What Is a Local SEO Campaign?
Local SEO (or search engine optimization) refers to improving local businesses’ visibility in search engines like Google. Local SEO campaigns are critical for smaller businesses with brick-and-mortar locations because it can be challenging for local businesses to get online visibility when there are so many larger corporations monopolizing the internet. But, with a dedicated local SEO campaign, smaller businesses can more effectively reach their communities and position their products and services to local customers.
How Can Local SEO Boost Organic Traffic for Your Business?
Before explaining how local online marketing can help your business, you need to understand that local SEO is not necessary for all types of businesses. Online businesses will not need to advertise to a local crowd. Additionally, large businesses can avoid local SEO as well if they are well-known. So, if local SEO is not always essential, why do you need it?
As a smaller business servicing a specific geographic area (or a collection of regions), you need a way to reach the people in your area. When people look online for solutions to their problems, they often type in the city or county they are in. Or, they simply add “near me” to the end of their search. This is where you need your business to pop up.
The unfortunate truth is if your business does not show up in these local searches, it will be challenging to compete with more prominent name brands that offer the same services or products for that much-needed organic traffic.
You need to harness local SEO strategies and local listing management when making your online presence if you really want to stay ahead of larger, more imposing local competition.
Local SEO Strategies to Implement Today
Now that you know why your business needs a local SEO campaign, you may wonder how to start implementing local online marketing. Here we will dive into a few tips and tricks for local online advertising to help you reach your customers and grow your audience.
Optimize Your Google My Business Profile
If you still need to set up a Google My Business (GMB) profile, do it now. According to statistics from 2022, Google processes over 8.5 billion searches daily. For reference, there are only around 8 billion people on the planet today, and not all of them have computers, smartphones, or ways to do online searches.
Because Google processes such a high volume of searches, making sure your business is easily accessible on the search engine is essential. An added advantage of putting your business on GMB is that Google loves to share its own content. This means you can ensure that your business’s profile will not get buried under your competitors. To optimize your GMB profile for local SEO, you should:
- Create a Google My Business page
- Encourage your customers to share reviews online
- Make Google Posts on your page
- Set up automatic responses to reviews. Make sure that these responses include your business’s location and your company’s full name.
Stay Active on Social Media and GMB
Social media is more critical now than it has been before. Because of this, Google treats shared content on social media as important content. So, make posts on your socials, share your Google My Business page, and continue aligning your socials and your online search.
Do a Local SEO Audit
SEO of any kind is a constant process. The strategies are constantly changing, and you’ll need to audit your content regularly to keep up with them. Luckily, there are several auditing and SEO improvement methods, including working with SEO and advertising agencies like Bloom Ads. One of the most significant benefits of getting the help of SEO professionals is that you get personalized and specific recommendations and strategies to help improve your local SEO on an ongoing basis.
Create Local Content
Use geo-specific keywords in your content. For example, talk about local news, events, or locations in the community. Maybe you can create location-specific pages on your website if you have multiple sites or service areas. See what partnerships or volunteer opportunities you can set up with other local businesses. For example, guest posting or interviewing can be a great way to get valuable backlinks and establish your business as part of the community. The more you can create community and location-specific content for your business, the more your website will appear in local searches.
Optimize Your Website for Voice Search and Mobile
So many people use their smartphones to find information. Ensuring that your website is optimized for mobile viewing is critical if you do not want to miss out on this huge audience. Similarly, as voice searching options become more advanced, many people also opt for this type of searching. To optimize for voice searches, you’ll want to ensure that you include question-word and long-tail keywords in your content.
Bring In The Reviews
More specifically, good reviews. The more good reviews you can get on your GMB page, the better. Reviews are a significant ranking factor for Google as a factor of local listing management because it shows the search engine that your customers value your services and products. So, this should be one of your top goals.
Responding politely to negative reviews is also essential to community participation. While negative reviews are no fun, they allow you to connect with the individual and improve your customer service, product, or anything else that led to the review.
Be a Part of Your Community
The more you participate in your community, the more your community will recognize and identify with your brand. Digital PR is essential to expand your reach and bring in new customers. Try partnering with a local non-profit, hosting an event (even an online one), or appearing as an authority in your industry on a local media site.
Start Your Local SEO Campaign With Bloom Ads
Even with all of the tips mentioned above, local online marketing management is challenging work and can be incredibly time-consuming and intimidating to do on your own. But luckily, you do not have to handle all this work alone. Bloom Ads can help you manage and optimize your SEO so you can spend more time connecting with your community.
At Bloom Ads, we understand that no two businesses are the same, and so we offer each of our clients the personalized SEO assistance they need — never a “one size fits all” solution. If you are ready to start working on your local SEO and reaching more customers, contact us today!