1. Overview 
2. Content Structure
3. Keyword Research
4. On-Site SEO
5. Voice Search
6. Off-Site SEO
7. —>Local SEO<—

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Local SEO Guide for Small Business

How do small local businesses grow a loyal audience of local customers? How do you win conversions from travelers passing through your service area? The answer is Local SEO.

Search engines already benefit from intuitively providing answers nearby the user. When a user searches for “Phone repair shop” or “delivery pizza” or “skate park near me”, Google benefits when they click on the results. So the search engine’s AI is already looking to sort results by nearness to the user. But how do they know? Cloud servers make IP location a moot point. So it does what it does best: relies on keywords.

Local SEO optimizes for local keywords. Local keywords are the names of cities, regions, states, and individual neighborhoods near your business. Together, they form a geographical keyword cluster from areas often listed together. Geo-fencing, a advertisement targeting tool, is often used in tandem with local SEO strategy.

By naturally working in regional names within your service area, you can target local customers and ensure your business appears on “near me” relevant searches.

• Local SEO Essentials
• Learn Your Local Keywords
• Integrate Your Service Areas
• Get Involved with the Community
• Tailor Your Content for Regional Tips

Local SEO Essentials

Local SEO is simple in concept; mention your regions and neighborhoods. This makes it easy to implement in a wide variety of ways. Consider how to organically work in mentions of your service areas throughout website content

Name Your Location

Pick your primary location keyword. This is likely your city or metropolitan region to help locals find you based on their usual search criteria to find a local business. 

Service Area List and Pages

Create a page or homepage section of your website where your service areas are listed. Include every city that your service area overlaps and regional names for areas between cities. If you serve specific or prominent neighborhoods, they may also rate a mention. Bullet-point service area lists are useful to clients who are ready to convert and are checking your availability.

Footer Site Map Design

A service area list in your footer design is also a good plan. This works best for shorter lists of eight or fewer service area keywords, and gives readers a quick idea of whether they are inside the sphere.

Integrate Location Into Content

Try to mention at least one or two of your local SEO keywords on every page. Some pages may be rich with SEO keywords because they are written about the region or projects that took place nearby. Local SEO can be smoothly worked into most pages by simply speaking in the voice and perspective of a local business and using local examples.

Pro Tip: Inclusive vs Exclusive Local Seo

When working local SEO keywords into your pages, remember to use inclusive language, not exclusive. The best way to powder coat a lawn chair in Evanston is the same way as in Naperville, or in Miami. So dropping locational keywords on broad concepts can feel strangely insular. Instead, use your region for examples and local favorites while speaking inclusively on broader topics and professional advice.

Learn Your Local Keywords

• Every City In your Service Area
  • List every city, village, and community in your service area.
  • Mark every cluster of people on the map and the name of that grouping.
• Regional and Colloquial Names
  • Examples: “The Metroplex” “Coastal Carolinas” or “Tri-State Area”
  • Local names for your region that may not be on the official map, but most of your customers probably use
• Zoom In on the Map
  • Zoom in to see the names of local neighborhoods
  • Define real estate and demand regions that have unique names
• Local Attractions and Festivals
  • If your business is near an attraction, use it as a local keyword
  • Use local events and festivals as keywords to target tourists and celebrants

Integrate Your Service Areas

Work a few of your local SEO keywords into most of the website pages. For local businesses, this is a simple matter of sharing service area and relevancy for the readers. You can make your content more relatable from local to local, share a few specific details about past projects, and proudly state the bredth of your positive impact.

Seeding Content with Local SEO

Most small business marketing teams start local SEO by massaging a few local keywords into the main pages. This is easy to do by identifying your primary local keywords and using them in headers. If you are a roofer in Denver, that’s a valuable local SEO keyword, and can become the base of your long-tail strategy.

Tag Project Galleries by Neighborhood

Many businesses showcase past work through testimonials, stories, or project galleries. Simply drop one or two local keywords with each one – not enough to reveal your client’s address, but enough to catch the interest of their neighbors who may have similar tastes.

Service Area Specific Content

Create service area pages specific to the cities or regions you serve. Then write content targeted directly to them. You might provide significantly differing tips if your service area overlaps a waterside community versus a downtown neighborhood. You can then use these targeted areas as the foundation for local blog series that are comfortably packed with local SEO keywords.

Niche Neighborhood Services

Do you have neighborhoods with specific needs? A builder who serves HOAs and condos, for example, might advertise being compliant with specific association regulations.

Get Involved with the Community

One of the best ways to add highly targeted and readable local SEO to your website is to blog about the community. Local events and groups provide an opportunity to get involved and weave your brand together with the populations you serve.

For small businesses, you can get started simply by sharing news about community events, local achievements, and spotlighting local complementary businesses. As you gain momentum, start hosting local groups, opening booths at festivals, and signing up as a vendor at community events. Then broadcast blogs, videos, and news release each rich with local SEO locations and valuable content for your readers.

Tailor Your Content for Regional Tips

Lastly, apply your local-to-local expertise. Draw on the knowledge of your on-staff experts to create tips that apply directly to your customer base. Know when to release maintenance and storm repair articles based on the local storm season. Give winter and summer tips based on the local climate, not just generalized trends. Mention traffic arteries and shortcuts relevant only to those that commute in your area.

Regional tips are interesting, immersive, and give your brand a local authenticity that most other copy will lack.

A Complete Guide to SEO Strategy for Small Businesses

If you are a small business looking to build or improve your approach to SEO, we have arranged this guide to provide the foundations for every strategy and toolkit you may choose to implement. Every brand is unique. Your keywords, the language you use, and the type of content you create will be shaped by those unique factors. But the methods of building awareness and working in harmony with search engine algorithms is univerasl.

SEO is something that any brand can do, big or small, and knowing your audience will always give you a head start. To expand your small business SEO strategy, Restart Marketing LLCis here to help you analyze the full scope of your SEO and optimize your online presence. Contact us today to schedule an initial SEO consultation.

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