You might not be asking, “is link building still relevant to SEO”? But you may be questioning whether it’s really worth investing in building links that won’t have immediate SEO benefits. 

Building awareness is an often-overlooked benefit of earning local links. When potential customers or clients begin the research and discovery phase of their journey, they are looking for answers, resources, education, data, opinions, and insights from sources they know, like, and/or trust. Earning links to your site/pages from these sources can be a remarkably effective way to get on their radar.

A link from a local chamber of commerce, for example, could replicate the impact of search visibility within that local chamber’s membership. If you’re a business looking to get in front of other businesses, having a link from a chamber of commerce page, blog post, or news article will deliver targeted, effective visibility, placing your business directly in the line of vision of other local business decision-makers. Is that not exactly what you ultimately hope to achieve by improving your local SEO?

Directories and review sites are also useful too. Here’s an example for someone looking for the best place to buy meat in Chicago:

What is local link building? 

Local link building is the practice of acquiring links from other local websites, for example, news sites, other local businesses, or local directories. The key thing with a local link is that it should come from a site that is location-specific to your own area of operation.  

How do I create a local backlink?

Being told to go out there and build local links can be daunting. But the truth is, there are lots of avenues to explore once you know where to look.  

Acquiring local links from business directories and review sites is really ticket-to-entry local link building for awareness. In terms of deciding which sites to prioritize, start with the directories that appear most prominently for relevant awareness search queries. These are likely to include a combination of the major citation sites (i.e. Yelp), as well as vertical-specific business listing sites (i.e. a legal directory like FindLaw).

In addition to directories, other ‘local links for awareness’ options include:

• Local blogs (contributing and commenting)
• Local news
• Local community forums

Even if the searcher isn’t ready to make a purchase now, having links from these sites reinforces brand awareness and builds confidence and trust.

It’s also worth mentioning that, while we’re focusing on actual local hypertext links here, you certainly shouldn’t ignore linkless citations.

In addition to building awareness, local link building is also an effective way to drive qualified leads. Identifying local partners who share a target audience similar to yours is a great way to generate both links and leads.

Nine Local Link Building Tactics

Building local links for business is also about “getting out there” in your local community. It’s been said that the best links tend to grow from building great relationships.

1. Find Local Sponsorship Opportunities

Local sponsorships are a good example. Use links from a sponsorship page to drive leads for a specific offer that is highly relevant to the audience of the sponsored group, organization, or team. Think local sports shops sponsoring local youth sports teams and offering team-specific discounts, for example. 

Not sure how to go about finding sponsorship opportunities? NiftyMarketing’s Mike Ramsey suggests performing custom searches to identify potential sponsorship requests in the target area:

You can also find local sponsorship opportunities by using custom searches like:

inurl:sponsors “City name”
intitle:sponsors “City name”
intext:sponsors “City name”

2. Get Involved with Local Events

Finding popular existing local events can provide all sorts of opportunities. Where does your local community congregate? Where are these events published online? In many cases, local government sites get involved in promoting these events, along with local Facebook Groups. These are fantastic opportunities to earn links that also generate leads. Look for event sites that have a track record of linking back to partners and contributors.

Greg Gifford suggests local meetups

Chief Operating Officer at SearchLab Digital

Local meetups are super easy too. Do some research to find local groups with regular monthly meetings, meetup.com is a great tool for this one. If you’ve got a conference room, or a lounge area, that you can let someone use, you can offer it to that group.

So for instance, let’s say that group meets on the first Monday of every month at 7pm and you offer to let them use your conference room. You get a killer local link from the group’s website.

Or, if you don’t have space to let someone use. Look for meetups that are looking for regular sponsors.”

Get more of Greg’s tips in his local link-building BrightLocal Academy course.

3. Consider Offering Scholarships

Scholarships also remain a really effective link building tactic. Consider offering local scholarships to students who might also be customers. Going back to the sports shop analogy, offer a scholarship to a local student-athlete who excels both on the field, as well as in the classroom. You might be surprised just how effective this can be for generating goodwill, building brand awareness, and building local links.  

4. Look at Local Community Sites

Community sites such as local jobs boards, local not-for-profit sites, community groups, community radio stations, TV channels and newspapers, food banks, churches, and similar are additional sources of local links. 

You could consider donating your expertise to a cause, providing a helpful resource, writing a news article to share with local media, holding a community open day, or even offering to host a fundraiser in your space. 

Many community organizations welcome local business participation and in turn, you’ll obtain a local link and raise your brand visibility amongst local community members. 

5. Support Your Local Charities

Local charities faced an uphill struggle during the COVID-19 pandemic with a drop in funding and donations and an increase in people needing to access their services. This isn’t a situation that looks likely to change anytime soon, making their role within our communities more vital than ever. 

As a local business owner, you may well have an area of expertise or a resource that could make a positive impact on a local charity close to your heart. Whether that’s donating time, goods, or expertise to make a positive difference within your community, there is a clear opportunity to give back while also local link building for SEO. 

Most charities will have social media pages and a website where they share updates about donors and drives, so it’s quite feasible you could generate a local link while also making a real-world contribution. 

6. Connect with local creatives

You can use your expertise to help more than just charities. Building a reputation as someone who knows their stuff in their field can also be leveraged for local link building. 

Think about the creative scene in your town or city. Are there any local podcast hosts? Local reporters who work freelance? Local theatre groups? Each of these people may find themselves in need of local guests and local experts at one time or another. 

If you can build your profile locally, you increase your chances of being asked to appear on a future podcast episode, be interviewed by a local radio station, partner on a webinar, or host a seminar or panel discussion. 

7. Create Local Case Studies

Consider local case studies which highlight your work with other local businesses, charities, and organizations. If you’ve gone out of your way to make a difference to someone in your community, perhaps by giving them a favorable rate, helping them with an urgent problem, or by donating goods or services, consider asking them to share a case study, include your link on their site with a logo or provide a testimonial. 

8. Create an Ongoing Column with your Local Paper or News Site

Put yourself forward as a local columnist with your area’s newspaper, prominent blog, or media outlet. Typically, local media outlets are welcoming of knowledgeable contributors and they will often include a short biography of the author, sometimes with an image and link. This can also be a great way to build your local visibility as a trusted expert, a local business leader, and a subject matter expert. 

9. Apply to speak at local events

Speaking can further boost your personal and business brand and you might find that you get a link back from the event website too. Finding out what business expos and seminars going on in your area can be as simple as scouring the what’s on listing of your local venue. 

Keep an eye out for any events that fit your area of business. Expos and seminars will often require guest speakers to give talks, deliver seminars, and present keynote speeches. And you’ll often find that each speaker receives a bio on the event website along with a link, in addition to being included in the event’s marketing materials such as pre-show blog posts and local and industry news releases. 

Local links generate customers and clients. In fact, if you’ve already acquired some of the links that we discussed here, they’ve likely been helping you to win more business already. 

You can mine referral data and configure Analytics goals to capture the business impact of your local links.

What is Digital PR and Why Is It Important for Local Businesses?

Learn More

Does link building affect local SEO?

Almost all local SEO experts agree that link building is effective for boosting local search rankings. Google also confirms links help improve your local ranking. 

Keep the following in mind when link building for local SEO:

• Don’t prospect local links based on proxy domain metrics (i.e. Domain Authority, Trust Flow, Toolbar PageRank, I couldn’t resist). Most of the valuable, relevant, and local links won’t get high marks on these scales.
• Don’t ignore NoFollow link opportunities. Too many link builders dismiss sites entirely that have NoFollow policies. Since 2019, Google has treated NoFollow links as ‘hints’ to help with crawling and indexing content, so considering them a waste of time is an outdated approach. 
• Don’t ignore linkless citations and mentions. Ignoring local news sites that won’t link back to you doesn’t make much sense. Those linkless mentions are important for establishing prominence and can put your local business on the radar of your target audience.

• Don’t obsess over the anchor text. Earning some keyword-rich anchors can help point Google in the right direction. But most of the time, this gets abused and creates a pattern that is more of a liability than an asset. Further, if you’re prospecting for relevance, your link will likely be surrounded by relevant keywords.
• Do prospect local links for relevance. The best local link you can get is from your competitor down the street. Needless to say, that’s a tough link to acquire. But the point remains, competitor websites are likely the most topically and geographically relevant sites you can find. Let this mantra guide your prospecting efforts. So, if you can’t get a link from a direct competitor, look for local sites that serve your target audience in a different way, such as the local chamber of commerce. 

• Do go hyper-local. Begin your prospecting research with Google Maps. Start with your business location and radiate outward to uncover more local link building opportunities (i.e., neighborhoods, blocks, and other hyper-local language).
• Do use crawlers to identify link opportunities. Many local sites have a variety of issues that present great opportunities for local link building (i.e., broken links, linking to outdated content, etc). Crawlers can also make it much easier to identify the path of least resistance for earning a link (for example they already link to pages like yours). 
• Do use competition-informed prospecting. Look for sites linking to your competitors but not to you but don’t obsess over copying competitor link profiles. Most of the links you’ll find there probably aren’t helping much. You’ll waste a lot of time and money trying to build links that won’t move the dial. 

If you’re looking for ways to boost your local website’s local pack presence, or simply set up local rank tracking, a well-organized local keyword research process is the first step towards achieving that goal. 

What is local keyword research?

Local keyword research is a process conducted by local businesses to find the search terms that consumers in the local area use when searching for nearby local businesses, products, and services. It helps local businesses to correctly target their SEO efforts so they are more visible to local consumers in their moment of intent. 

Why is keyword research important for local SEO?

Targeting the correct search terms forms the basis of every effective local SEO strategy. It is the only way to be sure that your efforts are focused on the terms that your target customer is using to find your products and services via local search. 

Basing your keyword selection on guesswork opens you up to the risk of using incorrect terms, having to narrow a keyword base, and failing to account for all variations of relevant search phrases.

A research-based keyword list allows you to: 

• To create landing pages that focus on searchable words and phrases.
• To understand search behavior better. 
• To deepen your understanding of your target audience. 
• To find related markets to expand into, and/or refocus your products or services to.
• To discover more ways to attract local consumers. 

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How do you use keyword research for local SEO?

Local keyword research revolves around identifying three parts of your target search queries: your core term, the keyword modifier, and your location.

You can use keyword research tools to automate the process of building long keyword lists and gathering helpful data such as search volumes and difficulty levels. 

Many tools will also offer additional features such as associated keywords, questions people ask, and changes in search volume over time. This can help you spot emerging trends and act quickly to target newly popular keywords. 

Popular local keyword research tools include Ahrefs, SEMrush, Serpstat, Kparser, and Moz.

Here are the key steps you need for local keyword research:

1. Identify your core term
2. “Extend” your core terms with keyword modifiers
3. Add your locations
4. Organize your relevant keywords by search intent

Step 1: Identify your core term

Your core term is the ‘what’ of your business. For example,

• If you are a local hair salon, your core terms are “hairdresser”, “haircut”, “hairstylist”
• If you are a law firm, your core terms are “lawyer”, “law firm”, “attorney”

You can use your own knowledge of your niche to begin generating a list of core terms. Once you have your own list, do a Google search using some of those terms and note down any keywords that your competitors are using that aren’t already on your list. 

Step 2: “Extend” your core terms with keyword modifiers

This modifier makes your core term more specific. It also makes the keyword less competitive. For example:

• “Best hairdressers near me” 
• “Find a personal injury lawyer” (keyword modifiers are in italics).

Keyword modifiers make your overall keyword strategy more diverse. They make it easier to pinpoint less competitive terms, which can be easier to rank for.

Keyword difficulty reflects the organic competitiveness of a search query. It is usually calculated based on the assumed “power” of top-ranking domains and pages.

If you’re using a keyword research tool, filter the list by keyword difficulty to find less competitive terms:

Step 3: Add your locations

The location component is the name of the towns, states, counties, and communities your business is located in. For example:

• “Best hairdresser in Albany” and 
• “Find a personal injury lawyer in NY”

There are several ways to generate appropriate location-based keywords. 

If you have Google Analytics installed on your website (or other Analytics package), this can tell you which locations are generating the most clicks to act as a starting point. 

A Google search for a specific location will then show you additional destinations and a ‘people also search for’ snippet to expand your pool.

Step 4: Organize your relevant keywords by search intent

Search intent reflects the user’s goal behind a search query.

There are three types of search intent:

• Commercial (also referred to as transactional and high intent): This is when a user is ready to take an action such as place an order or call for services).
• Informational: This is when a user wants to learn something, research their options, or find answers to their questions.
• Navigational: This is when a user wants to go to your site (these are search phrases that contain your brand or product name).

Assigning keywords to one of these three types of intent makes it much easier to know when a keyword should be used. An information keyword, for example, may be the focus of a piece of content that shows the reader how to solve a particular problem, or answers a question. 

With steps one to four completed, you now have a well-researched, relevant, and up-to-date keyword list to aid in your local SEO efforts. Keep in mind that this list should be checked and updated at regular intervals to ensure that you aren’t missing any opportunities to include new search terms within your local SEO campaign. 

On-page optimization is an incredibly broad field and there are many different strategies you can deploy to help your site rank better in local search results. 

Even scratching the surface of this topic is no mean feat; this piece will cover the essentials of on-site SEO and point you in the right direction to begin optimizing your own search presence. 

What is on-page SEO and off-page SEO?

When we talk about SEO for business websites, we refer to either on-page SEO or off-page SEO. 

On-page SEO is an umbrella term that covers all the different actions that can be carried out on a website to help it perform better in search. It can be further split into technical and non-technical activities. 

Off-page SEO refers to the tactics that can be conducted away from the site itself to help improve search visibility. A familiar example of off-page SEO is link building. 

Which is an example of on-page SEO?

Because on-page SEO covers all of the things that can be done to help a website perform better in local search results, it encompasses a wide variety of different tasks. Popular examples include: 

• Developing an optimized home page, product, and category pages
• Writing informative meta tags to encourage click-throughs and make it easy for the search user to understand what a page is about
• Using structured data markup (Schema)
• Ensuring your site is mobile-friendly
• Speeding up page loading times
• Auditing your content and creating new high-quality content (E-A-T)
• Adding NAP data to relevant pages
• Writing descriptive title tags for each page featuring a relevant keyword
• Using header tags (H1, H2, etc) to break up content into manageable chunks
• Writing useful descriptions and ALT tags for images
• Creating internal links between pages on your site to help Google and search users navigate to associated information

Why is on-page SEO important?

Local consumers are increasingly committed to supporting local businesses. A Sure PayRoll survey found that 78% of shoppers prefer to shop with local businesses where possible, while research from Score suggests that 91% of Americans shop at a local business once per week, with 47% choosing a local business between two and four times weekly. 

On-page signals provide Google and other search engines with a wealth of useful data which can be used for ranking and indexing purposes.  

How does web design impact SEO?

In an ideal world, SEO for business websites begins right at the start when your web designer is looking at a blank page. There’s a reason for this: Google prioritizes sites that offer the visitor a positive user experience, load quickly, and don’t frustrate the visitor with shifting content or accessibility issues. Google calls these Core Web Vitals. 

Good web design makes it easy for both search engine crawlers and human users to navigate through your site, understand what you offer and find the information you need. Therefore, prioritizing navigability and user-friendliness at every stage of your website design process can make life much easier further down the line and ensure you don’t have to go back to the drawing board and reconfigure your site architecture in order to then move on to other on-page SEO tasks. 

Should I use a free Google Business Profile website?

It’s a given that if you own a local business, you need a website. With 78% of local consumers going online to find local business information more than once a week, you can’t afford to not have an online presence. 

While Google does offer a free website builder (accessible via Google Business Profile—formerly Google My Business), it does have its limitations and is best suited for use by those local businesses in regions where there isn’t easy access to web design resources. 

For local businesses in other areas, having a local website built, using a CMS system that allows you to make updates and control the look and feel of your site, shouldn’t be out of budget and is more beneficial long term. 

How do you do onsite SEO?

On-page SEO encompasses a wide range of elements, all of which are under your control as the website owner. 

Homepage Optimization 

Perhaps the easiest way to optimize your website for SEO purposes is to start with the content on your homepage. This will be where most of your website visitors land when they first arrive at your site. 

Your homepage can:

• Attract local searchers to your site
• Keep them on your site longer, reducing your bounce rate
• Give them useful information about your business
• Make it easy to get in touch with you via email, phone, or at your bricks-and-mortar location

Your homepage should clearly tell your website visitors who you are and what you do. Since you are aiming to attract local searchers, your location should feature prominently. In addition, it should clearly signpost visitors to help them find the page they need on your site. 

Here’s an example:

This is the homepage for Palmer, an advertising agency in San Francisco (and one of the top Google results for the search term “ad agency San Francisco”). The page clearly states what the company is and what it does, as well as referencing geographical location in a prominent place. The page also offers a descriptive menu to help customers find whatever they need. 

Writing Informative Meta Tags 

Meta tags are small bits of data about a web page embedded in the page’s HTML. While they’re no longer a direct local SEO ranking factor, don’t write them off.  

Metadata is used to populate your listing on the search results page. If your keywords match the user’s search query, they’ll be highlighted in bold on your listing, helping you to stand out. Your description also tells the search user what your page is about and can encourage them to click through to your website. 

Since you’re focusing on optimizing your site for local SEO, your metadata should include a reference to your business’s geographical location. This will tell search engines where you’re located and increase your chances of showing up in local results.

Use Local Business Schema

Schema, also known as structured data markup, is a kind of code that you can add to each page of your website to tell search engines what the page contains. There is a particular subcategory called local business schema that can have an impact on local SEO. 

Not sure if you have schema on your site? Use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to check:

You can add numerous different fields to your local business schema. As a minimum when prioritizing your local business website SEO, consider adding:

• Company name
• Contact information, including telephone number and business email address
• Physical address
• Opening hours
• Company logo
• A short description of what you do

You can additionally return to your scheme at any time and add more if necessary. You can also add schema to separate product or service pages. For local SEO purposes, you’ll want to focus on local business schema.

Ensure Your Site is Mobile-friendly

Mobile search surpassed desktop search in 2016. Since then, it’s been necessary to ensure that those visiting your site from their smartphone or other mobile device could access your content, complete forms and navigate just as easily as desktop users in order to maximize conversions and offer your web traffic a seamless experience. 

Having a site populated with content that performs well on mobile devices is particularly important for businesses targeting a local market. The reason for this is obvious; consumers turn to their mobile devices to find relevant local businesses while they are on the go in their moment of need. Google data indicates that 88% of consumers who do a mobile search visit a relevant local business within 24 hours, so it’s easy to see why a mobile-friendly experience matters, 

Ensuring that your site is optimized for mobile users with a high-quality, responsive design is also important for rankings. Google completed its switch to mobile-first indexing in September 2020, so the mobile version of your site is the one that is used for indexing and ranking purposes.

Making your on-page content mobile-friendly means: 

• Avoid using unnecessary pop-ups
• Ensure buttons are large enough to be clicked by someone using a finger on their phone screen 
• Don’t use flash 
• Use headers (H2, H3) to make content easily scrollable on a smaller screen 
• Compress images so pages load quickly 
• Include your business contact information on your website
• Use Scheme markup 
• Check your site design is responsive

Work on Page Load Times

Page load time is a core consideration when it comes to on-site SEO because it impacts both your rankings and bounce rate.  

The slower a page loads, the higher your bounce rate, meaning your hard-won traffic will depart your site and head for a rival. Google estimates suggest that as load speed goes from one to three seconds, the probability of your visitor bouncing grows by 23%. From one to five seconds, that grows to a 90% probability. 

In the context of local SEO, a slower site can also prevent higher rankings because speed is a factor in the Page Experience and Core Web Vitals elements of the search algorithm.  

Until July 2023 when Universal Analytics is phased out, you can access a Site Speed report from your Analytics dashboard to understand how your page is performing. 

Google Lighthouse will also assess page load speed along with other information. 

PageSpeed Insights additionally offers an easy way to check page load times and assess recommendations for improvement. 

To speed up page load times: 

• Choose an SEO-friendly hosting service. Dedicated hosting is a better option than shared. 
• If you mostly want to attract local traffic, choose a local server. This will reduce server response time and speed up your site. Another option is to use a content delivery network (CDN). 
• Compress images to the appropriate size. You can use a plugin like WP Smush to do this without losing image quality.
• Optimize your site scripts and remove any that are unnecessary. You can use a plugin to help with this.
• Keep your content management system, themes, and any plugins updated. 

Audit Your Content and Add New High-quality Content

Developing a library of high-quality content that is authoritative, trustworthy, and demonstrates expertise (E-A-T) not only brings higher search rankings, it also helps to grow your conversions and better engage local consumers. 

Before you start creating new content, it’s useful to perform a content audit. This is a process of assessing the quality of existing content on your site. It helps you to identify any thin, poor-quality, or outdated content that could be harming your local SEO performance.

Once you have assessed and, where necessary, improved your existing content library, you can begin the process of creating a steady stream of fresh new content. In the context of local SEO and attracting more local consumers to your business, you’ll need to focus on locally relevant content. 

This New Jersey web design company has created a piece of locally focused new content by collating a list of the best web design companies in New Jersey:  

But it also creates other timely content which mentions the business’ geographical location without a specific local theme. For example, this post shared during the global pandemic provides useful, relevant, and timely information for readers, while also factoring in a local mention.

NAP Data 

NAP stands for name, address, and phone number. In other words, your business contact information. Many businesses include their NAP data in their website footer to aid in their on-page SEO. 

If you have multiple locations, you’ll need to create a specific page for each individual location and include that location’s NAP data. 

This company displays the full address of each of its locations in the website footer, and then also has a separate page for each: 

Add Descriptive Title Tags For Each Page

The title part of your page tells the user and the search engine what that page is about, so it forms a part of your on-page SEO. When you’re looking at the HTML code, it appears between the <title> tags. 

Each page on your site should have a unique, dedicated title. The title you provide will appear in your search listing on the local search results pages, so it should be descriptive, clear, and concise. 

Because space is limited in the search results, you should aim to keep your page titles no longer than 60 characters to avoid them being truncated. Use your keyword close to the beginning of the title but avoid the temptation to stuff it with keywords. 

If the title is duplicated, irrelevant, overly long, or keyword-stuffed, it may not be used by Google and can be off-putting for the search user. 

H1, H2 Tags

H1 and other header tags (H2, H3) are no longer as important as they once were in the early days of SEO as a pure ranking signal however, they do help search engines to understand what’s on a page. They also make that page more accessible to users and they give a good clue as to what the content is about. 

What’s more, headers can make it easier for those visiting your page from a mobile device to locate the chunk of content most appropriate to them, thereby offering a better user experience (which is a local search ranking signal). As such, they should be considered when working on your local business website SEO. 

Image Optimization 

Images likely form quite a big chunk of your website overall, but simply uploading a stock image that matches your content isn’t enough when it comes to on-page SEO. 

Many small business owners put a lot of thought into the images that appear on their local business websites. Images are great for attracting attention, conveying important information, and even triggering emotions – all of which can help turn a local consumer into a new customer. 

From an SEO perspective, images offer other chances to be featured in search (via the image search tab). Google’s Gary Illyes also suggested that images help Google to decide on relevance, so they could help your site show up in appropriate local searches. 

When thinking about images in the content of onsite SEO, a supported format must be used (such as JPEG or PNG) as unsupported formats can’t be accessed by Google crawlers. This means the spot on your page where the image sits will remain a mystery to them, which is a wasted opportunity. 

Your images should also be of good quality but compressed – too large a file size and your page load speed is impacted, which will hamper your ranking efforts. 

Google additionally recommends that images be placed next to relevant text and that the most important image is used closer to the top of your web page. 

ALT tags and image descriptions also improve accessibility, while the image file name should also be meaningful in order to offer additional context to the search engine crawlers. Don’t be tempted to stuff your descriptions or alt tags as that could trigger Google to consider your site as spam. 

You can additionally add structured data mark-up (denoting a product, video, or recipe) to your on-page images, making them eligible for inclusion as rich results. 

Internal Links

Internal links (the links between pages on your site) perform a few functions. For your visitors, they make it easy to find connected information and navigate to associate pages, enhancing the user experience. For Google, internal links can provide insight into how pages relate to each other, while the anchor text of the link gives a clue as to what the page content is about. 

You don’t want to create internal links just for the sake of it. You should only build an internal link where it makes sense to do so. 

For example, this post on the BrightLocal site concerns a survey we carried out that asked SEO professionals if they were aware of Google My Business’ name change to Google Business Profile. While the purpose of that page is to share the results of our survey, we also link to a more detailed blog that delves deeper into the changes Google made to Google Business Profile so those unaware of the change—or keen to learn more—can easily navigate to that helpful information. 

On-page SEO covers a vast spectrum of different activities and tasks. While this isn’t an exhaustive list, it should give you a very good starting point to optimizing your site for better local search rankings. 

What is a location page in local SEO?

Location pages are web pages that give detailed information about a particular business location in a specific city, county, or state. They help potential customers find the nearest physical location of the business, as well as provide search engines with enough info to index and rank the page for “near me” and “city name + industry” keywords.

You may also hear location pages referred to as ‘local landing pages’ or ‘location landing pages’. These are essentially the same thing.

Why bother with location pages? 

Location pages are a worthwhile effort because they give valuable information to customers, which in turn adds value to your local SEO strategy. Without location pages, multi-location businesses can struggle to get found in search engines like Google.

If you want to create a location page that stands a chance to rank in SERPs and convert customers, you have to justify each new page with unique and valuable content. In other words, the amount of value on your location page has to merit its own URL.

How to Make Location Pages Valuable

Value on a location page comes from information that only applies to the specific location. If you copy and paste content to another location page and it remains true, it’s not unique. Yes, it’s okay to Include non-location-specific information (such as the brand mission statement or service descriptions), but let those be the exception rather than the rule.

Bottom line: Your location page should be largely comprised of information that only applies to that location.

Location Pages vs Geo Pages

There’s an important distinction between location and geo pages.

In short, location pages are tied to actual, brick-and-mortar locations while geo pages are not. A location page is about a specific location; a geo page simply describes the services offered by a business in a specific location.

Often, geo pages are used when a business wants customers from a specific region but doesn’t have an office there. Service area businesses can find it particularly tricky to rank in an area when they don’t have a physical store or office, for instance.

Ranking Geo Pages is Difficult

Ranking geo pages is challenging because it’s difficult to prove that a business is relevant to an entire area if they don’t have a physical store/office there. Even if the business typically serves clients from far away (e.g. attorneys), this may still be difficult to show on a geo page that isn’t tied to an address, Google Business Profile, etc.

Geo Pages Can Easily Become Doorway Pages

Another concern with geo pages is that they can slide down the slippery “is this a doorway page?” slope.  

What is a doorway page?

Simply put, a doorway page is a type of spam that uses slight variations of a similar page in an attempt to rank for many variations of many queries. As you can probably tell, a few hundred pages sans actual locations and addresses targeting small cities in the same county could, ostensibly, fall into this category. Proceed with caution.

You can see what Google has to say about doorway pages here.

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Differentiating Between Nearby Locations

Locations under the same brand in close proximity to one another create a unique challenge. Not only are they providing the same (or similar) products and services to each other, but offering those services to the same pool of customers.

The truth is some element of competition will always exist between these types of locations. That said, there is one way to help differentiate them: content with unique value.

In other words, you’ll want to provide as much information as possible on these locations that only applies to each individual location. This is the goal of any location page but is especially important for ones in close proximity.

Sure, NAP information (Name, Address, Phone Number) is a great start, but try to find other ways to differentiate the pages. This could include:

• Staff bios/profiles
• Location-specific reviews
• Inventory or services (if unique)
• Driving directions
• Parking information
• Accessibility information
• Pet friendliness
• Anything else you think is useful to the customer and truly unique to that location.

The more information you have about each location–its features, services, amenities, etc.–the easier it becomes to differentiate between them and create a unique set of pages that add value to customers and search engines alike.

Things to Avoid and Common Mistakes

1. Saying the Same Thing with Different words

One of the biggest and most common mistakes you can make when creating location pages is thinking your content is unique when it really isn’t. For many business types (plumbers, cleaning services, lawyers, chain restaurants, etc.) location pages run the risk of being rewritten home pages or service page content.

If you find yourself creating location pages with a unique address and phone number but content that isn’t really saying anything new, it’s not really unique.

This type of content – I like to think of it as “diluted-value content” is bad because it takes time to create but doesn’t give anything new or helpful to the humans and search engines you’re hoping to impress.

2. Making It Hard for Customers and Search Engines to Find Your Location Pages

In order for people to find your location page, Google (or your search engine of choice), needs to find, crawl, render, index, and rank it.

Google needs to be able to find your pages, which means they should be included in XML and HTML sitemaps. It’s also helpful to link to the page internally, as this makes it easier for Google to discover.

Unfortunately, internal links aren’t always easy to create for location pages. From an SEO standpoint, we tend to prioritize linking between pages of content that are topically related (as we should). But, if the topic of your page is a location, linking to it from another page can feel stilted or unnatural.

Here are a few tips for creating internal links to your location pages:

For businesses with just a few locations

• Create a “Locations” dropdown in your top nav and link to locations from it
• If location pages are standalone and do not have their own service pages/child pages, link to the locations from the business’ service pages by mentioning the areas the business serves
• If locations are nearby (or even within the same state), include links to the other locations via side navigation in the location page template

For businesses with many locations

• Use a location finder to make pages accessible to humans via search
• Link the location finder in the top navigation of your home page (and throughout the site)
• On each location page, add a module with “nearby locations” and link to other locations in the vicinity
• Consider a separate XML sitemap for location pages. This allows you to easily check the indexation status of them in Google Search Console and ping the sitemap when new locations are added

The goal is to avoid creating location pages that are “orphaned” from the rest of the site (e.g. inaccessible via navigation from other pages). Not only does this make it harder for humans to find your content, but Google as well.

Search Intent and Why it Matters for Location Pages

Search intent refers to what someone is looking for when they type a search into Google. At the most basic level, location page search intent can be broken down into two categories:

• People looking for a service or product
• People looking for the brand

Someone looking for a service, for example, might type “plumber in Seattle” into Google. If done right, your location page should rank for that query because it is relevant to the search intent–someone looking for a plumber in Seattle.

On the other hand, if someone was typing “ABC Plumbers Seattle” into Google, they would be looking for information about ABC Plumbers specifically. The search intent is different, and the content of your location page should reflect that–it should be focused on ABC Plumbers and how they are different from their competitors in Seattle.

In the grand scheme of search query intent, both of these are pretty close to the bottom of the conversion funnel. Someone looking for “how to unclog a drain without calling a plumber,” for example, probably won’t land on a location page because the query is more easily satisfied by a video or how-to article.

So, it’s pretty safe to assume that location pages are almost always targeting bottom-of-funnel searches.

Search Intent and Page Structure

By understanding the search intent of location pages, you can create content that speaks to what your potential customers are looking for and then prioritize the right content on the page.

Branded searches benefit from “conversion” focused content like unique selling propositions, coupons, or information that distinguishes the brand from competitors. If the majority of your location page content is branded, it may be wise to structure your page to focus on conversion-focused content items.

Searches like “plumbers in Seattle” should focus on informational content like where the business is located and what types of products and services they offer. If your page attracts more clicks from these types of queries, be sure to focus your page structure accordingly.

Conclusion and Takeaways

Creating location pages isn’t difficult, but building pages that are truly helpful to humans can be a challenge, much less ones that stand a chance to rank in search engines. That said, well-crafted location pages can provide the value customers are looking for if your strategy focuses on the right things:

• Try to make the majority of content on location pages unique and location-specific (aim for 40%-60% unique-value content)
• Geo pages are more difficult to rank than location pages and are easily mistaken as doorway pages
• Unique value content is especially important on pages that compete with nearby locations from the same brand 
• Saying the same thing with different words doesn’t make the content more valuable – it’s essentially duplicated 
• Make sure people and search engines can find your location pages via sitemaps and internal links
• Optimize your page structure to accommodate the search intent of your most-searched queries

What can you do if you don’t have the skills or budget, but still need to improve your site’s speed? In this article, I’ll explain how you can make improvements to your site speed even if you don’t have access to a developer.

Why improve site speed?

User experience and conversion rates can be negatively affected if your site is slow. It’s very common that your potential customers browse their phones for local services while they are watching TV or while they are running errands. So mobile speed is super important for local business websites.

Mobile searches surpassed desktop searches in 2016. According to one study, 56% of mobile searches done on the go have local intent. And I’m sure that today, that number is much higher.

Compared to desktop devices, mobile devices have a much slower download speed. Because of that, websites that are already slower will have an even harder time loading quickly on a mobile device.

How does this affect local businesses? The average bounce rate for pages loading within two seconds is 9%. As soon as the page load time hits four seconds, the bounce rate soars. The bounce rate at five seconds is 38%. In a nutshell, a page’s load time directly impacts bounce rate.

This will in turn have a negative effect on conversion rates.

Source: Cloudflare

Want to see how your site stacks up? You can check out site speed benchmarks from Google here.

How to improve site speed

Do you want visitors to leave your site or do you want your visitors to convert? I’m betting it’s the latter. So you need to optimize for speed, after all… MO’ SPEEDS = MO’ LEADS!

For this tutorial, I’m going to show you how I used a couple of different paid plugins on a local optometrist’s website. The price to use both of them starts at about $60. This will make it much easier for you to speed up your site. Also, I hit a few snags during the site speed improvement process on this site so I’ll show you how to overcome real problems that may arise.

Before making any speed optimizations make sure you are using a quality web host. There have been many times that a client’s site speed improved a ton just by switching hosting companies. If you are spending $5/mo on hosting, you may want to consider an upgrade.

Additionally, I do not recommend making site speed improvements on a live site. I recommend using a staging site because some of the settings you are going to mess with can cause what users are seeing to “break”.

A staging site is a copy of your live site. This allows you to try out plugins and edit code without affecting the live site.

Baseline metrics

Before getting started we need to take some baseline measurements so that we can see if the site speed improved after the optimizations were made. I use a few free third-party tools for this:

Google Pagespeed Insights 

Google Pagespeed Insights gives you a speed score for mobile and lists specific site speed improvements you can make below the score.

Google Pagespeed Insights also gives you a speed score for desktop and lists specific site speed improvements you can make below the score.

GTmetrix 

GTmetrix checks how fast your website loads.

WebPageTest.org

WebPageTest, as the name suggests, tests your website’s performance.

*Note: Only the first test showed a grade of A for “First Byte Time”. Each test afterward showed an ‘F’.

Content Breakdown by Domain (WebPageTest.org)

Site Speed Optimizations

Ok, so let’s get started! Let’s take a look at the site speed optimizations I performed.

WP Rocket

The first step I took was that I installed WP Rocket and disabled a plugin called SG Optimizer. SG Optimizer is a plugin from SiteGround but it conflicts with WP Rocket. So if you are not using SiteGround as your host, then you don’t have to worry about this.

In WP Rocket I turned on the following settings:

Cache

Mobile Cache: I checked this box to enable caching on mobile devices as well.

Cache Lifespan: I usually choose 7-10 days here for most small business sites. The cache lifespan determines how long you want cached files to be saved. The default limit is set to 10 hours.

But you can set it to a shorter timeframe if you are adding and updating content on the site multiple times a day. You can also set it to a longer timeframe if you don’t update your website frequently. If a site is posting once a week at most, you can set the cache lifespan to seven days.

File Optimization

Once again I recommend making a staging copy of your site and testing it out on staging first, especially when using the “File Optimization” settings. 

So what’s going on here is you are going to possibly make some files smaller and combine some files which can reduce page load times. In some cases, this may break things. A web developer could probably configure this section quickly but since you are doing it yourself, there will be some trial and error and testing required.

What I do is check one box at a time, clear the cache, and then view the page. If everything looks ok, then I go back and check another box and repeat this process.

At the very least, you should be able to check all of these boxes and not have any issues, but I can’t guarantee that.

CSS Files:

• Minify CSS files
• Optimize CSS delivery

JavaScript Files:

• Minify JavaScrip files
• Load JavaScript deferred
• Safe mode for jQuery

After you think you are done, you need to make sure to test any actions on the site as well to make sure they are still working. Examples include filling out forms to make sure they are submitting, clicking on toggles and tabs, etc. If an action has broken on the site it’s probably due to the JavaScript file settings you chose in the “File Optimization” settings. Try to undo them and test it again.

Media

LazyLoad: I enabled LazyLoad for images, and iframes, and videos. If you have YouTube videos on your site you can check the box to ‘Replace YouTube iframe with preview image’. However, I had issues with this once, so be sure to play the videos after checking this box to make sure they are working fine.

Emoji: I also checked the ‘Disable Emoji’ box in order to use emoji style from the user’s browser instead of loading an emoji file from WordPress.

Preload

Preload Cache: This tells the browser to download and cache resources like CSS or JavaScript files as soon as possible. It’s used when those resources will be used on the current page you are loading.

I also checked the following boxes:

• Activate Preloading
• Activate Sitemap-Based Preloading
• Yoast SEO XML sitemap: Check this box if you are using the Yoast SEO plugin. If you are not using Yoast, do not check this box and paste your XML Sitemap URL into the “Sitemaps for Preloading” section below that.

Prefetch DNS requests: This tells the browser to download and cache resources like CSS or JavaScript files in the background.

Prefetch is given a lower priority so that it doesn’t interfere with the downloading of more important resources. It’s used when you know you’ll need that resource on another page that will be navigated to soon.

I used WebPageTest.org to see all the domains that have to be “looked up” when loading the site.

Content Breakdown by Domain (WebPageTest.org)

Then I copied all the external domains (and their subdomains) from the Content Breakdown by Domain report from webpagetest.org (pictured above.) Include “//” in front of each one like so:

//www.facebook.com

//www.youtube.com

//www.google.com

//fonts.gstatic.com

//www.gstatic.com

After you have your list, paste it into the Prefetch DNS requests section in WP Rocket.

Add-ons

I turned on the following ‘Add-ons’:

Google Tracking: WP Rocket will host Google Analytics scripts locally. If you are not using Google Analytics, then you don’t need to turn this on. But you should be using Google Analytics!

Facebook Pixel: WP Rocket will host Facebook Pixels locally. If you are not using a Facebook Pixel, then you don’t need to turn this on.

Cloudflare: This site happens to use Cloudflare so this integration was set up. If you don’t use Cloudflare, then don’t worry about this one.

ShortPixel

ShortPixel makes optimizing all images on your site a breeze. It compresses all images and thumbnails for you. After compressing all the images, it automatically replaces all the original images on the site.

I installed ShortPixel and used the following settings:

General Tab

Compression Type: I chose ‘Lossy’ for this site. If you don’t want images on your site to have a visible loss in quality, you may want to choose Glossy or Lossless. If you are not sure which one to use, read this guide from ShortPixel.

Include Thumbnails: Turn this on so that thumbnails (not only large images) are compressed.

Image Backup: Turn this on. It will allow you to restore images to their original state or to convert them from Lossy to Lossless and back again.

Advanced Tab

WebP Images: Choosing this option allows WebP versions of your images to be served if a user’s browser supports it.

According to Google, “WebP is a modern image format that provides superior lossless and lossy compression for images on the web. Using WebP, webmasters, and web developers can create smaller, richer images that make the web faster.

WebP lossless images are 26% smaller in size compared to PNGs. WebP lossy images are 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEG images at equivalent SSIM quality index.”

Cloudflare API Tab

This site happens to use Cloudflare so this integration was set up. If you don’t use Cloudflare, then you don’t have to worry about this setting.

Processing Images

After you have chosen all your settings, click on ‘Save and Go to Bulk Process’. This will start the compression process and will take a while.

After bulk compressing the images, you can see how much disk space and bandwidth you saved.

Saved bandwidth is calculated at 10,000 impressions/image.

One Last Tweak

The home page had a slider that contained four large slides/images. The client was fine with replacing this with just one static image. Doing this shaved off even more loading time.

In cases like this, I highly recommend that you use one static image with a CTA on top of it on the home page, instead of using a slider.

Removing Unnecessary Codes

After installing and configuring WP Rocket and ShortPixel there were still many other site optimizations that could still be made. I’m going to show you how to do some of the easier ones that don’t require a developer.

‘Reduce DNS lookups’ was one of the leftover site speed suggestions. There are some things you can do but they are a little complicated and require technical skills. But what you can do to improve this is simply remove unnecessary third-party code from your site.

Once again, I used WebPageTest.org to see all the domains that have to be “looked up” when loading the site. This can show you what scripts are on the site and then you can decide if any can be removed.

Removed Unused Scripts

I could see in this list that the site had Hotjar installed on it. I asked the client if they were still using Hotjar and they said “no”. So I simply removed this script. That instantly removed six requests from the list.

Content Breakdown by Domain (webpagetest.org)

Redundant Facebook and Google Maps Embeds

This site had Facebook and Google embeds in the sidebar more than once. So I removed the duplicate embeds and cleaned up the sidebar.

Store Files Locally

You will notice in the screenshot above there were quite a few domains from Google and Facebook. In WP Rocket, I used the Google Tracking and Facebook Pixel add-ons. Now these files will be stored locally instead. When you host these files locally, all the requests for them are from the same domain.

After taking these steps the number of requests for this site went from 115 to 44!

Results

Google Pagespeed Insights

You can see that the mobile score from Google can still be improved. I’m actually glad this happened with this project because it shows realistically what challenges you may face when optimizing a site for speed.

GTmetrix

WebPageTest.org

Content Breakdown by Domain (webpagetest.org)

Before and After Chart

Remaining Issues

‘TTFB’ stands for ‘time to the first byte’. This is how long it takes for the first byte to be received by the browser after an HTTP request has been made.

TTFB was not great on any of the site speed tests except for the first one on webpagetest.org which must have been a fluke. A high TTFB can be due to poor hosting or could be from routing through Cloudflare. This site seems to have decent hosting so most likely it could be Cloudflare.

Conclusion

So there you have it! You can speed up your local business website with just a couple of paid plugins. Of course, you can’t fix everything but you can knock out quite a few quick wins on your own.

Although site speed is just one small piece of the local SEO puzzle (among the likes of Google Business Profile optimization, reviews, and link building), it can have a considerable affect on bounce rates, conversion rates, and user satisfaction.

A successful multi-location SEO strategy involves knowing how to hit that all-important target—getting into the Local Pack of Google Search listings. To get there, you’ll need a team mining relevant local data, as well as skilled content writers and marketers who know how to apply that data directly to your location landing pages.

A recent study from SEO consultancy group Wiideman, entitled ‘Optimizing Location Pages to Rank in Google’, showed a 107% lift in rankings when using localized or ‘hyperlocal’ content on each location’s dedicated landing page.

Creating Hyperlocal Content for Your Location Landing Pages

When you’re dealing with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of locations, the content on your landing pages can become so repetitive that Google may not consider these pages to be unique.

On this topic, Google states, “As a result (of duplicate content), the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no longer appear in search results.”

The cost of this is that your location pages are less likely to get indexed in search engines because they’ve been flagged for duplicate content.

This is where hyperlocal content comes in. You’ll of course want to include unique name, address and phone number (NAP) info. But it’s also got to go further.

Here are some examples of hyperlocal content additions that can set your location-based landing pages apart.

Specific Location Attributes

These could include driving directions, number of parking spots available, nearby landmarks or points of interest (like parks, museums, and stadiums), the history of the neighborhood, and any specific amenities, such as WiFi, delivery, takeout, and more.

Interior and Exterior Images of The Property and Patrons

Add these to your landing pages and also to your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) listings. Pro tip: Include local keywords (such as the name of the city) in both your image file name and alt tags.

Videos of Property

Give users an opportunity to experience stepping into each specific business location. You can go one step further by creating testimonial videos from happy customers… just ensure they’ve signed a waiver granting usage.

Google 360 Virtual Tour Videos

Hire a Google-certified photographer to capture this special footage. Virtual tours can be a great local landing page addition and they also provide imagery for Google Street View.

94% of high-performing multi-location businesses have a dedicated local marketing strategy

Read BrightLocal's Brand Beacon Report 2024

Other Critical Ranking Factors for Location Landing Pages

Improving landing pages for multi-location brands requires honing in on the most significant factors proven to positively affect search engine rankings. Here’s a recap of the Wiideman study findings:

Creating Engaging Location Images

One common challenge that enterprises and small businesses face with GBP is image dimensions. The recommended image resolution is 1,200 x 900 pixels, and no more than 1MB in size on websites.

It’s wise to utilize team members with expertise in image optimization. Consider giving this task to someone who has studied film, is proficient in image sizing, or is experienced with Photoshop or a similar editing platform.

Image Upload Considerations for Multi-location Businesses

For multi-location businesses with hundreds of locations or more, building image assets increases in difficulty. This is due to how time-consuming this task is, combined with the conflict of getting images approved by the business managers or marketing department. Although this task will take time, it should still be included in your strategy. 

Below are examples of successful campaigns using original images, correct sizing, relevant tags/keywords, and that have been fully optimized to scale for multi-location brands:

Localized imagery can increase views for business locations—Wiideman saw a 75% lift, and has flanked competitors in Local Pack rankings through the use of new visual elements for customers.

Google rewards a positive user experience, so you’ll want to target image optimization that’s uniquely helpful when compared side-by-side to competing local pages.

Citations and Social Media

Combining your citation building and social media efforts can be one of the most effective tasks for brands with multiple locations.

Being accurate with data by making constant improvements appears to make a difference with ongoing keyword rankings. A regular pattern of updates seems to be more effective than one-time ‘set it and forget it’ improvements.

The top key directories for citations—such as Yelp, Bing Local, Yahoo! Local, and TripAdvisor—are important for enterprises. However, so are local placements that most multi-locations often lack the resources to support, such as your_city.org/directory.

Pay Attention to Smaller Directory Opportunities

Wiideman also conducted a study of 1,700 restaurant chain locations to understand intersecting directories, and to find unique opportunities for submission and syndication. Approximately 200 new directories were discovered that could consume a bulk feed of listings nationwide. This takes a mighty effort with communication and outreach, but few competitors will make the effort so it can give you an edge.

Think of niche opportunities (for example, law firms might use lawyers.com), and consider finding opportunities to earn placements in regional and city directories in the target area. It’s also a good idea to research the business address on Google Maps to discover neighboring businesses to collaborate with.

BrightLocal’s Citation Tracker offers a way of filtering directories that businesses should be listed on, which can help to boost local rankings through the creation of highly-relevant citations and also offers local citation building services to do that for you.

Fully Optimize Your Google Business Profile Listing

To fully optimize your GBP listing, you will want to start with the info tab. From here, you can work your way through the relevant sections. If you need further guidance, then we have a post dedicated to GBP optimization. 

Google currently appears to give ranking preference to businesses and large brands offering the most information. This includes focal points such as opening date, onsite dining, and online consultations.

For multi-location brands, owners will naturally be from different backgrounds, and this can provide more unique information to share. For example, the business might be owned by military veterans, be Black-owned, or Latino-owned (Latino-owned is a new feature on Google Business Profile).

Take Advantage of Google Posts

Google Posts are an amazing tool that most multi-location brands aren’t using! You’ll gain additional exposure by taking 15 minutes to create a Post that includes a relevant photo, coupon, image, or video.

Working with a third party, or leveraging the Google Business Profile API, can help make the posting process easier for marketers working with more than a handful of locations.

Make the Most of Your Multi-location Efforts

Building a presence on Google Maps and succeeding at local SEO can be a challenge for multi-location businesses. This is especially true if you’re not organized or don’t have a strong strategy and capable team behind you.

Inspiring buy-in for scaled content and off-page visibility can elevate brands above the competition by maximizing the potential for solid local content. 

We recommend learning from other team members and industry peers, and reading online case studies to see if these resources can support your overall multi-location SEO strategy. Also, keep a close eye on your online reviews, across review sites and Google Business reviews—they’re one of the driving forces behind some of the best-ranking brands in the world.

Research takes time but it’s worth the effort. Taking shortcuts could cost some enterprises millions in missed revenue from organic search. As cliché as it sounds, SEO isn’t a sprint, but a marathon.