Is your business enjoying the full benefits of localised SEO?
Analysing Localised SEO for small businesses
If you own a business and are investing in SEO with the intention of building your online profile, it could be beneficial to reassess your SEO campaign and instead target a more localised area. Using your SEO and social media budget more efficiently will provide huge benefits for your business and will also provide a valuable asset for long-term promotion. You can visit platforms, such as Factory Pattern, to help you widen your knowledge about SEO.
For example, did you know that localised SEO can help improve community presence, strenghthen customer loyalty, and can increase customer footfall within your bricks and mortar premises, (provided you have one of course.)
In the following post we aim to provide tips, ideas, and an explanation to why localised SEO can boost your business, increase revenue and help you achieve a greater level of success.
What are the benefits of localising your SEO?
The benefits of using localised SEO extend far beyond an increase in basic online traffic and website engagement. As a high-profile, community-based business owner, people in your local area are more likely to visit your social media pages, leave reviews, ask questions about your business, interact with customers as well as other members of the local community who visit your site.
Whether you’re an electrician, small business owner, or shop owner based in the local area, the more localised your SEO, the more visible your services can become within the community, in addition, this creates customer loyalty while strengthening your company’s online and real-life reputation.
See Also: Local SEO For Real-Estate, A Guide To International SEO
Is an SEO campaign and a local SEO campaign the same thing?
Not quite, for example, if you’re a local butcher in Cardiff, and are running an SEO campaign targeting people with similar interests unless you localise your campaign, visibility could in reality extend across the UK.
Although technically increasing your online presence, it’s highly unlikely that someone in Edinburgh will purchase from your premises as a result of the distance between the customer and your business.
Localise Your Google Business Profile
Did you know that nearly half of all Google searches are locally based? Google revealed that 46% of the estimated 3.5 billion daily Google searches are people searching for locally based items. By localising your SEO you can tap into this hugely valuable market.
Tailoring your Google Business Profile is a great way of increasing local visibility and improving your SEO. Especially when considering that 56% of all local business owners don’t have an optimised Google Business Profile
Provided you have a Google Business Profile (You should), and as long as your details and information are correctly applied, it’s likely you’ll see an immediate increase in online traffic.
What About The Local and Online Competition?
Before localising your SEO campaign, as a regional business owner, it’s essential you analyse your competition and set out directives for what you aim to achieve by the end of your SEO campaign.
By assessing a competitor’s Google rank (and social media posts), you can judge what aspects of your campaign are likely to produce positive results and what aspects might struggle. Using specialised industry SEO tools, you’ll be able to improve your SEO, boost online visibility leading to an increase in custom and business revenue.
To paraphrase a well-known quote: ‘To beat the competition one must first become the competition.’
What Tools Will I Need To Enjoy The Benefits of Localised SEO?
It’s essential to make the most of your SEO budget and the best way to do this is keyword and data research. There are specialised analysis tools available to help however they’re costly to purchase and as all business owners are aware, every pound is a prisoner.
Some of the specialist analysis SEO tools available are Ahrefs, SEMrush, Brightlocal, free trials are available but will expire quickly.
What Factors of SEO Should I Focus On?
To guarantee your business takes full advantage of localised SEO keyword analysis, you’ll need to adjust your SEO campaign.
A typical SEO campaign will involve factors such as:
Keyword Search
PPC Analysis
Competitor Awareness
Backlinks
Keyword search difficulty
Competitor website accessibility
However, a localised SEO campaign will need to consider additional factors such as:
Optimising your Google Business Profile.
Assessing local business web links.
Quality and quantity – Volume and professionalism of searches.
For best results combine both localised and standard SEO factors.
Keyword Assessment
Identifying high-value keywords related to your business allows a better understanding of SEO data, as well as any local competitor’s SEO ranking.
When localising your SEO, in your search remember to include both target area and company relevance to the area. E.g ‘Best Butcher in Birmingham’, will help localise your SEO and is less likely to draw interest from people searching for a ‘Butcher in Edinburgh’.
For best results it’s beneficial to use an industry keyword research tool, however, a simple Google search can also provide a basic understanding of valuable keywords for quality SEO content.
Whether using a paid keyword tool or a Google search, the higher up the page, the more likely keywords will provide better results.
Using a paid keyword tool can provide better insight and offer additional details such as search volume and CPC, but again can prove costly to a local business owner.
If you’re using a trial version of a paid keyword tool, it might be worth recording your searches and closely related keywords, it will come in handy at a later date when the trial runs out.
If you’re using a keyword tool such as Ahrefs, the process couldn’t be simpler. Type the keywords and the tool will return a ‘keyword difficulty’ score. Ahrefs also provides an easy-to-understand diagram explaining keyword quality.
Ahrefs provides business owners with a limited but valuable ‘free keyword difficulty’ tool.
Whatever tool you decide to use, it’s worthwhile carrying out your own research, as searches can offer high ROI but return poor results when used as localised SEO.
Analyse your Online Competition
We touched on this earlier but it’s incredibly important as a small business owner to ensure you make the most of your SEO budget and properly assess your competition.
You can do this by checking:
How many backlinks does your competitor have?
Quality and quantity of content on their site.
Review competitor technical SEO.
Website accessibility.
Quality and Quantity of Content
When assessing competition look at the quality and quantity of their content, especially if they rank high on a keyword search. This will provide you with an understanding of what content is likely to work and what content doesn’t.
To compete and overtake your competitors you’ll effectively need to improve on what they’ve already produced, however, content assessment can help your online business, as you can use the previous content as research and build from it.
Reviewing Competitor Technical SEO
When competing with businesses in the local area, assessing on-page technical SEO can help you understand SEO and keyword rank.
On-page SEO can be a huge boost to your online visibility. Did you know that nearly 25% of small businesses have no H1 tag on their website? This easy-to-fix issue if left uncorrected will hinder SEO visibility.
It’s Essential You Modernise Your Website For Accessibility
As a business owner, the importance of having an accessible and easy-to-navigate website should never be underestimated. Google will likely demote your online rank regardless of high-value SEO if it considers your website hard to access or difficult for users to navigate.
Customer Reviews
Customer reviews can make or break your local reputation, whether it’s a Google Review, Yelp review, or a review via social media, replying to a review (good or bad) is essential. Customers wish to be heard online and rewarded for taking the time to leave a review, by responding to customers you build online rapport, improve online engagement, and as a result, Google rewards an increase in online interaction with a better SEO rank.
Citations
It’s important to ensure your business profile can be accessed across a variety of online websites (citations). Being visible and getting more positive reviews on Google, Yelp and other business review websites will boost your online profile. The more citations you have online, the better your online ranking.
When assessing your competitors, review their online citations, this gives you an idea of how many review websites your business should be on to compete with rivals and improve your online visibility.
Further Advice
Always be analysing your competitors, and assume they are analysing you. To stay ahead of your business rivals, compare and contrast tactics, content, websites, etc. Adapting quickly and updating your SEO regularly are both essential to ensuring greater online success.
Let ObenInc Help Your Business & Improve your SEO
At ObenInc, our team of experts has access to all leading industry SEO tools, years of experience and the knowledge and understanding to guarantee you take full advantage of localised SEO.
To find out how ObenInc can boost your business, improve your SEO, or if you would like a chat with one of our ObenInc SEO experts. Contact us here.
We look forward to hearing from you.
