Are you a local professional service provider? Whether you offering local construction services, local remodeling, local roofing, local tree removal, or other local professional services, today over 90% of your potential customers are looking for you online.
In this article we discuss tips for local seo marketing in your community.
1) Connect to social media sites
Ninety three percent 93% of consumers research products and brands online before purchasing. This means if they cannot find you online during their search process you might lose the sale completely. Ensure that all of your websites have links to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter immediately. Using these sites can also help provide valuable content that will boost local SEO ratings; useful articles tend to rank higher in local search results.
2) Utilize local business directories
This is not a new marketing strategy, but one that is still effective for local SEO marketing. There are multiple sites where you can register for free and submit your local contact information and services offered. In addition to creating your profile on the site, be sure you update it with fresh content to ensure that local search engines recognize it as being active and relevant. Some examples of these types of services include: Yelp Business Pages, Google Places Page, YellowPages.com, CitySearch Local Listings Directory, Manta local directory listings.
3) Outbound links should be regional or local in nature
If a website or online article has outbound links, ensure that you are linking to local sites whenever possible. For example, if an article is about the local area, use local sources for information or statistics instead of generalize information from a state or country wide source. This will give local search engines more reason to rank local key words higher in listings.
4) Use local directories when available
There are specialty directory sites out there that cater exclusively to your profession. These are great places to get listed and can go a long way towards improving local SEO marketing strategy. However, make sure they are reputable and credible before spending money with them. Some examples of these types of services include: Angie’s List for contractors, HomeAdvisor professionals offering home improvement services, Thumbtack local service providers. Finally, ensure the directory is local and not a national or worldwide directory since these types of directories will not help local SEO rankings.
5) Provide good content for local SEO marketing
Many local businesses fail to grasp the concept that content is king in local SEO marketing. Google and other search engines are looking for sites that display fresh relevant information on a consistent basis. This means that your website should be posting new articles at least once every 1-2 months. Furthermore, make sure each article contains local key words within the text as well as links back to your site whenever possible.
6) Optimize local websites with local keywords
People may start their search online but they generally end up picking a local business. It is important that local search results not only show local businesses, but local businesses who have optimized their website for local keywords. Make sure your local site displays local key words throughout the text of the site as well as including local directories and links back to your website.
7) Ensure all local listings are complete and consistent
Listings across multiple websites and directories ensure you will be found by more potential clients online. While it can be time consuming keeping all these sources current, it is worth the effort in the long run since they will increase your local SEO marketing efforts. In turn, this should lead to increased sales from new clients.
8) Ensure correct contact information on local web pages
You never know when a prospect will want to contact you or visit your local site. For this reason, it is critical that local search engines can find correct local contact information listed on your website. However, it is equally important that the contact information displayed is consistent across local directories and local sites where possible. Inconsistent local business directory listings will hurt local SEO marketing efforts rather than help them.
9) Utilize local SEO marketing tools
There are many online tools out there both paid and free that can help with SEO marketing for contractors. Some of these include local listing management websites like Whitespark Local Citation Finder or Moz Pro Campaigns which allow you to manage multiple local keywords in one place instead of spread across multiple directories and other sources.
These local SEO marketing tools can save you time and assist with local optimization. Furthermore, local listing management systems like Moz Pro Campaigns ensure all local listings are accurate since they check each local directory to make sure your local business is listed correctly.
10) Check local rankings through online tools
There are also many free online ranking sites available that provide insight into both how well your website is doing locally as well as where it ranks on a worldwide basis. Some examples include: Google Maps which provides local SEO reports based on key words used in search engine results for a given area. Bright Local which provides a good overall rank along with various case studies of other businesses yours may be similar too. Even if these types of services do not provide local SEO marketing insight, they are still good for increasing local rankings that should lead to more local sales.