7 On-Page SEO Tips to Help You Reach a Local Audience

Small Local BusinessPromoting a local small business online can be a challenging task. If you don’t employ the proper optimization techniques, many of the visitors that make it to your site will not be located anywhere near your company’s operating region, so you’ll be wasting your advertising budget, time, and effort. Fortunately, with the right advice, it is relatively easy to attract a targeted local audience on a regular basis. Consider the following 7 on-page SEO tips to help you reach a local audience:

7 On-Page SEO tips to reach a local audience:

Use a ccTLD Domain

If your company operates nationwide and you want most of your visitors to originate within your country, consider using a country code top-level domain (ccTLD). These domain names contain extensions such as .us, .co.uk, and .com.au, which specify the country in which the website’s business is conducted. Using a ccTLD domain is particularly useful if you’re operating in a country outside of the U.S., as it will help you target people using foreign versions of Google. However, if you’re located within the U.S., or would like to target international audiences, registering a .com, .net, or .org domain extension would preferable.

Target Regional Keywords

Perhaps the most efficient way to attract visitors that live in your area is to target keywords that people would likely use to find products/services in your area. For example, if you own a real estate company in Los Angeles, you could develop content that targets the keywords: “real estate agents in Los Angeles,” “cheap realty in L.A.,” or “commercial properties in Los Angeles.” You may also want to register a domain name that contains such keywords in order to improve your chances of obtaining high rankings faster. You can use keyword research tools Like the Google Keyword Tool to find the most commonly searched for, yet least competitive terms in your niche.

Link to your Yelp Profile and Vice Versa

Yelp is a well-known online business directory that lets companies post profiles, and let’s consumer post their opinions, ratings, and reviews. Creating a Yelp profile is a good way to increase trust and spread awareness about the reputability of your company. Once you’ve created a profile, you can link to it on your websites and encourage your current clients/customers to leave a review. You could even provide a discount incentive in exchange for doing so. Aside from Yep, there are many other similar business directories online that you could sign up for. Once you have a significant amount of reviews posted online you can link to them all on a page on your site that you could call “See Our Feedback and Reviews.”

Create a Local Listing in Google Maps/Places and Embed Maps on your Pages

Google Maps ExampleWhen someone searches for a local term, like those mentioned above, they’ll usually be greeted with a few Google Maps or Google Places entries at the top of the search results. Adding your company’s description, location, and contact details to these databases will greatly increase the number of local visitors you receive. Once your listing is active, you can embed a Google Places map on your site’s pages to help visitors find you. Many people also use Google Places to quickly find local solutions using the built-in capabilities of their smartphones or GPS navigators. By making the location of your company clear and specifying your operating area you can effectively filter out unwanted international traffic.

 Encourage Commenting and/or Create a Forum

You can gain a lot of free, keyword-rich content on your pages by simply encouraging your visitors to provide their opinions and input in a comments section. A good way to do this is to ask a genuine question at the end of each post, or use a poll to motivate people to respond. An extremely effective way to gain local notoriety is to integrate Facebook commenting into your web pages. This way, when someone comments on your post all of their friends will see it, providing an indirect form of local viral marketing with minimal effort on your behalf. Another good way to add locally-targeted content to your site is to create a forum section that allows your clients and prospects to discuss your products/service openly. Creating a forum is a great way to gain a large number of positions in the SERPs (search engine results pages) because people tend to use these platforms to ask and answer keyword-related questions.

Create a Well-Optimized “About Us” Page

This is one of the most important on-page SEO tips to follow. The “About Us” page on your site should provide a brief history of your company, your core values/business goals, information about the products/services you provide, and contact details. However, when developing the content for this page it is also imperative to keep the most important local keywords in mind, to increase the chances of attracting potential prospects. The “About Us” page will be representative of your business, and should therefore contain flawless content that is informative and interesting. You may also want to add a Google Places map to your “About Us” page to make it easier for people to find directions to your company relative to their location.

Exchange Banner Ad Space or Links with Other Local Business Sites

It’s not uncommon for local small businesses to refer customers to each other, so why wouldn’t you want to do the same online? A great way to attract local prospects is to network with other companies in your region that have a potentially lucrative client-base for your company. For example, to get more clients for your real estate agency you could offer to place a banner ad for a local attorney’s office on your site, in exchange for them doing the same. This would put an advertisement for your business on another local business site and help you gain exponential exposure through other successful companies in your region. Alternatively, you could offer other business owners/employees commissions for referring their clients to your web site.

Bonus Tip: Geo-Targeting Analysis

Geo TargetingTo measure how many local visitors you’re getting you may want to utilize geo-targeting scripts that allow you to see where your visitors are located (the general region).

 

 

 

Follow these on-page SEO tips and it will definitely help in increasing the page ranking with ease.

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