Effective location-based SEO, commonly known as local SEO, can significantly influence the success of your digital marketing, akin to any other essential marketing strategy. For businesses with physical locations, or those with multiple premises to optimize, the importance of conquering the local online space cannot be emphasized enough. This also holds true for companies operating and providing services within specific geographic areas crucial for their revenue and other success metrics.
There are various misconceptions about local SEO, such as the belief that it is only for small businesses or that it limits overall online visibility. When considering outsourcing your local SEO, it’s crucial to ensure that your agency’s offerings align with your local SEO goals.
This article aims to help in this regard.
SEO Agency Fundamentals
Whether you’re seeking local SEO services or broader enterprise-level SEO solutions, any reputable and successful search marketing agency should provide the fundamental services expected of specialists in the field. Typically, these include:
- A clear set of objectives tailored to your immediate, medium, and long-term needs.
- An action plan that highlights priorities and sets key milestones.
- Access to data and development of a larger data ecosystem for insights and decision-making.
- Agreed and consistent communication methods, reporting on progress, and clarifying what is being delivered in exchange for your investment.
- Continuous improvement through the application of expertise and evidence-based decision-making.
- Direct access to key staff who are working to achieve your local SEO objectives.
- Ongoing, relevant support and feedback to enable agile responses and capitalize on new opportunities.
- Effective customer care to facilitate collaboration or full outsourcing, depending on the client’s needs.
Additional priorities specific to your business circumstances and areas of value can be incorporated into these agency expectations. It’s advisable to avoid setting your sights solely on a specific set of localized SEO keywords. These might be the few you track weekly, but a narrow focus on them should not limit your strategy.
Instead, consider what you hope to achieve from these terms and your broader local SEO success. Numerous relevant search queries may be just as effective, with many new and unique ones emerging daily. Don’t overlook their potential value by concentrating on just a few terms.
If it’s helpful, shift focus from individual keywords to broader topics. This can provide a more valuable measure of local SEO progress.
Strong Technical Performance
No matter your local SEO objectives, every local SEO strategy should consider the website’s overall health, user experience, and technical performance. In the realm of local SEO, this often includes addressing aspects like:
- Broken links and content.
- Duplicate, missing, and non-optimized metadata.
- Slow loading times.
- Crawling and indexation of core content.
- Duplicate content.
- Thin content pages, redirects, and soft 404s.
Emphasize the following too:
- User experience, including Core Web Vitals.
- Mobile-friendliness.
- Trust/HTTPS.
Incorporate broader considerations commonly associated with larger entities and brands, like intuitive site architecture. Simplifying the digital journey to allow the user to reach their destination efficiently is essential, following principles of conversion rate optimization.
Evidence-Driven Content
Simply offering expert opinions and localized content won’t suffice for a strong local SEO presence. Successful local SEO campaigns should leverage data-driven (evidence-backed) content with quality and volume greater than what you might expect from traditional local SEO campaigns.
The writing of content can either be handled internally or delegated to a marketing agency. However, regardless of approach, it’s vital to combine data, local SEO expertise, and your distinctive industry insights. This strategy provides a competitive edge, allowing you to consistently produce exceptional content that holds value within the local market and also contributes to broader brand and authority building.
An agency should lead the local SEO content strategy, offering ongoing recommendations using all relevant data to justify the priority, focus, and expected impact of content creation.
Content should capitalize on existing site content metrics and successes, with a continuous eye on new opportunities. It should also align with a diverse range of user intents, focusing on actual values and traversing the information seeking and buying cycle. While this would lean towards local SEO, it doesn’t limit the potential impact.
Important business topics often have broader appeal, allowing businesses to build site trust, acquire backlinks, and increase perceived relevancy beyond just the local demographic.
Local Authority and Trust Building
Building local authority is a fundamental aspect of local SEO, essential for gaining traction in your online niche. Consistent strategies include:
- Local brand building through PR and media publications.
- Using business directories relevant to both local and regional aspects.
- Mentions of the brand and key staff in community and business forums.
- Supporting local events and utilizing expertise and resources.
- Promotion and placement of both local and topical content.
Beyond citations and link-building, deeper expertise, authority, and trust signals play a key role. This includes managing and optimizing reviews and engagement through Google Business Profiles and similar platforms.
Proactively seeking positive reviews as part of a cohesive business and agency focus, including localized reviews, accelerates the improvement of perceived online authority and local SEO outcomes.
Content and Social Media
To truly integrate your website and brand within local communities, collaboration with your agency can bolster your efforts. This might involve establishing local content hubs, providing community resources and tools, and leveraging local user-generated content.
This approach naturally ties into social media interactions, promoting engagement and audience building. Understanding the needs, preferences, and challenges of your audience is crucial in demonstrating how your brand, services, and products positively impact them.
In Summary
Businesses have varied demands for local SEO and the expected outcomes from an agency. These vary based on previous experiences and learned lessons. However, several standard expectations, as mentioned above, should always be considered.
Additional Resources:
- 12 Questions to Ask When Hiring a Local SEO Agency
- 5 Key On-Page Optimizations For Local Organic SEO
- Local SEO: The Definitive Guide To Improve Your Local Search Rankings
Featured Image: Vector_Bird/Shutterstock
