Local Website Optimization
How To Create A Local SEO-Friendly Website
Local Website Optimization
Get Noticed, Generate Leads, & Grow Your Business
With local website optimization
Local website optimization involves tuning a website to maximize website traffic, lead generation and client conversions. Local search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the primary drivers of website traffic small businesses. Yet, it’s not always clear how to go about it in the most effective way.
Most small businesses face high online competition in their niche, and there are a lot of hurdles that business owners have to jump over in regard to marketing their business services online. The good news is that the essentials of local SEO-friendly website are fairly consistent across the board. A user-friendly local website targets the right local search terms for the services that the business offers. Local website optimization provides valuable content to prospective clients significantly satisfies their local search engine algorithms.
In this chapter of our Local SEO Guide, we’ll cover local website optimization to generate more traffic, leads, clients and revenue for your business.
The Importance of Local Website Optimization
As stated previously, local search engines are one of the main ways which people search for local services in their geographical area. As such, service-businesses that don’t have a strong local SEO strategy will struggle to be visible online and get found by prospective clients.
Web searchers use a variety of terms to find answers to their service-based questions, compare businesses, and eventually find contact information for the companies that they want to reach out to. Investing in local SEO will allow your small business to rank locally for the search queries that match your service offerings which significantly increase your lead generation
The benefits of having an SEO-Friendly local website
9 essential components of Local website optimization
Let’s look at the 9 essential components your local business website needs to rank at the top of your local organic search results.
Step One: Keyword Research
Keyword research is an essential component of your local SEO strategy. This is due to need of finding your most commercial keywords that, ideally, have a high search volume with low- to mid-competition to attract the right kind of potential clients to your website. High search volume and low-competition commercial search phrases are your golden keywords.
For local website optimization, matching your website content to your keywords is necessary to generate leads and to avoid attracting people who are not seeking your exact type of services. This typically occurs as a result of off-target keyword use.
Plan on targeting key terms that will attract the kind of people or businesses that you want to work with. Specify your targeted keywords related to your services. Avoid going overbroad. Targeting “plumber in [location]” is overbroad but targeting “emergency plumber in [location] [state]” will likely be more achievable because it is a long-tail keyword.
For more on local keywords, check out our related article in our Local SEO Guide.
Step Two: Local Website Design
For local website optimization, your website structure and ease of navigation play a major role in local SEO. Well-designed websites that load fast make it easier for visitors to find the information they seek. It also makes it easier for local search engines to crawl your website. Crawlability means that the search engines can figure out what your website is about and start ranking your web pages for your search terms.
Your business website should be built with local SEO from the start if you want it to dynamically generate leads. At a minimum, your website should have the following:
- Optimize your website’s load speed. Make sure your web pages and blog posts load fast. Check your website speed here.
- Use simple fonts, clear formatting and compressed images for fast loading and easy viewing by website visitors.
- Lay out your website content in a logical and helpful manner so that information can be easily retrieved.
- Add highlighted call-to-action that contrast with your color scheme to encourage contacting your business.
- Include internal links to other pages and posts on your website for additional optimization to highlight your more important pages and for visitors to be able to easily find additional resources on your website.
- Make sure that your contact forms work and do not lead to a 404 page.
- Make sure that you do not have any dead links. Test that all clickable links work.
Be sure to work with a reputable website designer/developer who is knowledgeable about local SEO best practices. You want to build a website that’s fast, user-friendly and highly functional for optimal local website optimization.
Step Three: Branding & Authority
Branding encompasses your colors, fonts and the messaging you use on your website. Your business needs distinctive branding to stand out. This means investing in a professional logo, an attractive website and styling your social media assets to match your branding.
You’ll want to decide what impression your branding should make to prospective clients. Your brand should should show your mission and unique selling proposition (USP).
Cohesive branding and messaging helps to set your business apart from your online competitors. It will also helps you build your reputation and authority. This generates goodwill for your business and earns authority-building backlinks to your website.
Step 4: Technical SEO
Technical SEO focuses on the technical back-end workings of your website to keep it running smoothly and available to be crawled by local search engines.
If your site is not structurally sound, it will be difficult to rank high. Additionally, website visitors will have a hard time navigating your website and get impatient with poor performance. You could have a beautiful website with the best branding, but if the technical part is underperforming, you will lose visitors and ranking potential. Don’t let that happen. The idea is to make it easy for your website visitors to navigate your site and not abandon it due to frustration.
Here are some basic tips regarding technical SEO:
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- Use a simple URL structure that is easy to read, such as mybusiness.com/services-we-provide rather than mybusiness,com/servicesweprovide.
- Fix pages that can not be found which are known as the error-code “404 pages”. Re-direct dead pages to live pages on your website using what is known as “301 redirects”.
- Submit your website sitemap to the search engines to improve crawlability.
- Enable SSL (https) NOT (http) so your website is secure for your website visitors.
- Assure your website is mobile-friendly by using a responsive theme for your website or having a dedicated mobile website.
- Set up Google Search Console and Google Analytics to track your website traffic.
Step Five: On-Page Optimization
Remember the local keyword research we did back in step #1? Now you will want to incorporate your local keywords into your website by matching it to the proper web pages. Ideally, you will want to use your targeted keywords all through your website to show website visitors and the local search engines what each web page is about.
Avoid over-doing it with keyword use which is known as keyword-stuffing. It comes across as spammy and does not read well. Focus a primary keyword for each specific page or post and then incorporate secondary keywords that are semantically related. Be sure to also use your primary keywords in URL, title tag, H1-H4 tags, and your text body content.
Be sure to add internal links to the relevant content on your website by using anchor text. Also add external links to reputable sources. Include high-quality images with your keyword in the alt text.
Find out more about Local On-Page SEO in our Local SEO Guide.
Step Six: Local Off-Page Optimization
Local off-page SEO refers to SEO efforts that takes place off of your website. For local optimization, business can increase their local search rankings by completing a Google Business Profile. Additionally, local business can get backlinks by submitting their business information to reputable directories like Bing Places, Yellow Pages, BBB, etc. These directories help your website get found by potential clients. They also send SEO-friendly trust signals to your website.
Getting favorable client reviews are a big plus for local businesses. Having a 5-star rating could be the pivoting factor that persuades a prospective client to hire your company. It’s always a good idea to expend the effort to get positive reviews on your Google Business Profile, in local directories, and on your social media accounts.
Finally, earning baclinks from reputable websites shows Google that your website can be trusted as a reliable source of information. You can earn backlinks through guest posting on industry-related blogs, getting featured in interviews, podcasts, local news sources, etc.
Reputation is everything, so the more platforms that mention your business as a reliable information source for your profession, the better for local website optimization. Be sure that your backlinks come from trustworthy, non-spammy websites.
Find out more about Local Off-Page SEO in our Local SEO Guide.
Step 7: Conversion Optimization
When it comes to local SEO, the end goal is leads and revenue. That’s why it’s important to consider conversion optimization when building your website. You want to build in conversion opportunities throughout your website to increase the chances of turning your website traffic into actual clients.
Here are some essential tips for optimizing your conversion rates:
- Use straightforward menu navigation.
- Add clear and specific call-to- action buttons.
- Include a Contact Us tab and phone number at the top of your website in the top-right corner.
- Link to all important pages from the main menu.
- Include contact forms throughout your website.
- Internally link new pages to relevant pages on your website.
- Showcase your client reviews.
- Provide website visitors with opportunities to opt into your newsletter, ebooks, or other freemiums.
- Consider using a website bot that welcomes visitors, answers frequently asked questions and directs visitors to your resources.
For great local website optimization, the conversion objective is to have multiple opportunities throughout your website where visitors can contact you directly. This is the best path to get visitors to become clients.
Be sure to include above-the-fold lead capture opportunities such as a form, phone number or welcome bot. Above the fold means what is visible before your web visitors begin scrolling down.
Find out more about generating and converting leads in our Local SEO Guide.
Step 8: Content Marketing
When it comes to writing content for your website and posting on your blog, you’ll want a multi- channel marketing strategy. This will help get the most value out of your content.
This means sharing your latest blog posts across all your social media accounts and your email list. You can also repurpose content as a Tik-Tok or YouTube video or reference it in your paid ads on search or social.
There are numerous methods for sharing your content to reach a wider audience. Publish content that’s of interest to your target audience and that is optimized for local search engines.
Find out more about local content marketing in our Local SEO Guide.
Step 9: Localize Your Website
Your website should be designed with location features prominently indicated throughout. In particular, you want to use your location in your on-page SEO, content and a dedicated location(s) page.
For good local website optimization, your location page should have the following elements:
- Business name, address and phone number
- Images of your business: Interior, Exterior, Locale
- Opening Hours
- Embedded Google Map
- Parking Information
- Links to your services
- Service area
- Manual driving instructions
- Links to your social media
- Links to your Google Business Profile.
The more information that you can put on your locations page(s) to anchor your website to your location, the better it is for your local search ranking results.
Get More Traffic & Leads Through Your Local Website Optimization
Most small businesses find they are in competitive niches. Understand that local website optimization is one of the best ways to drive more traffic and leads to your website. Consequently, it’s worth getting it right.
Small business website owners can see great results from their local SEO marketing efforts by focusing on the right target audience, following local SEO best practices, and working local search engine optimization into their broader marketing strategy.
There are additional details that you’ll need to consider when it comes to developing your local website optimization. Be sure to look to the additional resources linked throughout this Local SEO Guide.