolling, single-page website took hold of the internet with SMBs of all industries requesting this minimalist layout. While the world as a whole has taken steps to move away from this design, we still want to instill the importance of taking the time to write – or working with a skilled copywriter – detailed pages of copy that discuss the unique products and services you offer. When you can present your business as an authority in your space, it will inevitably boost your visibility and help you be found by those searching for your offerings. 

Creating a robust digital presence for your business doesn’t happen overnight, and requires an ongoing commitment to ensure you are gaining traction with important local audiences. When you’re ready to boost your local SEO knowledge, contact the digital marketing firm’s team at RefractROI today by calling 303-501-1821 or scheduling your own complimentary consultation online. We specialize in fostering conversions and ROI for our clients by creating online communities that add value to your local audiences.