Managing a business takes courage. With the number of challenges that entrepreneurs have to face, it’s remarkable to see new companies reach their dreams. Of the many struggles that a business can face, finding customers tends to be the biggest.
Statistics show that 63% of marketers believe customer acquisition is one of their most important goals. With this in mind, local SEO strategy is a method that is often used to great success. However, there are times when you may feel like you are simply not getting worthwhile results from it.
The truth is that local SEO is an effective strategy, but it needs to be implemented the right way. Too often, one can see marketing departments doing the bare minimum and expecting results.
Good local SEO strategy requires professional implementation, and in this article, we’ll look at four ways you can improve it.
1. Hire A Professional SEO Company
There are some situations when local SEO strategy can be tough to figure out. Perhaps your location might be particularly difficult to optimize for. This could be due to either a lot of competition or a lack of customer interest in your services.
In such situations, it can be a good idea to contract professionals. They usually have methods and resources that can be used in tough markets or locations.
Typically, the best local SEO company you can hire will be one that tries to understand your current marketing efforts. They will explore what you have had success with and focus on areas that aren’t creating the expected results.
2. Review Your Keyword Research
Sometimes, the reason you are not seeing enough local SEO strategy is inadequate or poor keyword usage. According to Organically SEO, an effective SEO process involves sufficient keyword identification based on what the target audience is searching for on Google.
As you may know, keyword research makes it possible to understand and target local intent. Once you understand what people in your location are looking for, you can accordingly approach content creation. This would include creating blog posts and articles that organically feature the most powerful keywords.
Also, don’t forget about long-tail keywords. A lot of times, these can get you ready-to-convert local traffic. Lastly, with the number of smart home devices in use today, do give some attention to keywords based on voice searches.
After all, the language that people use with Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri is quite different from conventional text-based searches.
3. Revise Your Link-Building Strategy
If you have contracted out your link-building work to someone else, take a closer look at it. The last thing you want is to find out that you have been buying backlinks from link farms or spamming forums and comment sections.
Similarly, take a good look at the directories your links are getting sent to and featured in. Yes, it is easier to get your links accepted in lower-quality directories, but they rarely provide much value. Depending on the situation, it may be worth taking the time to overhaul your entire link-building strategy.
Strip away shady techniques and stay clean. Remember, search engines love penalizing and de-ranking anything suspicious.
4. Focus on Reputation Management
There is a possibility that you could be doing everything else correctly, but your online reputation is driving customers away. For instance, have you looked at the reviews on your Google Business Profile? What are people saying? Are any of the reviews criticizing your service? Have you responded to them publicly?
These are factors that you should be paying attention to. Similarly, take a good look at your click-through rate. Typically, businesses with a good reputation are going to have a high CTR. If the number seems low, it could possibly be due to your business’s reputation.
Conclusion
Getting local SEO strategy to work can sometimes feel like a frustrating ordeal. If things don’t improve even after a complete audit of your strategy, you may have to focus on other areas. After all, if a particular location lacks an interested audience, your efforts might simply be going nowhere.
This would be a good time to do some competitor analysis and find out where others are having success. (In fact, many would argue that this should be your first step.)
Are they operating in a completely different way? For instance, skipping brick and mortar to go completely online? You can brainstorm ideas on how to find and target the right audience if conventional local SEO strategy aren’t yielding results.
Lastly, you may simply need to push through it. Remember, results can sometimes take their own time to come. Have some patience, and keep optimizing your strategy wherever possible.
