You may be familiar with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as the practice of structuring a website’s content for the best possible search engine ranking, but are you familiar with local SEO? Local SEO is the most beneficial way to attract new business to your website because people typically use their mobile devices to search for businesses that are nearby. If you are not putting forth effort toward your local search results, you are most likely missing out on valuable new business opportunities.
Today, the majority of the US population owns smartphones, which means people have access to the internet everywhere they go. In fact, 78 percent of local searches are done on mobile devices. Most people who search for a service on their smartphone don’t know the name of the local business that they are looking for. That is why associating your website with strong keywords is imperative to attracting new business. So, when someone searches for a service in your area there is a greater possibility that they will find your website over a competitor’s. You can attract traffic from category-based searches by creating content that matches the relevant keywords.
One way to improve your local SEO is to create pages that describe the products and services that you offer and explain where you offer them. This means it is crucial to include the city and state in your page title and descriptions. Every page should also contain your business’s address and phone number. Google pulls the contact information on pages to make it easier for mobile device users to contact businesses. It also sends a strong message to Google that your business is relevant to the searcher’s query and location.
To provide an example, let’s suppose that you have an automotive business in Trenton, New Jersey. The title of your most important page title for local SEO purposes might contain “Trenton, NJ Mechanic” However, you can enhance your efforts by thinking of related keywords and writing articles for those as well. Think about some of the tasks that you typically perform or the problems that your customers often have, and you’ll come up with ideas. Here are a few article titles that might fit:
- Car repair destinations in Trenton, NJ
- Top Mechanics in Trenton, NJ
- Where to patch a tire in Trenton, NJ
As your keyword list grows, so will your traffic. These are a few of my favorite resources for boosting local SEO:
About Jesse Boskoff
Jesse Boskoff is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder at Status Labs, overseeing strategy for all of Status Labs’ robust digital campaigns. A decade-long veteran of understanding and working with search engines and search engine algorithms, Boskoff concocts the perfect blend of digital and traditional public relations solutions for each client based on specific need. As a direct result of Boskoff’s dynamic approach to designing customized online reputation solutions, Status Labs experienced a growth in revenue of 939% between 2012 and 2015. Previously, he served as Director of Marketing at FanDuel, where his advertising strategies were applauded in an article in Psychology Today.