3 Overlooked Ways to Improve Your Local SEO

Not Showing Up Well Locally? Don’t Ignore Local SEO

The key to marketing is pretty simple – in theory: Get in front of your audience when your audience is trying to find you or what you have to offer.

This concept is particularly important at the local level, where your closest competitors are rubbing elbows with you – and your prospects.

That’s why marketers and online retailers focus on producing quality content; they want to stand out among their competitors and prove to their prospects that they’re the best of the best.

But all that great content you produce is for naught if your audience:

• Isn’t using your targeted key terms in their search
• Isn’t interested in that content

On the other hand, producing quality content that your audience is thirsting for can rank you higher for searched keywords; it can generate linkable content; and it can increase your traffic and … drumroll please … conversions!

So what can you do to get inside the mindset of your local prospects so you know what type of content to produce, as well as where and when to publish it?

These three strategies should do the trick.

Research Your Competitors

Competitive analysis will let you see the areas where your competitors reign supreme. Armed with this knowledge, you can set a strategy to directly compete with them on local industry-related sites that you’ve been overlooking.

Get Personal With Your Content

These days, getting personal is what it’s all about, but you don’t need deep pockets or huge teams to make it happen.

Through email marketing and proper list management, you can, for example, target your audience based on geographical location.

For instance, let’s say that you have subscribers in the Northeast, and New England just endured a massive blizzard. Using your segmented list, you can send an email out to your Northeast audience that pushes your product or service, with a wintery theme.

If you sell swimwear, you could get cheeky, such as:

“Yeah, the weather outside might be frightful now, but you know that snow will eventually melt. Start thinking summer NOW. Check out our latest line.”

Consumers love this type of content, because they not only get a good laugh, but they feel like the brand (you) is speaking directly to them.

Check Out That Low-Hanging Fruit

Everyone thinks big when they think “SEO.” While we encourage you to reach for the stars, we’d be failing you if we didn’t point out all of the closer-to-home opportunities out there that you can pursue that’ll give you fast results.

For example, local citation sites (YellowPages.com, Yelp.com) often rank above a local business. Optimize your listings on these sites, which might require you to make a phone call to claim the page.

You might want to make sure you’re not suffering from duplicate listings, as well. These duplicate listings can cannibalize your SEO efforts.

Also, ramp up your review efforts. We suggest creating an email template that invites your best customers to review your business and service on Google.

For The Best Results, Combine These Strategies

One of the keys to targeting your local customers is through a comprehensive content strategy. For the best results, combine each of these tactics above to see your local rankings rise.

And when in doubt, reach out to the OperationROI team. We can help you improve your local SEO efforts while maximizing your return on investment. Call us at 1-888-277-5429 or fill out our contact form to learn more.