On-page SEO Archives - BrightLocal

Getting Started with Google Analytics 4 for Local SEO

Daniel Perry-Reed — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 08:36:26 +0000

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll be aware that Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is now the primary analytics tool from Google, even to the extent that they have replaced the older versions such as Google Analytics (GA) and Universal Analytics (UA) starting July 1st 2023.

What that means is that the place you go to see your website data has changed. Some things are way better in GA4 and some… not so much. We’ll be taking a look at these in this article.

But don’t fret, while GA4 may require a learning curve you never asked for, I can promise you that you’ll see immediate benefits once you’re on the other side!

Now, GA4 is not actually new, it’s been around since October 2020. That’s not important—the important part is that you will already have GA4, whether you realise it or not. This is due to Google going through and automatically upgrading all UA properties earlier in 2023, ahead of the July 1st sunset date.

You might be thinking that GA4 is not that useful or important in the grander scheme of your local business operations. Here’s where you could be missing out on a great opportunity, as at its core GA4 is a powerful (and free!) web measurement tool that can help you accurately measure your marketing efforts.

All businesses big and small have some sort of marketing presence—from SEO to social media to paid to email and so on. All of these marketing channels are aiming to drive awareness of your brand and to generate traffic to your website and for this traffic to turn into leads.

To effectively use GA4, we have to look at two aspects—tracking your marketing and tracking your website conversions. Then you can accurately see the success of each channel and campaign.

Track Your Marketing

The first thing to know about measuring your marketing campaigns in GA4 is that Google does not do this for you automatically. That is, GA4 has no idea of where your website visitors are coming from unless you dictate this to GA4. And the way we do this is by using something called UTM parameters in the URLs we use in the marketing links.

There are only two exceptions to this rule—Google Ads and SEO (except Google Business Profiles, but we’ll come back to this later on). Both of these marketing channels will be tracked automatically in GA4.

The process of implementing UTM parameters in your marketing links is relatively simple on paper. You add information in the query string of the URL, so when the visitor clicks the link, GA4 can read the campaign information you added in the UTMs and then present that directly to you in your new GA4 reports. It’s actually no different from UA in that respect!

Addressing the local SEO elephant-in-the-room, for some reason UTMs are not automatically applied in Google Business Profiles, and it’s critical to measuring your local search visibility. You should apply UTMs to your website link manually in this case.

And this is actually the exact same process for all of your marketing channels—Google doesn’t treat SEO links any differently from email, social, paid, etc. So this process should ideally be rolled out across all channels wherever possible.

Track Your Conversions

Now that the hard part is done, let’s address how you measure your website conversions. Starting by defining what a ‘Conversion’ is defined as within GA4:

“A conversion is any user action that’s valuable to your business; for example, a user purchasing from your store or subscribing to your newsletter are examples of common conversions.”

This is pretty vague, but in short, it’s any action a visitor can take on your website that you deem to be good. In GA4 you can have up to 30 conversions at any time, so you can think of them as any action you’d like your visitors to do more of, not just the main and obvious one(s).

The nice thing about GA4 is that there are a bunch of events that are automatically tracked without you having to do anything manual or custom. And an ‘Event’ is what GA4 tracks from your website—think of events as all of the actions that occur on your website from your visitors.

To check to see what events you are automatically tracking, and to turn some on/off, you will need to go into the GA4 admin screen and select ‘Data streams’ in the options:

Then select your data stream, then open the enhanced measurement settings:

And here you can toggle on/off any of the events:

Any changes you make here will only take effect from that moment forward. So leave it a few days and when you come back, you’ll have the data to look at.

Tracking events is great, but now we’ll need to go in and tell GA4 which one(s) are deemed to be important and classed as a conversion(s). You can do this again in the admin screen and then head to ‘Events’ and then use the sliders on the right-hand side:

Any changes here will again only take effect from that moment forward.

Having these automatically tracked events is a real benefit for local businesses as it can track most leads. For example:

The click event tracks any outbound link click from your visitors. This includes any mailto: and tel: hyperlinks (for example, when someone clicks to get in touch with you), and even tracks links off to booking/reservation engines for restaurants, venues, etc.
The form_start and form_submit events do what they say on the tin: they track when your website visitors start filling in one of your forms, and then when it has (successfully) been submitted. This is especially useful for lead generation websites to request call backs, or for signing up to your mailing list.
The scroll event tracks whenever the bottom of a page is viewed. This can be used in conjunction with the page_view event to work out the percentage of page views that were scrolled to the bottom. Useful on blog pages as a measure of your visitors reading the content you may be ranking for.

GA4 goes beyond the automatically collected events too and actually allows you to create brand new events!

Reporting in GA4

Now that you have the building blocks in place, the next thing you’ll want to do is look at your data! We’ll be mainly doing this in the ‘Reports’ section which you can access from the left hand main menu:

In here you’ll find two types of reports—overview and detail. The overview reports are the ones that look like dashboards, and are a page full of ‘cards’ that have different charts and data in each of them. Whereas the detail reports have two charts at the top and then a big data table underneath. Most of the reporting done in GA4 is in the detail reports.

I won’t be going through all of the reports that are available in GA4, but you can read more on what each of them do if you like. We are going to focus on two detail reports in this article—the ‘Traffic acquisition’ report and ‘Demographic details’ report.

Traffic Acquisition

You can access this report under Life cycle > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition:

NOTE: Your reports menu may look different if it has been customised, and may be located in a different section.

In this report you can see all of the traffic coming from each of your marketing channels (from the UTM parameters detailed above), and see the success of each one through various metrics. You can change the dimension on the leftmost side of the data table to something else by clicking on the dropdown arrow—for example ‘Session source/medium’:

You can see the traffic each channel has generated, and the relative performance of each. Useful metrics include Users, Sessions, Engagement rate, Average engagement time per session and Conversions. And for the Conversions column, you can use that dropdown arrow to cycle through each of your conversions you have defined:

Demographic Detail

You can access this report under User > User attributes > Demographic details:

This report functions in the exact same way as the Acquisition details report, but instead looks at the geography of the website visitors. Where you can change the default ‘Country’ dimension to something like Region or Town/City, or even look at Language—the language setting of your website visitor’s browser.

In this report you can see the performance of local traffic and conversions, and how that changes over time.

Next-level Analytics

This article has been a quick tour of how to best use GA4 for your local business’ website, but we haven’t even scratched the surface of what GA4 can do for you!

If you want to learn more about what GA4 can do and truly master it, I run a 6-week GA4 Immersion training course every few months that goes into more detail and includes videos, live group sessions, 1-2-1 sessions and practical exercises throughout.

You can reach out to me directly on LinkedIn and Twitter/X, and you can hear more from me on the weekly analytics podcast I co-host called The Measure Pod.

on Powerful Applications of Schema Markup

Claire Carlile — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 09:14:21 +0000

Schema might not be a ranking factor, but that doesn’t mean you can leave it in the ‘to do’ pile. In this episode, structured markup master Crystal Carter lifts the lid on all things schema.

Listen to Learn

Why schema is not as scary as you think it is
Why schema is business-critical for some industries
What to do (and not do) if you receive a schema warning
How to use a CMS to get schema sorted quickly and easily
How to validate your schema and which tools to use

Take a listen to hear two seasoned podcasters (and good friends) diving into a key, but sometimes forgotten, area of local business marketing, and witness the most impassioned episode of ‘Room 404’ yet!

Watch the Video

Resources

What is structured data validation?: https://www.wix.com/seo/learn/resource/structured-data-validation
The Strategic Value of Structured Data Implementation on SME Websites: https://moz.com/blog/strategic-structured-data-sme-websites
Wix SEO Webinars: https://www.wix.com/seo/learn/webinars
Schema.org: https://schema.org/
Local SEO Schema: Types and Templates for Easy Structured Data Markup: https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-seo-schema-templates/
Adding Structured Data Markup to Your Site’s Pages: https://support.wix.com/en/article/adding-structured-data-markup-to-your-sites-pages-2546962
Crystal’s website: https://www.crystalcarterseo.com/
Follow Crystal on Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/crystalontheweb
Follow Crystal on LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/crystal-carter-digital

How to Effectively Assign the Work in Enterprise Local SEO

Ben Fisher — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 07:31:21 +0000

Hi there, everyone! Ben Fisher here again, and welcome to the fifth installment of our Local Search at Scale series. This series is aimed at large enterprises and franchises, and seeks to help them handle the ever-evolving world of local SEO.

Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve covered so far:

The first installment—How to Best Tackle Local SEO as a Large Enterprise or Franchise Business—was an overview of the topic at large and included the top five problems enterprises/franchises often face when trying to boost their local SEO efforts and the top five tips for how they can improve them.

The second installment—How to Understand Where Enterprise Marketing Budgets Are Most Impactful in Local SEO—was a deep dive into why large organizations always seem to have such a hard time understanding why investing in local SEO efforts is so important.

The third installment—How to Solve the Problem of Communication When Working with Enterprise Brands—took a look at why communication at large enterprises presents such a unique challenge to these big organizations and provided tips on how to overcome it.

The fourth installment—How to Deal With Having Too Many Decision Makers in an Enterprise or Franchise Business—examined the problem that many enterprises face of having “too many cooks in the kitchen” and how best to streamline communication and meetings to get the job done.

Next, I’m going to take a look at problems that may arise when deciding who is actually going to accomplish each individual task that must get done during a local SEO campaign.

Establish Clear-cut Goals from Day One

Establishing clear-cut goals from the beginning is crucial, as it helps create a sense of direction and purpose. It’s important to involve relevant stakeholders in the goal-setting process to ensure buy-in and commitment from everyone. This collaborative approach will ensure that the entire team is on the same page and has a shared vision of success.

When setting goals, use the SMART criteria to make them:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant, and
Time-bound.

This will help you track progress and make adjustments when needed.

For instance, if your objective is to increase foot traffic to individual brick-and-mortar locations, examples of a SMART goal could be: “Increasing foot traffic in the individual brick-and-mortar locations, driving people to the website, increasing conversions on the website, or even improving the online reputation of the franchise as a whole by trying to increase the number of positive reviews on the Google Business Profile (GBP) for each location.”

The dynamic nature of local SEO means that new challenges and opportunities will arise over time.

Additionally, it’s essential to prioritize goals based on their potential impact and the resources required to achieve them. This will help you allocate resources efficiently and focus on the most critical tasks first.

You may also want to establish short-term and long-term goals, as they will serve different purposes. Short-term goals provide motivation and quick wins, while long-term goals ensure the project’s sustainability and long-lasting impact.

Regularly revisiting and reassessing your goals is also important. The dynamic nature of local SEO means that new challenges and opportunities will arise over time. Be prepared to adapt your goals and strategies to stay ahead of the competition and capitalize on emerging trends.

In summary, establishing clear-cut goals from day one is vital for the success of your local SEO campaign. Ensure that your goals are SMART, prioritized, and adaptable to the ever-evolving world of local SEO.

By setting the right goals and working towards them, your enterprise will be well-positioned to achieve success in local search rankings, drive customer engagement, and ultimately boost your bottom line.

Make Sure All Roles Clearly Understand Their Responsibilities

We’ve touched on this a bit before in prior installments, but when it comes to assigning the work, it’s worth highlighting the importance of understanding responsibilities in a more in-depth manner.

For a project as massive as improving local SEO for a major enterprise with numerous franchise locations, assigning and delegating work effectively requires a clear understanding of who is responsible for what, and it needs to be established from the jump.

As I mentioned above, the actual nuts and bolts of a local SEO project will vary slightly depending on the organization itself, its size, and its particular goals. Additionally, the roles of people who are involved in the project may vary as well (e.g. one enterprise might have a massive IT team and can afford to assign one person to each franchise location, whereas others might run a slimmer IT department and can’t spare to loan any team members out).

Having said that, these are some of the roles you might consider assigning to a local SEO project.

Roles to Assign In a Large-scale Local SEO Project

Project Manager

As the name might suggest, this would be the person to manage the project. Depending on the size of the enterprise, there may be one overarching Project Manager for the entire organization in addition to individual Project Managers that oversee each location.

The Project Manager’s job is to check in on all the other team leads, ensure that deadlines are being met and tasks are getting done, and check in often to make sure the results are progressing throughout the project.

Google Business Profile Manager

You probably (hopefully) don’t need to hear it from me, but Google Business Profiles (GBP) are a massively important part of a local SEO campaign.

Each franchisee must have a GBP that is fully optimized, and that receives regular, SEO-friendly updates, so it makes sense that each GBP should have a manager assigned to it. This person should respond to reviews promptly, post regular updates, add new photos, and make sure all the attributes/services/products for the business are as accurate and up-to-date as possible.

Writer

As mentioned above, regular updates to the Google Business Profiles will be key, yet the GBP Manager might not have the time or the inclination to write them.

Having someone who’s a talented writer with experience in content marketing can help not only alleviate this burden from the GBP Manager but will also ensure that updates to the GBP are well-written and contain the proper keywords.

SEO Professional

Obviously, that’s not an “official” title per se, but you’ll absolutely want to have someone in your corner who has seen a thing or two in the SEO world.

This person can work with the GBP Manager and Writer to ensure that the keywords are the right ones, but also can help on the back-end items such as making sure the store locator page on each site contains the city and state in the title tags, ensuring the clickable mobile elements are working correctly, and making sure that local schema markup has been implemented on all of the store locator pages.

This is not a comprehensive list of roles, and again, your team may look vastly different depending on the nature of your enterprise, but I would consider these the bare minimum of roles that need to be on a team to boost local SEO.

Establish a Realistic Timeline

We’ve probably all been there before at one point or another in our professional lives: the boss comes in with a big idea that will undoubtedly help move the needle (e.g “We need to increase sales and get more customers!”) but doesn’t know how to best execute the plan.

Or if they do, they will almost always provide the team that is actually going to execute the plan with an unrealistic (and usually unfair) timeline.

I know I sound like a broken record here, but local SEO projects are no different.

Local SEO projects make take months, or even years, to fully actualize. And if the enterprise in question is like most other companies in America at the moment, everyone on the team will have plenty of other projects they are currently working on with all of their accompanying tasks.

That’s why it’s crucial that you establish a clear, aggressive timeline, but one that is realistic and gives your team the time they need to complete what’s been assigned to them.

To establish a realistic timeline, it’s essential to break down your local SEO project into smaller, manageable tasks and milestones.

Again, there is no clear-cut answer for how long your project will take; it will inevitably depend on the size of your team, your specific local SEO goals, what other projects are currently going on at the company, and how many locations you’re dealing with.

To establish a realistic timeline, it’s essential to break down your local SEO project into smaller, manageable tasks and milestones. This will enable you to allocate resources more effectively and monitor progress at each stage of the project.

Start by identifying the key deliverables and then estimate the time required to complete each task. It’s crucial to involve your team members in this process, as they can provide valuable insights into how long each task will take based on their expertise and experience.

Once you’ve estimated the time required for each task, factor in any dependencies or potential roadblocks that could impact the project timeline. For instance, consider the availability of team members, potential bottlenecks, and other ongoing projects that might demand their attention. It’s also a good idea to build some buffer time into the schedule to account for unforeseen challenges and delays.

Regular progress check-ins and status updates are essential for keeping the project on track and ensuring the timeline remains realistic. These check-ins provide an opportunity to identify any delays or obstacles and adjust the timeline or resources accordingly. Encourage open communication within the team, as this will help flag any issues early on and enable prompt resolution.

Another important aspect of establishing a realistic timeline is setting expectations with stakeholders. Communicate your project timeline, including any potential risks and uncertainties, to stakeholders from the outset. This transparency will help manage expectations and build trust, ensuring everyone is on the same page throughout the project.

In conclusion, a realistic timeline is crucial for the success of your local SEO project. Break down the project into smaller tasks, estimate the time required, factor in dependencies and potential roadblocks, and maintain open communication within your team and with stakeholders.

By carefully planning and monitoring your project’s progress, you’ll increase the likelihood of achieving your local SEO goals and ultimately drive success for your enterprise.

Stay in Touch

If you want to completely derail a business project of any scope or size, the most effective way to do that is probably to practice poor communication. Forgetting to check in with team members, failing to give regular status updates, and not maintaining a regular stream of communication will inevitably lead to missed deadlines, hot tempers, and just generally speaking, a hot mess.

Properly delegating work, assigning proper roles, and working together as a team requires effective communication. How you establish this regular contact is up to you.

Maybe your GBP Managers have a daily standup meeting every morning for 5-10 minutes, just to connect very quickly and see if anyone needs help.
Maybe your Writers have a bi-weekly 30-minute meeting with the Project Managers for each location to give them a report on how everything is going, and then those Project Managers email a monthly overview to the overall Project Manager.
Maybe every single team member for each location gets together for an hour every day over a video conference to bounce ideas off of each other and try to come up with new metrics to move the needle.
Maybe all of the above!

Whether it’s email updates, video conferencing, in-person updates, or just quick messages over Slack, however you decide to do it—just ensure that there is a regular, expected pattern of communication across all parties. And in my experience, when it comes to communication, the more the merrier.

Celebrating individual and team successes can go a long way in boosting morale and keeping everyone motivated to achieve the common goal.

In addition to the communication strategies mentioned above, it’s vital to foster a culture of openness and collaboration within the team. Encourage everyone to share their ideas, challenges, and accomplishments, as this can lead to better problem-solving, innovation, and a stronger sense of camaraderie.

Moreover, celebrating individual and team successes can go a long way in boosting morale and keeping everyone motivated to achieve the common goal.

Utilize technology to facilitate communication. Project management tools, shared calendars, and collaboration platforms can help keep everyone in the loop and ensure that deadlines and milestones are tracked effectively. These tools can also help create a transparent work environment where team members feel accountable for their tasks and progress.

Lastly, remember that communication is a two-way street. Active listening and acknowledging your team members’ input can significantly enhance trust and engagement within the team. By maintaining open and regular communication, you’ll not only keep the project on track but also build a strong, cohesive team that can tackle any challenge that comes their way.

Constantly Analyze and Be Ready to Pivot

You might be familiar with the aphorism, “Man makes plans, and God laughs.” Among other things, it highlights that even with meticulous planning, an abundance of preparation, hours of research, and basically doing everything right… the wheels can still fall off.

That’s why for a local SEO project, it’s important that you’re analyzing every single step. SEO is an ever-evolving beast and some of the best tips we have right now for enterprises and local SEO might look a bit different in 2024 and beyond.

Being able to spend as much time and devoting as many resources as possible to constantly evaluate your efforts will help you achieve your goals, but it’ll also help you pivot if they aren’t working. Being able to adapt is key because Google is constantly making tweaks to its search engine algorithms.

In this fast-paced digital landscape, it’s essential to stay agile and responsive to the changing dynamics of local SEO. Regularly monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) and adjusting your strategy based on the data you gather can lead to better results and help you stay ahead of the competition.

Don’t hesitate to experiment with new tactics and techniques, but make sure to A/B test them before implementing them on a larger scale. This will allow you to determine their effectiveness and minimize the risk of disrupting your overall strategy.

Ensure that your team stays informed about the latest industry trends, best practices, and algorithm updates by attending webinars and conferences, and following industry influencers. Encourage them to share their learnings and insights with the rest of the team, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

Finally, always be ready to pivot your approach when necessary. If a particular strategy isn’t yielding the desired results, take a step back, reassess, and come up with a new plan.

Embracing a flexible and adaptable mindset will enable your enterprise to thrive in the ever-changing world of local SEO, ensuring sustained growth and success.

Conclusion

Much like building a house, the foundation of a strong local SEO project is going to be in establishing roles and assigning work from the beginning.

By coming up with goals that make sense for your organization, ensuring that your team is composed of people with skills that are necessary, that they’re communicating regularly, and making sure your timelines are realistic and won’t cause burnout (which you definitely want to avoid), you’re setting your enterprise up for local SEO success.

How to Build Content Silos for Local SEO

Mason Yu — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 09:03:07 +0000

A solid local SEO strategy backed by content silos is an effective way to scale the results you get for your client’s local business.

Content silos help you leverage proximity, relevance, and prominence, as they’re some of the most important local SEO ranking factors.

For relevance and prominence, a content silo helps your client’s content and business show up in relevant search results and, when you’ve showcased your expertise on your subject, it offers you a chance to earn backlinks from reputable websites.

This increase in relevant rankings can help your client’s business earn more qualified organic traffic which, in turn, can increase conversions.

If your client’s local business has several branches in different locations, creating a content silo with location-specific content helps you to optimize for proximity. It also makes it easier to track local rankings when you have specific pages optimized for important terms.

In this article, I’m going to share four actionable ways to create content silos for local SEO, provide examples of local businesses with these silos, and show you how you can build them for your own client’s local business.

Strategy 1: Build a Content Silo Around Service Verticals

Searchers looking for specific services that a local business provides will end up frustrated when they can’t find the service they’re looking for.

So, having a content silo that dives deeper into the services your client’s business centers around is key. This also allows you to align with the searcher’s intent by answering the questions searchers have, and helps them move to the next stage of the buying journey.

Content silos around the service vertical also help you create content that addresses specific pain points that potential customers have, which can help them convert. Answering any objections or questions gives them a better understanding before they click the ‘buy now’ button or take that highly sought-after medium of communication: a phone call.

How do you make sure that the content silo you create around a service vertical stands out?

Step 1. Narrow Down Your Services

Start by narrowing down the services that your client offers and compare that with the services the competition is offering. As you do this, you may identify services your client can provide that no one else is providing, presenting you with the opportunity to fill in the gap.

In some instances, it may even highlight a chance to narrow down three to five services your client can focus on providing and do better than anyone else.

Step 2. Identify Major Topics

Once you have a list of services your client provides, identify major topics around each of these services and then create different types of content on each of them.

If your client has customers already, you could run a survey asking them what they would like to learn about each of these services, and then build content around these topics.

Performing keyword research around your products or services can also unearth a number of potential topics, as can viewing the ‘People Also Ask’ in Google for related keywords. Each of these can help you spot topics you may want to include in your silo.

For example, Southern Premier Roofing provides six types of roofing services, and when you click on each service, you’ll read a detailed description of what each service entails:

Digging deeper into each of these services, you’ll find a landing page describing each service in detail. On the roof repair page, for example, you have a section talking about different signs that point to a worn-out roof and the process that they rely on when repairing your roof.

Readers who need a roof replacement might start with more basic questions, and won’t convert simply by arriving on the roof replacement landing page. That’s where the content silo comes in.

Southern Premier Roofing has organized the content silo around this service by creating different types of content that first educate them on roof vocabularies, such as roof underlayment and roof membrane, and then different types of roofs that customers can consider.

Then, there’s comparison content that dives deeper into comparing different roof types; for example, hip roofs vs gable roofs. We also have more bottom-of-funnel content such as ‘how to prepare a house for roof replacement’ and identifying different signs that point to someone needing a roof replacement. This helps nudge the reader towards considering roof replacement services.

While this might seem like a linear path, the different types of content in this silo make it easier for Southern Premier Roofing to get hold of more readers who might be interested in their services and, crucially, keep them on their site so that eventually some become their customers.

Related: Free Video Course – How to Create Website Content for Local SEO

Strategy 2: Build a Content Silo Around Each Location You Serve

If your client has offices in different locations, build a location-based content silo by creating web pages for each office and linking to it from the “main locations hub” page on your client’s homepage.

If your client has a service-based business where they have to go to the customer’s location, build out individual neighborhood, community, or local landing pages and make them subsets of the main city page in the city that your client operates in.

Here’s how Baker Roofing does it:

They provide roofing services and have a list of different locations they operate in with a search bar that you can use to set your preferred distance to see how far they are. There’s also a map showing you the different locations.

How to Create Location-based Content Silos

To create a location-specific content silo, have a list of the cities or locations your client serves, then create specific web pages for each of these locations.

Once you do this, link them to the main locations hub on your client’s homepage so that web visitors can navigate to their preferred location easily.

Why create different pages instead of talking about your different locations in your blog posts?

A potential customer looking for roofing services in a particular location is further down the sales funnel and their search is often transactional.

They want to know whether they can find a roofing company in the area where they live and how far the service provider is. To make sure that you’re meeting their needs, you’ll want to have a web page that answers these questions.

This is the kind of content you want Google and other search engines to index and show in search results to increase your client’s click-through rates.

Once you have created each of these web pages, go ahead and create different types of bottom-of-the-funnel content such as competitor comparison content and listicles. Performing localized keyword research can help you identify topics and questions around a specific area.

Some queries that searchers use are not only satisfied by writing content that matches the search intent. You need to match the context around each search.

For example, a searcher who just bought a new house in one of the locations that Baker Roofing serves will need more than just a list of different locations.

They would also benefit from content that talks about different roofing services and even content that provides comparative data that pits Baker Roofing against the competition to help them make an informed decision.

Strategy 3: Build a Content Silo Around Localized Content for Specific Services and Locations

Another content silo you can build contains localized content for different locations and services that your client provides.

For example, a real estate company in a given state has to comply with state and local laws for each county of the state they serve. The content they create needs to help potential homeowners understand these laws based on their location.

This is very useful for businesses that serve a large area where localization is important based on different laws. Pay It Forward Lending has a section on FHA loan limits in each county in Nevada:

When creating localized content for specific locations, focus on what makes each location unique. Here’s how Smith and Wollensky do it:

Once you click on any of the locations above, a new tab will load and you’ll see a different header image that matches each location that the steakhouse serves.

Swapping your copy and inserting a different location won’t cut it. Not only will you have lots of duplicate content, but you’ve not said anything different to highlight real expertise about an area. Ask yourself what’s special about each location that would resonate with the readers in those locations.

There could be a few nuances in terms of language, specific challenges your client’s customers face, and geographical landmarks that influence the needs of the people your client serves.

Bonus Strategy: Optimize Your Google Business Profile to Augment Your Silo Strategy

Local Pack results will include your client’s Google Business Profile, which potential customers are likely to see before your website.

If they’re in the decision stage, the content of your client’s Google Business Profile could determine if they choose to work with your client or go to a competitor. So, how do you make sure it complements your silo strategy?

Optimize your client’s Google Business Profile by adding links that point to specific landing pages.

For example, this law office’s Google Profile Post links to each landing page that’s relevant to the post’s subject. For example, this one leads to the Medical Malpractice page:

If your client is running a brick-and-mortar store, you could include photos of the area surrounding the business and inside the business to give your customers a feel for what it would be like when if visit the premises.

If it’s an outdoor service, include photos of your client or their team at work. It helps bring the service to life and potential customers can then decide whether that’s what they need.

Here’s a handy checklist that you can use to help you optimize your client’s Google Business Profile to complement your content silo strategy:

What else should you consider when implementing silos for local SEO?

When creating content silos, consider the different stages of the local customer buying journey, and create content that resonates with them at each stage.

You may decide to build your silo by creating content targeting customers who are in the decision stage. That will yield quick wins in the short term, but you also need to play the long game. Consider creating content for other buying stages to drive awareness of your client’s local business, and help those in the evaluation stage to learn more about the solutions available to them.

Going back to our roofing example, Southern Premier Roofing creates content about different types of roofs to drive awareness:

You can also provide a list of different services for potential customers in the evaluation stage, sharing different features, and the pros and cons of each of these services:

What stands out about this review piece is that, in addition to providing a list of virtual mailboxes, it is up to date. It talks about the best mailboxes and business addresses in 2022, so the reader doesn’t have to wonder whether they’re still in service.

Alternatively, you can create actionable content that empowers your client’s customers to solve an immediate problem they have, such as learning how to create better marketing strategies for their business:

Once you have published content for readers in the awareness and evaluation stages, link it to your main location, service, and localized content pages. It will improve the user experience by helping readers naturally progress to the next stage of the buying journey.

Consider having a simple URL structure for your content, and work towards earning backlinks from service directories and from other reputable blogs that are relevant to your client’s customers.

Make sure you keep your on-page SEO consistent across all pages within the content silo. Optimize your content for H1, H2, and H3 tags with relevant keywords to include location, city, and services they need. For location pages, embed maps, and keep your name, address, and phone number details up-to-date on relevant pages.

Lastly, make your client’s content accessible through proper formatting, adding relevant alt text to images, and using keywords in your title tags to help the reader have an easy time reading your content.

Conclusion

You now have what you need to get started with creating content silos for your clients. As a quick recap, the content silo you choose to create will help you leverage ranking factors and increase the amount of traffic and conversions your client’s business gets.

To get started, pick any content silo that we’ve discussed and start building it by creating content and optimizing it for readers and search engines. Keep tracking and optimizing the results you get from your efforts to identify areas of improvement.

Top Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools

Mike Hawkes — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 10:58:04 +0000

Conducting any kind of SEO activity requires a considerable amount of research, number crunching, and targeted action. Having the best SEO tools in your arsenal isn’t just a welcome time saver, however.

Whether you’re an agency or individual, they can help you uncover more insights and identify more opportunities than manual processes alone. In addition, modern SEO tools can automate some of the tedious aspects of SEO. Popular automations include link prospecting and site auditing. This allows you to focus more resources on the actions that will make a real difference to your rankings.

Try our local SEO tools for even more help ranking higher, or these local SEO resources for industry-leading insight. While many of the tools on this list offer free trials and versions, we also have a list of free local SEO tools if you’re on a very tight budget.

SEMrush

SEMrush is one of the more well-known SEO tools thanks to its range of useful features. Of particular benefit is the extensive keyword research tool. Within this, position tracking makes light work of monitoring your organic search positions and those of your competitors. It will also identify opportunities to rank in the search results pages by target keyword.

A site audit tool can crawl each page on your site and report back on any underlining issues, with the helpful creation of a to-do list to prioritize your SEO tasks. This can inform your SEO strategy. A core web vitals check gives peace of mind your site’s page experience is as good as it could be. SEMrush will also check your structured data markup, internal links, and page load speed.

Finally, if you’re optimizing a larger multilanguage site, there’s an international SEO checker, too.

SEMrush: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

$119.95 – $449.95/mo.

Does it have a free trial?

There is a free version of this tool.

What makes it unique?

There’s a good variety of targeted SEO tools, such as the international SEO checker, to allow you to go deeper into your organic search strategy.

Website

https://www.semrush.com

DashThis

DashThis is a powerful yet easy-to-use, automated marketing reporting tool to track all your data from 34+ platforms such as Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, Facebook, Moz, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and much more.

You can showcase data from multiple marketing platforms and accounts in one easy-to-understand report and then share them automatically with email dispatches. This is especially useful for SEO as you don’t need to log in and out of countless platforms to gather your most important data and get a global view of progress.

The preset dashboards and templates make it easy to get started, but they are also fully customizable if you’re an agency preparing progress reports for clients.

DashThis: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

$39-$399/mo.

Does it have a free trial?

Yes. 15 days.

What makes it unique?

The ability to pull in multiple reports from a wide range of digital channels and platforms is a huge time saver.

Website

https://dashthis.com

Schema App

Having the correct markup embedded into your web pages can make a real difference to your organic search position. However, it can be tricky to implement correctly without coding knowledge and time-consuming even with it.

It should come as no surprise to see Google Analytics make a list of top SEO tools. Originally launched in 2005, it’s been a stalwart of the search marketing scene for decades. Its strength lies in the breadth of data gathered and the degree of visualization and customization available.

The Acquisition dashboard provides an at-a-glance view of where your traffic is coming from, so you can compare your SEO performance against paid search, for example. Search Console can also be integrated. You can use the data from Search Console in conjunction with Analytics data. This could help you to flag up pages with a good search position but minimal click-through traffic or location pages with poor rankings.

Google Analytics: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

Free.

Does it have a free trial?

This tool is free to use.

What makes it unique?

You can not only gather endless amounts of data regarding your site and its performance in search thanks to Google Analytics. You can use its data visualization charts and dashboards to understand that data and derive meaning from it.

Website

https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/

Searchmetrics

Searchmetrics is designed to help you create a search presence that drives increased revenue. It’s an enterprise-level SEO tool for larger businesses and marketing teams who want to get a firmer handle on their data and dominate in search.

Use the Research Cloud tool to perform a competitive analysis. This will identify gaps in your strategy and show how competitors execute their SEO strategies. You can also use it to measure how each page of content you own is performing and how it can do better.

A Content Experience tool guides you through the creation of content that establishes authority and increases search prominence. In addition, keyword tracking and recommendations provide data-driven insights to increase sales from search. The Site Experience tool meanwhile has technical SEO covered.

Searchmetrics: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

Contact sales.

Does it have a free trial?

Contact sales.

What makes it unique?

Unique search data tracks changes in market demand on a global scale so you can home in on opportunities to grow your revenue as a result of targeted SEO efforts.

Website

https://www.searchmetrics.com

Google Search Console

If you’re searching for small SEO tools to help you keep up with the basics, Search Console from Google is well worth checking out. A totally free tool, it is designed to guide you toward better rankings. You’ll find several tools and reporting options to work with. These provide a straightforward way to keep tabs on search traffic and keyword rankings.

Even if you’re already using other SEO tools, it’s well worth registering for Search Console just for the email alerts Google will send you if it detects an issue with your site. Other features include a URL inspection tool that pulls crawl information from Google’s Index to share with you.

Google Search Console: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

Free.

Does it have a free trial?

Search Console is free to use.

What makes it unique?

As a registered Search Console user, you’ll receive email alerts directly from Google if it detects any issues on your site. Once fixed, you can use Search Console to tell Google you’ve resolved the problem.

Website

https://search.google.com/search-console

FATRANK

FATRANK is a rank tracking tool – but it has a different spin than other rank tracking tools you may have used previously. The standard way to check SEO rankings would be to add a website URL and then wait for a list of keywords the site ranks for, along with their position, to be returned.

With FATRANK, you can download a Chrome extension to your browser. Just visit any website and enter a keyword of your choice to see where that site ranks on Google in any country. You can easily toggle between different countries to compare rankings on different versions of Google for that exact keyword.

There’s also a downloadable app for iOS and Android.

FATRANK: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

Free.

Does it have a free trial?

This is a free-to-use tool.

If you hadn’t guessed from the name, Linkody is entirely dedicated to the link building and link management aspect of SEO. Once you’ve entered a URL, Linkody will build a list of domains linking back to that site.

From your dashboard, you have an at-a-glance view of new links built. This confirms the date the link was discovered and whether it’s follow or nofollow, making it easy to keep track of your link acquisition efforts.

Linkody can also help with competitor research. Add a competitor to your dashboard to see a list of their links. You can reverse engineer this list to build a pipeline of new link prospects to work through.

Linkody: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

$14.90 – $153/mo.

Does it have a free trial?

Yes. 30 days.

What makes it unique?

You can stack your competitor’s link profile side-by-side with your own for easy comparison.

Website

https://www.linkody.com

Buzzstream

Buzzstream is an outreach CRM and one of the best SEO tools for building links via influencers and digital PR. It is a perfect tool for bigger link-building campaigns and agencies.

The platform takes care of the whole outreach process, with no spreadsheets or email tracking required. You can use it to build lists of bloggers, influencers, and media outlets to secure digital PR placements. For traditional link builders, use Buzzstream to create and manage prospect lists and keep track of acquired links.

There’s also the ability to set reminders, create to-do lists, and assign tasks to other team members.

Buzzstream: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

$24 – $999/mo.

Does it have a free trial?

Yes. 14 days.

What makes it unique?

It’s an easy way to find and reach out to influencers and press outlets to build links. The management tools and scalability are big time savers for busy individuals and teams.

Website

https://www.buzzstream.com

Moz Pro

Moz Pro is arguably one of the most well-known SEO tools out there and will be a familiar name to SEO pros. It is a comprehensive suite of tools designed to cover most areas of search engine optimization.

Use Keyword Explorer to plan your content and identify profitable new phrases to target.

Rank Tracker accurately tracks keyword rankings across any search engine – and can be used to monitor competitors.

Site Crawl is a detailed auditor which will crawl each page on your site to discover hidden errors.

For on-page optimization, the content auditor will consider each page element and provide targeted recommendations for improvement.

Moz Pro: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

$99 – $599/mo.

Does it have a free trial?

Yes. 30 days.

What makes it unique?

Moz Pro is a robust all-in-one suite of SEO tools that makes managing and monitoring SEO performance much easier.

Website

https://moz.com/products/pro

Top Keyword Research Tools in 2024

Mike Hawkes — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 11:03:34 +0000

It’s no secret that a solid keyword research strategy is a prerequisite for PPC and SEO access. But how do you ensure you’re targeting the right keywords?

Gone are the days when keyword research tools simply presented you with a list of words. Today’s solutions are incredibly advanced, with a considerable amount of data, insight, and helpful metrics.

Details such as alternative phrases, associated phrases, and competitor strategies help you to see the bigger picture. Features such as competition levels and how likely you are to rank, plus which keywords you should make a priority, mean you don’t have to second guess your strategy.

A good keyword research tool should provide you with the data you need to make informed decisions, whether you’re targeting improved local search visibility or better-paid search performance. The keywords you discover can then be used to help you track your local rankings with tools like Local Rank Tracker or Local Search Grid.

Whether you’re looking to rank better or produce more relevant content, you absolutely need to have a keyword assistant within your local SEO tools collection. For more information about how to perform local keyword research and how to turn your keywords into successful campaigns, head over to our local SEO resources.

Semrush

Semrush offers no less than six different keyword research tools as part of their suite of SEO tools. They include Keyword Overview, which helps you discover keywords, and Organic Research to help you rank for keywords that benefit your competitors.

The Keyword Magic Tool generates keyword combinations, while Keyword Gap can help you pinpoint new areas to target for better SEO. Keyword Manager aids in the creation of master lists tied to your SEO strategy.

Finally, if you integrate your Semrush account with your Google Analytics, you can use the Organic Traffic Insights tool for hunting down ‘not provided’ keywords. You can also use this tool to find your most valuable keywords across the search landscape.

Semrush: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

$119.95 – $449.95/mo.

Does it have a free trial?

There is a free version of this tool.

What makes it unique?

Semrush has a huge database of more than 20 billion keywords.

Website

https://www.semrush.com

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is an invaluable keyword suggestion tool – and best of all, it’s free to use. The straightforward interface is not overly complicated and therefore is easy to get to grips with even if you’re new to performing keyword research.

All you need to do is enter your chosen keyword to generate a list of related keyword suggestions Ubersuggest will provide valuable data on metrics that can help you decide which keywords to target in SEO or PPC.

Information includes search volume, cost-per-click, the number of results, competition levels, and even seasonality.

Ubersuggest: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

Free

Does it have a free trial?

It’s free to use.

Originally created for affiliate marketing, Jaxxy is suitable for all kinds of keyword research. Keyword lists come complete with useful data easily seen at a glance. This includes the average number of searches for each keyword, the amount of traffic you can expect from a page one ranking, and the number of websites competing for that exact search term on Google. In addition, an SEO score will tell you how likely you are to rank for that term.

If you’re feeling stuck for inspiration, a ‘Brainstorm’ feature gives you a list of keywords to help you brainstorm.

Jaxxy: Cost, Trial, and Features

How much does it cost?

$49 – $99/mo.

Does it have a free trial?

Yes. 30 keyword searches.

What makes it unique?

The SEO metric tells you how likely it is you’ll get page one rankings.

Website

https://www.jaaxy.com/keywords/

New Academy Course: How to Optimize Location Pages

Kate Herbert-Smith — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 06:49:09 +0000

How do consumers find the best places to buy what they need? To eat? To relax? To have fun? They search for ‘near me’ recommendations.

When a user searches for something that Google believes has a local intent, it will show local results. And because users with a local search intent are looking for something they want or need right now, you want your business to show up in these search results. That’s why you should have a location page for each of your locations or service areas.

These location pages are an important part of building a successful local SEO strategy and deserve a different approach to other types of landing pages.

Our new BrightLocal Academy course—How to Optimize Location Pages—will teach you all you need to know about what to include on location pages and how to optimize them to make them truly effective.

We’ve created this course in collaboration with Local SEO expert, Claire Carlile, who during the six lessons will teach you:

what a location page is and why we need them;
what to include for an awesome location page, rather than an average location page;
schema for location pages;
tools and tips for scaling location pages;
and how to monitor these pages and keep them updated.

Here’s Claire with an overview of the course:

Who is this course for?

This course is for anyone that works with local businesses that have bricks-and-mortar locations or that service customers in a very hyperlocal context.

How can I join?

Whether you’re a BrightLocal customer or not, you can get access to this course. You can also be among the first to find out when new courses drop by enrolling for free. Here’s how…

If you’re a BrightLocal customer , you can access the academy via your BrightLocal account. Simply log in, click ‘Learning Resources’ at the top of the screen and select ‘BrightLocal Academy’ from the dropdown menu.

You’ll need to create a free BrightLocal Academy account before you can enroll in the ‘How to Optimize Location Pages’ course.

If you’re not a BrightLocal customer , you can join BrightLocal Academy for free here and follow the same steps above to enroll on the course.

Want to know more about BrightLocal Academy?

Check out the official BrightLocal Academy FAQs here:

What is BrightLocal Academy, how does it work, and how can I enroll?

What courses does BrightLocal Academy offer and how long do they take?

If you have any questions of your own, feel free to get in touch with us or leave a comment below. We hope you find this fresh new course useful, and can’t wait to hear how it’s helped you improve your local SEO skills.

How to Do Effective Local Link Building

Gyi Tsakalakis — Tue, 17 May 2022 07:53:50 +0000

If you’re marketing a local business online, earning quality local links isn’t just good for local SEO, it’s good for business, too.

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.

Related: How to Master Local Link Building – Free Online Course

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.

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.

A Guide to Using SEO for Better Customer Experience

Jessica Day — Thu, 12 May 2022 08:27:01 +0000

As a strategy for driving traffic to websites, SEO is nothing new. Yet there are more uses for it than just that. Done well, SEO enables businesses to best reach target customers and accompany them along their journeys. As marketing initiatives, SEO and customer experience (CX) need to be interlinked.

We’ve put together this guide to using SEO to help you align them and ensure your customer experience hits the mark.

What is an optimal customer experience like?

In a world of multiplying consumer choice, the importance of customer loyalty continues to grow. How can savvy businesses step up their customer experience game and set themselves apart?

SEO efforts must be in service of empowering customers and enhancing their experience at every touchpoint. Why? Because Google prioritizes websites that deliver intuitive and appealing user experiences.

What is the correlation between SEO and a better customer experience?

On-page SEO can boost your client’s Google rankings. But it won’t matter unless you make it easier for customers to find you and get their questions answered. When your CSAT score (customer satisfaction score) falls, bounce rates go up, and any high SERP rankings will soon drop.

Ways To Use SEO For a Better Customer Experience

To stand a chance of emerging on top of SERPs, marketers need to deliver a streamlined CX that powers and is powered by SEO best practices.

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Produce Content that will Guide the Customers to the Right Solutions

Yes, high-quality content is king. Yet, your client’s customers can spot search engine manipulation a mile off. Content that cannot answer queries will receive short shrift.

You can use analytics tools to create a fresh flow of content focused on search intent and direct customers to the solutions they need.

Customer journey mapping helps marketers curate content that resonates at each stage of the shopping experience. Consider how you format and categorize content into headings and subheadings to improve scannability and help customers focus on the client’s offering.

Enhance Site Speed to Help Create a Positive User Experience (UX)

Having a fast and responsive site is a significant factor in the algorithmic search rankings. No surprise there. Not even the best content and SEO strategy can save sales if a slow-loading website means quicksilver customers can’t get anywhere in a hurry.

The solution is clean code. Remove unnecessary redirects, use caching, and pay attention to web hosting. Test with Google PageSpeed and shoot for loading speeds of two seconds or less to keep the bounce rate low and customers happy.

Aim for a More Mobile-friendly User Interface

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The number of unique mobile internet users and searches we undertake from our devices is soaring. For this reason, mobile-friendliness is just as important as page speed. Like Etsy, you can make your client’s site mobile-friendly by avoiding flash elements and minimal horizontal scrolling. Users shouldn’t expect to zoom out and pinch in. Instead, responsive design automatically adapts to the device screen size they’re using. Local businesses can perform web app testing on any apps to identify local issues that might be affecting growth.

Strategize the Use of Interlinks

Site architecture is also intrinsic to helping customers discover content. Building visible links to other pages on the site will redirect users to less-popular content, driving views and reducing bounce rates. Contextual and intelligent internal linking is the key to successful on-page SEO because it helps search engine spiders rate the importance of particular pages, including updated web pages.

Google prefers pages with a good dose of internal links; the trick is fitting them into relevant content naturally. User-friendly site architecture can help customers find your client’s products, for example, a business phone system, boosting click-through rate, and conversions. Meanwhile, marketers can reap the rewards of higher rankings for SERPs. Make sure you get rid of any broken links that could frustrate users and detract from the holistic user experience.

Promote Customer Reviews

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Consumers trust the personal recommendations of fellow shoppers over corporate advertising speak. So, proactively collecting customer reviews is crucial to generating user engagement and capturing attention.

Marketers can be assertive in asking for authentic customer feedback, as long as a business ticks all the customer experience boxes. Give customers a day or two before approaching with short and simple survey forms. A quick pop-up asking for a review will do. It doesn’t hurt to sweeten the deal with promotions or discounts (provided you check the review site’s guidelines on this first), nor following up with a reminder or two. Respond graciously to reviews, good and bad (see: how to respond to negative reviews).

Businesses can amass enough positive reviews and a healthy average to feature in Google’s rich snippets. Featured snippets are preview text, which shows up in SERPs below individual results. Because Google wants to highlight what it deems the most relevant and useful pages, and people prefer to click on results that provide more information, rich snippets have a higher click-through rate. To gain one, embed the structured data in the site.

Beyond the insights on how to take your customer experience to the next level, customer reviews attract Google’s attention and can boost your client’s SEO.

Get Updated with the Latest Social Signals

If used correctly, social media can be a profitable channel, where providing the best customer experience is taking care of your client’s SEO. Just as customers look favorably at businesses that seek feedback, they’re leaving it on social media and using these platforms to engage with brands.

Integrate keyword-rich hashtags to posts to get more eyeballs on your client’s products and services. Keeping up-to-date social media profiles also helps brands rank highly in search results and brings more visibility and traffic to content.

Content that hits all the right notes reigns on social media, so share it to grow your audience. Include blogs with good backlinks, diversify your output, and deploy the right visuals. Content that speaks to their pain points will elevate brand awareness.

Develop a More Organized Knowledge Base

A comprehensive knowledge base enables self-service, shortens shopping journeys, and can be a cornerstone of great SEO.

Categorize documents in a way that allows for instant problem-solving. As with all content, keep it readable and crisp, using anchor links in longer articles. Simple, informative how-to titles rarely miss. Also, a logically organized knowledge base signals that your client cares about optimizing UX.

Optimize Customer Experience for Local Businesses

For brick-and-mortar businesses, serving local communities is their bread and butter. Yet, local SERPs should be a key area of focus for local and ecommerce businesses trying to improve online rankings. Online customer experiences can also complement physical stores.

Besides listing their name, address, and contact details on their website or landing pages, businesses serving multiple locations should create separate product pages for each area. That way, they’ll appear in long-tail SERPS for specific locations.

Businesses can establish a robust local SEO presence by forming co-marketing partnerships with non-rival companies that have overlapping target audiences. Swap content and online mentions for each other to start off. If you tap into partnerships in more depth, an affiliate network script can help businesses build a network that generates sustainable profits.

Ultimately, a proper local SEO strategy helps customers discover accurate information when they need it and drives more foot traffic to local businesses.

Act Organically

Strong SEO will ensure your client’s site ranks near the top of the search engines. But you won’t stand a chance of achieving your marketing goals if you restrict your thinking to churning out backlinks and keyword-stuffed content.

Given the technical complexities of SEO, it’s easy to miss the wood for the trees sometimes. And, while no one can predict the algorithms’ next moves, nothing levels up the customer experience like a marketing calculus that gives ample attention to both SEO and CX.

Follow our guide to using SEO for better CX, and customers that stick around longer and contribute higher lifetime value surely await.

Improving On-page SEO for Local

Ian Loew — Wed, 18 May 2022 14:46:38 +0000

If your business has a website and is looking to attract more business from local consumers, SEO should be a part of your marketing strategy. SEO is the process of working to make your website rank higher in the results pages on search engines such as Google for relevant search queries.

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.

Related: How to Optimize Location Pages – Free Online Course

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 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. <h3>H1, H2 Tags</h3> H1 and other header tags (H2, H3) are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwpwq8Ynf7s&t=1499s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">no longer as important as they once were</a> 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 <a href="https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-seo/introduction-to-local-seo/ranking-factors/">local search ranking signal</a>). As such, they should be considered when working on your local business website SEO. <h3>Image Optimization </h3> 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 (<a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/google-images" target="_blank" rel="noopener">via the image search tab</a>). Google’s Gary Illyes also <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TechSEO/comments/ao3fmk/i_am_gary_illyes_googles_chief_of_sunshine_and/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suggested</a> 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 <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/google-images" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supported format</a> 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. <h3>Internal Links</h3> 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 <a href="https://www.brightlocal.com/research/google-my-business-rebrand/">post</a> 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. </article> </main></body></html>