Your Comprehensive Guide to Local SEO
If your main target audience is in your local area, then you’ll want to appear higher in search engine results for people searching in that locality and surrounding. For example, if you run a store in the centre of your town, then appearing in local search results when residents search for the type of services that you offer is probably something that is important to you. Read on to find out more about optimising your page for local SEO and driving more local traffic.
1. On-Page Optimisation
With on-page optimisation being increasingly overshadowed by the various off-page factors, it can be easy to make the mistake of thinking that this isn’t a priority right now. However, when it comes to local SEO, what happens on your website is of utmost importance. The content on your page will help search engines to determine whether it is suitable to rank in local search results. So, ensure that you have content that describes your location, address, and other local factors on each page.
2. Ensure That URLs Read Well
Optimising your website for both local and general search will be easier if your URL reads well and makes sense. Although it doesn’t need to be in perfect English, it should be able to easily tell the searcher what your website is about at a glance. If you’re optimising your site for local SEO, then it may be worth choosing a domain or sub-domain that is relevant to your local area, for example, using the name of your town or city in the domain.
3. Detailed Page Descriptions and Title Tags
Title tags, meta-descriptions and page descriptions all appear in search engine results and will be visible to both the search engine and the user. When it comes to ranking in local search results, these aspects of your website are very important. For example, when writing the title tag and meta-description for your homepage, including your location is a good idea since this will make it immediately obvious to searchers where your company is located.
4. Local Keywords in Content
In general, when users are searching for a business or service in their local area, they will use the location within the keywords that they search for. For example, if you were searching for car dealerships in Manchester, then you may enter ‘car dealership Manchester’ into Google or another search engine. It’s important to bear this in mind when doing keyword research and using keywords in website content to optimise for local search. Tailoring keywords to your specific location will improve your chances of appearing in local search results, however, it’s vital to ensure that they appear in the content naturally. These Local SEO Services can help you achieve this.
5. Usability
Lastly, for a website to appear in local search results, it must first pass all the other requirements laid out by Google and other search engines. Usability is a huge factor when it comes to SEO and it’s rare for Google to allow a website to rank highly when it is not mobile-friendly or takes a long time to load, for example. So, consider your users first!
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