Developing a Successful SEO Strategy for a Local Business Website

When it comes to attempting to establish an online presence for a local business, utilising marketing facets such as SEO and social media is equally important. Just because you rely primarily on local traffic, whereas most online businesses rely on global or national traffic, doesn’t mean you can’t reach out to small, targeted audiences.

With the right SEO and link building strategy, you can reach your ideal customers.

However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution; having an effective strategy will entail leveraging amazing content, fine-tuning your on-page factors, engaging with your customers on social media, and so on.

Continue reading to find out how all of the puzzle pieces fit together…

Table of Contents

• Keyword Research
• On-Page Factors
• Funnelling Customer Reviews
• Creating amazing content
• Building Links – the game changer
• How do you build links?
• Conclusion

Keyword Research

The first step in determining how to reach your target audience is to understand what people will be searching for.

Google does use localised search results to show the most relevant businesses for the user based on their actual location – but you still need to know what phrases they’re typing into the search bar. Whether it’s “plumber in London,” “electrician in Manchester,” or whatever it is for your company. To find these broad keywords and any other related or long tail keywords, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner or the Keywords Everywhere plugin.

On-Page Factors

As a result, when it comes to SEO, this is everyone’s first point of contact.

And the majority of site owners are correct in prioritising this section. After all, the only way for search engines like Google to determine what you should rank for is to examine what is actually on your website.

So I won’t go into excruciating detail on this area, but if you can get the basics right, that will leave most bases covered.

So that will involve:

• Ensure that your website contains pages that target your most valuable local keywords – this is where your keyword research will pay off.
• Use the keywords on those pages, making sure to include them in the Meta tags, titles, and content.
• You may need to use a silo site structure in some cases, interlinking your hub pages (the pages that target your keywords) to your content pages (more on this later). This ensures that any authority that comes into the site is distributed evenly across the board, and that no pages are overlooked.

However, I see a lot of people overcomplicating (or even overdoing) this part. Don’t make the mistake of over-optimising this section, or over-stuffing pages with keywords, or attempting to target hundreds of keywords – this can often have the opposite effect of what you’re aiming for.

Funnelling Customer Reviews

If you can accumulate positive customer reviews – whether on Google, TripAdvisor, Yelp, or any other platform – it will only increase your trust and reputation.

Sites like Yelp will also allow you to have a page on their site that will:

1. Give you a no-follow link (no SEO benefit, but will funnel a bit of direct traffic your way)
2. This page could be used to promote special offers or discounts.
3. You can also link to your company’s social media accounts from here, giving potential customers another way to follow and interact with your company.

Creating amazing content

This is an often overlooked aspect of online marketing for probably more than 90% of businesses– but if you want to create a truly effective, white hat SEO strategy, it is a must!

Create content that is useful to your audience – and once you’ve done so, keep it up!

And by useful content, I mean anything that your target audience would find extremely informative, funny, cool, interesting, or unique. It could also take various forms, such as articles, videos, podcasts, infographics, or whatever format is most appropriate.

There are no hard and fast rules for getting this part right, and not every piece of content you create will be well received by your target audience.

But a few methods you can use to inspire you and create content ideas:

• Examine competitors or similar companies in other major cities.
• See what the most shared content in your industry is talking about using a tool like Buzzsumo or Ahrefs Content Explorer.
• Investigate popular industry forums to learn about the types of questions people ask and the specific pain points they face.
• Conduct surveys with your customers to learn what kinds of things they are interested in or have questions about.

The most important thing is to ensure that it is truly valuable content that people will actively read and engage with. If the content is something you would enjoy reading, you know you’re on to a winner. However, if you start creating boring content, filler content to target specific keywords, or are just going through the motions, you may be creating content that isn’t going to hit the mark.

There will never be a point where you have “completed your content.” It will be a matter of constantly coming up with new ideas, being innovative, engaging with your audience, and keeping your website fresh and up to date.

But you’re correct in asking, “What’s the point of creating all this content if there’s no traffic?”

That is the next part of the strategy, and it will assist you in capitalising on your content as well as all of the other aspects of the strategy.

Building Links – the game changer

Once you’ve completed the foundations of your website, targeted your keywords, and established a solid content plan, the next step is to link to other websites that are related or adjacent to your website and its content.

Because link building is such an important ranking factor, you should use it.

Gone are the days when all you had to do was put up a website, tweak the on-page factors, and you’d be near the top of the search results. Because most business owners are becoming more knowledgeable about SEO and online marketing, you must advance to beat the competition. And the next level is to consider your off-page factors (i.e. link building.)

There are 3 main benefits of building links, which are:

1. Increasing direct referral traffic from the site to yours. The more relevant the traffic, the more likely they will convert into customers.
2. Traffic from organic search engines. Links are treated as “votes” by search engines such as Google. The more of these links they see, the higher the value they place on the site that is linked to. And if you’ve been effectively targeting local keywords, this should mean you’ll start to rank even higher and drive some local search traffic to your site.
3. Brand awareness – this will come into play as you begin to be featured or linked to on more and more websites.

How do you build links?

So the most efficient way to accomplish this is to use personalised and highly targeted email outreach.

Once you’ve decided on the type of content you’ll create, it’ll be a case of then and there.

1. Identifying other websites that are related to the content subject and may be discussing similar topics.
2. Approach them and ask if they’d be willing to link to your content from theirs.
3. Follow up with them a few times (but not too many!) Unless you receive a rejection or a link.

If you do this correctly, you should get a link in at least 5% of the cases.

All factors influence link building, including content quality, targeting the right sites, and having the right approach when contacting them. However, if you get the content wrong, it will be nearly impossible to build any links, regardless of how brilliant your approach or targeting is.

And when it comes to finding places to get links from, here are some ideas.

• Local newspapers – There is a lot of local traffic on here, which could be beneficial to brand awareness. If there is a specific journalist who writes about your subject or industry, contact them first.
• Local bloggers and influencers in your area could drive a significant amount of traffic, whether through a link or feature on their blog or through social media. You may be required to make a value exchange, such as paying a sponsored fee, providing free product, or promoting them on your own social media.
• Other local businesses that are vertically relevant (i.e. related but not doing exactly what you’re doing), such as an immigration law firm linking to a compensation claims law firm.
• Local establishments where you can create bridging content That is, they appear unrelated, but with the right content and angle, they could be related. Consider an immigration law firm receiving a link from a local travel/tourism blog that contains a piece of content about visa applications.

Conclusion

This is only a taste of the entire process, but it should provide a solid foundation for you to build on.

The key takeaways from this are as follows:

• Making certain that you have the fundamental on-page elements in place.
• Taking advantage of as many of your local reviews as possible.
• Creating content that piques your potential customers’ interest and engages them.
• And building links to drive direct traffic as well as improve your ranking (to drive even more local traffic.)

Another thing to remember (and one that I believe most business owners overlook) is to enjoy the process!

Creating amazing content entails doing so with drive and passion. Adding value to the lives of those around you. And once your brand has earned this level of trust and respect by reaching out to other businesses, bloggers, or trusted authorities, you will begin to see incredible results!