If you want to target local users for your online business then SEO will be a part of making that happen and by incorporating the following steps, you will be able to get more visibility from your local customers.
Local SEO involves convincing the search engines’ robots that your site contains relevant information and will best suit the needs of your users from a specific location who might be looking for the same products or services that you are offering. Local SEO acts like signposts for the robots to understand you in a better way. It allows your site to get a better ranking for the keywords entered by the users.
On technical terms, your site needs to implement best practices to be found by crawlers. But, you will need to go deep to target local audience.
1. Titles
Title is a mandatory element for any webpage as it defines the particular page. There are some tricks to create the title as well. Consider the following to get more local followers:
* The brand name should appear within the title.
* Include the major keyword into title of the page.
* Mention your location and the area of your operations.
And all of that should be done in 70 characters.
2. Meta Description Tags
It is necessary for all the pages associated with a website to have a meta description. It gives the search engines’ crawlers a more clear idea about the page and also appears in the search results as a snippet to lure the users to take action by clicking on your page. The following steps should be implemented while creating a meta description.
* Include your brand name.
* Include significant information on what the web page contains.
* Insert your targeted keywords.
* Enter the details of your location
Make sure you don’t over-stuff the meta descriptions with keywords, as it may appear spammy. The meta description should not be more than 155 characters so as to fit the search results space.
3. Schema
Major search engines, namely Yahoo, Bing, Google and others, rely on structured data for presenting optimum results. These search engines endorse Schema as a proper markup language for their robots. Search engines sense out your data with the help of Schema. The data will appear the user in the manner as you want it to appear, however it will provide all the important data to the search bot.
4. Content in your Site
Just add the location of your business where it naturally fits instead of stuffing the name of the targeted area in the content of the pages. You should enter the location appropriately to attract local visitors. The location that you enter should be used just as you use the keywords, so that it is not considered ‘stuffing’, but also ensures that the page is relevant to the location.
5. Geographic Targeting
There are some basic things that you could do if you want to target a specific country. For example, you could use the webmasters tools to change the preferred geographic location.
6. Maps on your Website
Embedding your business’ address map Google Maps on your “Contact Us” page is one more way to help the user in tracking you and help your Local SEO campaign! The map will describe the location and will help users find the business address in case they want to pay a visit.
7. Review Sites
A presence on review sites like qype and tipped serves as more for your location relevance through the links and information given in the profile. They also help users in propagating your business if they are satisfied. Positive reviews by existing customers will attract more new customers when they read the reviews online.
These, according to me, are the best elements to be considered for your local SEO campaign. In addition to these, there are many other things which you could incorporate into the same. Please feel free to mention the same in the box below.
