So, you’re looking to target local search engine users and boost your visibility in Google searches focused on your local area? Great choice. Local SEO is a very valuable and rewarding task to tackle. While the overall audience is a lot smaller than the inter-continental SEO the large enterprises are deploying, it’s also a lot more relevant. If you can get your site into one of the top spots on relevant, localised searches, you’re doing a lot right.
There’s a lot you need to understand about getting good results from local SEO. For starters, you need to ensure that your website design is in tip-top condition. A website that is slow to load, unpromising to first-time visitors, and tricky to navigate will find it harder and harder to maintain its position on relevant search results pages, let alone improve it.
What’s more, you need to be willing to invest. SEO promises a high ROI, but remember that the ‘I’ always comes before the ‘R’.
Here are three more things you need to know.
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Localised keywords are highly valuable
When a business is totally new to the concept of SEO and using content to target Google’s very complex algorithm, it’s almost inevitable that they set their sights a little too high. At the top of any list of keywords, there will be the most valuable terms – keywords that are likely being targeted by businesses based all over the UK, if not beyond.
High-competition keywords are competitive for one big reason: if you can do it better than your competitors, there’s a huge payoff. These keywords tend to see the highest volume of search traffic. There are plenty of guides to ranking for high-competition keywords, although it’s never as simple as it sounds.
And, besides, competing against the big players isn’t the most productive thing smaller, localised businesses can do. While you don’t want to flip the keyword list upside down and target the lowest-competition options (because that would be a bit of a waste of time), you do want to focus your efforts, resources, and attention on keywords that fall somewhere between the two extremes.
Localised keywords in particular are hugely valuable. They target your primary audience, and they’re more specific to your niche – and, as a result, better for delivering tangible results.
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It Takes Time
SEO isn’t a quick fix to issues with low site traffic or poor visibility on search engines. Even some of the biggest names out there are working steadily away at their SEO, ensuring they are gradually improving their visibility in relevant Google searches instead of stagnating – or, worse still, slipping backwards.
There’s a lot about Google’s algorithm that remains behind closed doors, but we do know that everything is pointed toward ensuring that users are given the most reliable and highest quality resources on the web (along with the most relevant to their searches).
The act of becoming an esteemed, quality resource takes time in and of itself, as does boosting your use of relevant keywords and growing your visibility in local markets.
It’s no good taking a haphazard or scattergun approach to SEO. Slow and steady wins the race, just as consistency will always trump unpredictability.
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You’ll need plenty of top-tier content
You’ve probably heard it said that content is king when it comes to SEO. In fact, you’ve probably heard that said a lot, even if you’re still only dipping your toe in the SEO waters for your business.
Again, this all comes back to the same key priority Google (and internet users themselves) attribute to high quality resources. Whatever industry you’re involved with, your ability to create content that affirms your expertise and practical understanding of customer wants and needs will largely determine your success on the search engine results page.
From your blog posts to your static content – along with the content you create for product ‘How To’ videos, the user-generated content you gather to showcase your positive impact, product images and infographics, to name just a few – will have a major bearing on your performance from an SEO perspective. Combine that with your posts to social media, your ad campaigns, and your marketing emails, and it’s not hard to see why content is still sitting on that throne.
It can feel like a pretty open-ended question – how much content does your website need? Remember that, while having a website brimming with content is a great thing, quality will always win out against quantity in the long run. Don’t sacrifice your own standards for the sake of tripling the number of words on your site.
