SEO
50+ Business-Building Local SEO Tactics For SMBs
Do you have a local small to medium-sized business (SMB)?
If so, you know just how difficult it is to get found and stand out in increasingly competitive search results.
Local SEO strategies must adapt to new features and algorithm updates by the top search engines that affect local search results.
Most local SEO tactics fall into the following three categories.
- Optimizing local listings and citations.
- Optimizing your website and its content.
- Optimizing and working on incoming links.
In this column, you’ll find over 50 specific things you can do right now to help improve your visibility in local search results, divided into those categories above.
Optimizing Local Listings & Citations
Let’s start with your NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number) data.
In order to get listed and ranked in Google Maps, you need to be a legitimate business, and in some areas, you’ll need a business license (depending on the type of business you’re in).
That NAP needs to be consistent and listed the same everywhere or you’ll have problems later on.
Before you get started with local listings and citations, you’ll also need the following:
- NAP of the business.
- Website URL (list of internal location pages if more than one location).
- A short description (up to 50 characters) that should include your main city name and type of business.
- A longer description (up to 250 characters) that describes who you are and what you do. Include the city name and areas served if applicable.
- Recent photos of your business.
- Category of your business.
- Keywords (that you’d like to rank for). These are typical “city name keyword” type keywords.
The main strategy for local listings and local citations is to get as many as feasible in the right category, with consistent information such as your NAP data.
Local citations are mentions of a local business, which includes NAP data. Local citations may or may not include a link to your website. There are generally two strategies for getting local citations:
- Get the local listings yourself.
- Hire someone else to get them for you.
Taking the time to get local citations yourself can be a really big project, especially if you’re in a competitive industry in your area.
Competitors could have up to hundreds of thousands of local citations, which is nearly impossible to do manually.
If you’re a local business (SMB) in a fairly non-competitive market, then getting a handful of local citations manually is a good strategy. If that’s the case, a non-competitive local SEO strategy for local citations is to get these listings:
- Google Business Profile.
- Facebook.
- Yahoo! Local (currently requires a payment to Yext).
- Apple Maps.
- Bing Places for Business.
- MapQuest.
- Yelp.
- BBB.org.
- FourSquare.
- TripAdvisor.
- Angie’s List.
- TrustRatings.
- YellowPages.
- Home Advisor.
- Thumbtack.
The last two on the list are specific to certain industries, and you’ll want to search certain directories that are specific to your local business’ industry.
Typically, these are easy to find — they’ll rank in the top 10 search results (on the first page).
BrightLocal has a list of top local citations for the U.S. that they maintain.
Submitting to directories (and getting listed) will allow your local business to take advantage of what’s often referred to as “barnacle SEO.”
Your business gets listed on pages on other websites that rank well for a certain keyword you’re targeting.
So for [Dallas carpenters], Google lists sites like Yelp.com, homeadvisor.com, thumbtack.com, houzz.com, and angi.com.
Getting listed on those sites will bring the business leads, as they’re ranking well in Google.
Once you have secured (and verified) those local listings, the next local SEO strategy is to get listed with the main data aggregators. There are three:
- Data Axle (formerly InfoGroup) – Submit your business here.
- Acxiom – Register then submit your business here.
- Localeze – Register then submit your business here.
The data aggregators will take the information of the local business and aggregate it (make it available for literally thousands of websites to use).
Be sure you’re using the correct NAP data and website URLs, as once the data aggregators get hold of your data, it’s tough to get it corrected and updated and can take quite some time.
Using A Third Party For Local Citations & Listings
Another local SEO strategy is to outsource local citations and listings.
Several third-party businesses allow you to submit your local business listing to them (the NAP data, short and long descriptions, URLs, etc.), and they will then use their connections to get that data on other websites.
Many have agreements with certain data providers, and can efficiently get hundreds, thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of local citations.
These third-party services include:
- BrightLocal.
- MozLocal.
- Yext.
- Advice Local.
- SEMrush Listing Management Tool.
- Whitespark.
- Synup.
Some of these services are better than others, mainly because of the agreements they have with other websites and their technology.
Some submit to only 30 websites, and others like Advice Local will end up getting a local business thousands upon thousands of local citations, many of which include a link to the website.
Be wary of any third-party websites that set up a local listing on behalf of the local business but won’t give the local business the login and password for those listings.
Reviews Are Key
Getting reviews of your local business, especially on Google, is going to help rankings and it will encourage others to visit your business.
People do read reviews online, especially for service-type businesses (hotels, resorts, carpet cleaners, home inspectors, carpenters, and even car dealerships).
So, if your local business is a service-type business or another business where reviews are important, then creating a good strategy for dealing with reviews is key.
Local businesses need to request and encourage their customers to leave a review.
There are a lot of ways to encourage customers to leave a review.
Some businesses post a plaque at the business asking for reviews. Other SMBs encourage reviews by offering a “prize” each month to a random reviewer (one local business I frequent gives away an Apple iPad once a month to a random reviewer).
The local business should respond to reviews just as quickly as they are left, regardless if it’s a positive or negative review.
If it’s a positive review or comment, thank the customer for leaving a review.
If it’s negative, deal with it quickly and offer to take the issue offline to minimize any future problems and the negative review getting out of hand.
Even if you miss responding to a review, it’s perfectly okay to respond to reviews left several months in the past.
If the review shows up and can be seen easily, then I recommend responding to the review.
Too many local businesses will take the time to verify their local listings but won’t properly deal with reviews and respond to them in a timely manner.
Local businesses should take the time to develop a strategy for encouraging reviews, tell employees what that strategy is, and designate one or two people to respond to reviews.
Here are a few other ways to manage reviews:
- Designate one or two employees to read reviews and handle review responses.
- Encourage reviews by asking your customers when they check out or pay for services.
- Send customers a letter or postcard in the mail, asking for a review after you provide services.
- Outsource review monitoring and response. Typically, your social media or SEO company (or consultant) will help monitor and respond to reviews. If not, hire someone part-time to handle it for you.
- Add a link on your website to a few other places where customers can leave a review. On the Google Maps listing, for example, Google provides a link to the listing that you can share.
- Add a form on your website so they can anonymously leave a review (or leave their contact info if preferred). There are plugins available that will help you post those reviews on your website. This is especially helpful for businesses that sell products directly on their websites.
- Create a comment box at your business, and provide a pen/pencil and forms. On the form, add a line for the customer’s email address. Ask them if you can post their review or testimonial online. Or, if you have their email address, email them and ask them to leave a review online.
Reviews sent directly to the business can be posted on the company’s website (with the permission of the customer). Reviews left on a third-party website (like on Google, Yelp, etc.) cannot be copied and posted on the company’s website.
Reviews on third-party websites have in fact been given extra weight lately by Google. So sites like these, where customers can leave reviews and feedback, could potentially help with local rankings on Google:
- Yelp (yelp.com).
- Trip Advisor (tripadvisor.com).
- Yellowpages (yp.com).
- Better Business Bureau (BBB.org).
- Manta (manta.com).
- Angie’s List (angieslist.com).
- Foursquare (foursquare.com).
- Facebook (facebook.com).
Another way to get more local reviews is to create a postcard or handout that’s given to customers.
Tell them you’d like their feedback, and use that feedback to make your business even better.
They can leave you a review on your website, or on any of these third-party websites (list the websites where you’d like them to leave a review).
Optimizing Your Local Website’s Content
Without going into too much detail about optimizing a local website, there are several on-site local SEO strategies that are important to consider:
- Optimize for “Near Me” search queries.
- Optimize for local.
- Be a local content machine.
- Buy a local website or blog.
Screenshot by author, March 2022Optimize For “Near Me” Search Queries
In the past, there have been more people using “near me” in the number of search queries, such as [restaurants near me] or [pharmacies near me].
Those two search queries assume the search engine knows where the searcher is located.
While “near me” isn’t necessarily gaining in popularity as it once was five years ago, it’s still used quite often.
I recommend doing your own keyword research and specifically looking to see if “near me” is used in search queries in your area.
If there’s a significant amount of searches, you may want to optimize at least one page on your website for “near me” related keywords.
Local Ranking Factors
Advice Local came out with their list of 2021 Local Ranking Factors, which is worth reviewing.
Specifically, they found that the local SEO experts that contributed to the list of ranking factors said that these are important:
A properly optimized GBP listing is the most important ranking “factor.”
So, it’s important to optimize your Google Business Profile listing.
Reviews are important, as well as responding to those reviews.
Then one of the “rising” important factors is the optimization of your website’s pages, which is the “On-Page” referred to above.
For example, make sure that your website has the proper Local Schema markup code, and the NAP data there matches the information in your GBP exactly, especially the name.
Work on getting more backlinks specifically to your individual location pages that include “city name + keyword” in the anchor text of the links.
Be A Local Content Machine
One interesting tactic or “local SEO strategy” I’ve seen lately that works well is becoming a local content machine.
Essentially, by adding a blog to your local business website and writing about local news and events, you’re producing content that others in the city will want to read and share, especially on social networks.
While you’re not necessarily writing about your local business, you’re branding the business locally. When someone wants or needs a company’s services, they’ll think of your business first since they’ve seen it so much online.
A local auto accident and personal injury attorney hired a writer to write articles every single day about accidents in their city.
While they weren’t targeting the actual victims they wrote about, the social media shares went up dramatically and the attorney got his name out there in front of people in the city.
Those social media shares did end up creating links to the website, which in turn helped local rankings.
Buy A Local Website Or Blog
If you’re looking to add a lot of content fairly quickly to your local business website, consider purchasing a local website that already has the content you need.
It could be a local hobby website with local news or articles, or it could be a local blog that has the content.
Perhaps the owner doesn’t have the heart to keep up with the content like they used to or they could just use the money.
Approach a local website or blog about buying their site and incorporating and moving their content over to your local business website.
Setting up redirects from the old domain name to your local business website will help pass any link equity and history over to your local business.
Optimizing And Working On Links
Links to your website have always been an important search engine ranking factor and will continue to be in the future.
Google’s algorithm has always favored links to a website.
But back in 2016, there was a stronger emphasis on links when Google released its Google Possum algorithm update.
Local links or links from other local businesses and organizations have been important for years, and are still a very important part of a local SEO strategy today.
Greg Gifford, Vice President of Search at SearchLab.com, recommends that you can “find easy link opportunities by looking at the relationships you already have.”
Local sponsorships, local volunteer opportunities, and local offline groups can all lead to local links.
Need more ideas for local links? Use Majestic.com to analyze the link profiles of similar businesses in another city.
Another local SEO strategy for local links is to get links from competitors.
Use a web crawler such as the Screaming Frog SEO Spider to crawl their website and review all of your competitors’ outgoing links.
Then, see if there are any links you can get from websites your competitors are linking to.
Essentially, those competitors are passing link credit or PageRank to the other website that then passes it to your website.
Additional Local SEO Tips
Those are a few local SEO strategies that will help local search engine rankings.
But, if that wasn’t enough, here are a bunch more local SEO tips and pointers that you may not have thought of yet.
Local Listings
Undoubtedly, the number one local search ranking factor is the “proximity of the business to the point of search.”
How far is the business away from the person who is doing the search?
For example, Google knows where the searcher is (especially if they are using a mobile phone).
The closer the business is to the person doing the searching, the more likely that business will show up in the Google Maps and Google local listings in the search results.
Some businesses have been known to get a “virtual office” location (or multiple virtual office locations) just for this reason, especially if the customer never visits their location.
While this is a local SEO strategy I don’t endorse, it’s a local SEO strategy worth noting – as a company’s competitors might be doing it.
Keep your local online listings up to date.
If you know you have an update to your NAP data, make sure it gets changed online as soon as possible.
If you’re moving, start updating your local listings.
As soon as you know the new address, start updating local listings online.
It can take months for websites to update your listing, so the sooner you start, the better.
Just as you update your “snail mail” with the US Postal Service when you move to a new location, you’ll want to make sure your local listings are updated as well.
As previously mentioned, the address with the USPS should be the same exact address used in your local listings.
Search engines most likely have access to USPS data and inconsistencies can lead to local ranking problems.
Consistency is key when it comes to NAP data and your business’s ability to rank well locally.
Make sure your local listings are consistent and the same as it is on your website.
Audit your local citations.
Inconsistent NAP data across multiple websites is one of the issues I see a lot.
Auditing your local citations to make sure your NAP is consistent everywhere can really help local SEO.
You might have multiple phone numbers, different versions of your address, or even a different address on some websites that list your NAP data.
Removing duplicate listings and updating inconsistencies can make a huge difference.
Add updated photos on a regular basis to local profiles.
Get on a regular schedule of taking new photos of your location and your business. Add new photos on Google Business Profile, your Facebook page, and other sites that will accept photos such as Yelp.
Add a budget for local ads.
Use Google AdWords to target specific locations and target potential customers in your area. Google is now offering ads on Google Maps listings, so setting aside a budget for those ads will pay off.
Work on getting more reviews.
It’s always a constant battle to get more online reviews than your competitors – but it’s worth it in the long run.
Ask customers for reviews – in-store, at your location, and even via email if you have your customers’ email addresses.
Ask for a review on Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor if you’re a hotel or resort.
Always respond in a timely manner to every review that’s left, whether it’s a positive or negative review.
On-Site Local SEO
Add marked-up schema.org code to your NAP on your website.
The name, address, and phone number on your site should be marked up with the proper code.
It won’t affect how it displays on your site, but the schema.org code will tell search engines just that – that it’s your name, address, and phone number.
You can also add the markup in JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) code, which can help Google know about your NAP.
Add the proper link to your telephone number.
Adding a “tel://” type of link to your phone number where it’s listed on your site will allow mobile visitors to click on the link and call you.
This can also help search engines display your phone number in the phone call extension area in mobile search results.
Speed up your website’s load time.
Optimizing your site for mobile devices can seriously (and quickly) help rankings.
I’ve seen Google send more traffic to a website just because the website loads faster than it did before. This might mean moving web hosts, redesigning the website, or using a CDN.
All photos of your business should be tagged with the appropriate location information and keywords.
Use an EXIF editor to add location information, keywords, and descriptions of each photo. Each image file can be updated with this information, which can include geotagged location information.
Multiple locations? Create a section on your website for each location.
Don’t create just one page for each location, add additional content if possible.
Each location will have its own unique personality with its location and employees. Why not consistently add content relevant to each location? Add a blog, and add photos to make it relevant.
Use the proper syntax and keywords in your URLs.
For each location, use a format like www.domain.com/location/. Link to each location in the main navigation on your website, but don’t link to sub-pages under each location.
Consolidate separate websites for each location to one main website.
If you’ve set up a separate domain name and website for each location, move those websites to your main site.
Redirect the domain names with 301 redirects and move the content to sub-sections on your main website.
Each location will feed off of the main website’s authority to become more powerful. Don’t forget to update your location’s local listings so they point to the new URL on the main website as well.
Some local search queries can trigger featured snippets.
Depending on your topic, you can increase your website traffic and visibility by showing up in “position zero” for some search queries.
Position zero is the “featured snippet” that Google shows above all of the other search engine listings.
Use SEMrush.com to analyze the keywords you’re currently ranking for, and see if any of them include a featured snippet.
Optimize the content to show up for the featured snippet. Other search queries may also trigger the knowledge graph, instant answer, local pack carousel, or images that you can optimize for.
Make sure you’re using HTTPS.
While you may not be taking credit cards or personal information on your website, moving your entire website to an SSL secure server will give you a leg up.
HTTPS is now a search engine ranking factor for Google, and many local businesses haven’t moved their websites to HTTPS yet.
So moving to HTTPS will put you ahead of your competition. It’s important to make sure that links that you’ve had for a while, such as local citations, point to the HTTPS version of your website.
Add a blog.
Write blog posts on a regular basis about local news, local issues, and local events. Post those on social media and link back to your blog post.
Photos are always liked by local residents, and quite often they’re shared.
Local SEO Audits
Perform an audit of your website.
There are several different types of audits available, including link audits, on-page audits, and local citation audits.
Local citation audits are good for identifying duplicate listings and inconsistent NAP data.
I’ve recently seen a rash of negative SEO being done in the local listings, with some businesses receiving listings being built “for them” with bad data, courtesy of competitors.
A local citation audit can identify a lot of these issues so you can deal with them properly.
Link audits are important, as local maps algorithms are increasingly relying on link data.
Having low-quality links and off-topic links pointing to your website can hurt rankings.
On-page audits are also important to identify areas for improvement on your website.
Fixing issues like formatting, metadata, heading, and even page load speed can improve rankings.
Off-Site Local SEO
Get your customers’ email addresses and use that data to target them on Facebook or for an email newsletter.
You can upload your customers’ email addresses and phone numbers to Facebook and target them with ads.
Then, create a lookalike campaign on Facebook to target even more people with the same demographics as your current customers.
Optimize for voice search.
More people are using voice search to find local businesses. They use voice search to help them find a business near them.
For example, they might ask, “Where is the nearest Italian restaurant?” Check out the Local SEO Guide study of “near me” local SEO ranking factors that I previously mentioned. It’s an interesting read.
Use the barnacle SEO strategy.
For your main keywords (the ones you want to rank for), take a look at who is currently ranking – and it may not be your own website.
If you can optimize your listing or show up well on another site that’s currently ranking for your keyword, then you’ll still see some traffic and get business.
If a Yelp, Home Advisor, Thumbtack, Angie’s List, or BBB page is ranking, then make sure your local business is listed on those pages.
Participate and sponsor local events, organizations, and non-profits.
These will increase your local visibility and will quite often include a link back to your website, which ultimately helps your search engine rankings.
Final Thoughts
It takes a holistic approach to optimize your website for search. The combination of on-site optimizations and offsite listings and links will help boost your SMB’s visibility in local search results.
More Resources:
Featured Image: Olivier Le Moal/Shutterstock
SEO
Leverage Search Intent & Boost Your Visibility With These Expert SEO Strategies
Struggling to rank for your target keywords? You’re not alone.
The SEO landscape is more complex than ever, with search intent evolving and SERP features constantly changing.
So, how do you make sure your content aligns with Google’s evolving expectations?
Check out our webinar on September 25, 2024: “Navigating SERP Complexity: How to Leverage Search Intent for SEO.”
Tom Capper of STAT will discuss the role of search intent in SEO and how to use it to climb in the right SERPs for your brand.
Why This Webinar Is A Must-Attend Event
Ranking isn’t just about keywords anymore—it’s about understanding the intent behind each search.
We’ll cover:
- How intent is nuanced, and many keywords can support multiple intents.
- Why the same keyword can have a different intent depending where it was searched from, and on what device.
- The differences in SERP features depending on intent, and how this impacts your content strategy.
Expert Insights From Tom Capper
Leading this session is Tom Capper from STAT Search Analytics.
Capper will dive deep into searcher motivations using first-party research data and provide actionable insights to help you improve your site’s organic visibility.
Reserve your spot and find out more about how these insights can impact your ranking.
Who Should Attend?
This webinar is perfect for:
- SEO professionals looking to take their strategies to the next level
- Content managers and strategists wanting to increase the effectiveness of their work
- Enterprise professionals and digital marketers looking to blend branding, marketing, and SEO for a unified customer experience
- Anyone interested in search results and consumer behavior
Live Q&A: Get Your Questions Answered
Following the presentation, Tom will host a live Q&A session.
This is your chance to clarify misconceptions surrounding the intersection of content, search intent, and the SERPs and get expert advice on optimizing your strategies.
Don’t Miss Out!
Understanding search intent is critical to staying competitive in SEO. Reserve your spot today to ensure you’re not left behind.
Can’t attend live? Sign up anyway for the recording.
Get ready to unlock new SEO opportunities and boost your rankings. See you there!
SEO
How to Manage Local SEO for Businesses with Multiple Locations
As your business grows, the idea of expanding to multiple locations and tapping into new markets eventually becomes a possibility. And getting to this point can be exciting for business owners– but it’s also a complex process that involves the application of different strategies, especially when it comes to your SEO.
Managing SEO for multiple locations is tricky. You will want each location to show up in local searches and catch the attention of potential customers in its specific area. And this is where optimizing local SEO for multiple locations comes into play.
Understanding the Importance of Multi-Location SEO
Beyond brand consistency and quality products and/or services (which are always important), you have to consider how your new business branches can be found by an increasingly digital consumer market.
As an SEO expert, I’ve seen firsthand how important a well-crafted multi-location SEO strategy is for businesses, becoming the key to making sure that each location can attract local customers through organic search.
Multi-location SEO is more than just search engine ranking improvements. It is about connecting with local audiences on a deeper level – ensuring that your business is visible to potential customers exactly when they are searching for services or products in their area.
- Improve local search visibility. Optimizing each business location individually with relevant keywords can guarantee that your stores appear at the top of local search results – making it easier for potential customers in specific areas to find and visit your locations.
- Target qualified local audiences. Customizing multi-location SEO strategies to meet the specific needs and search behaviors of local customers can help businesses attract highly relevant and engaged customers, which may then lead to higher engagement and better conversion rates.
- Improved search rankings. Earning backlinks from local websites enhances the authority and relevance of each location, boosting your search engine rankings.
- Competitive advantage. A well-optimized multi-location SEO strategy sets your business apart from your competitors who may not be as focused on local SEO, giving you an edge in attracting local customers.
- More in-store foot traffic. Increased local visibility translates to more people discovering your business’ physical locations, driving more foot traffic, which eventually convert into more sales.
Create Separate Pages for Each Location
Instead of putting together and stuffing all the necessary information of your business onto a single page, separate pages allow you to highlight specific details unique to each location – from local addresses, contact information, down to the services and offerings available at each site.
While creating separate pages, it is important to:
- Ensure that all these pages are hosted on a single domain to consolidate your SEO efforts and boost rankings as a whole.
- Embed a Google Map for each location to enhance local visibility, user convenience, and relevance for local searches.
- Target geotagged keywords and mention the specific city or area on each page to establish your business’ presence across multiple locations.
- Include complete contact details and create location-specific content to help each location rank well in search results and drive more local traffic and engagement.
- Make sure that each of the pages have unique, optimized content, and not identical copies. Avoid simply changing just the city and state names on each page to prevent duplicate content penalties, and ensure a more targeted user experience.
- Add photos and videos to give users a better feel for each location.
Precise and localized information for each of the pages you will be creating for multiple business locations can help potential customers quickly find what they need, creating a richer and more engaging user experience. This shall improve your chances of ranking highly in search results as well.
Optimize Google My Business Listings
Each location of your business should have their own Google Business Profiles complete with accurate details – from address details, business hours, contact information, to the correct website URLs for specific business locations. This helps control how your business is displayed on both Google and Google Maps.
By the time you have created variations of GMB profiles customized to each business location, optimizing each of them follows. This involves uploading high-quality photos and videos, creating posts and publishing updates consistently, and managing and responding to reviews actively.
Of course, it is important that you encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews – and respond to it. This not only resolves issues, but builds trust among users too. It can even help boost local rankings significantly.
Keeping Google My Business listings detailed, up-to-date, and packed with positive reviews, you promote your business not only for potential customers to find and choose you, but also signals Google that each location is active and trustworthy – which further leads to higher visibility and more exposure in the search results.
Ensure Consistency in NAP Across All Listings
Consistency is key—ensure your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are uniform across all listings. With same business names, it may signal Google that these locations belong to the same business, while the address and phone number will let them know they are simply different branches.
The more accurate your information is across the web, the higher Google’s trust in its accuracy, making it more likely for you to earn a spot in the search results.
Create Local Business Schema
Local business schema, a type of structured data markup, is a powerful strategy for optimizing local SEO, particularly for businesses with multiple locations. Schema markup is a further addition to your location pages that allows you to describe your business more accurately to search engines as you provide them with detailed information.
This makes it easier for search engines to understand and display your business in relevant search results.
Gather Customer Reviews
Reviews are successful indicators of effective business strategies, providing potential customers with genuine, unbiased insights into your business. They influence customer perceptions while playing a role in how Google ranks your business in local search results. Reviews are also great social proof because people generally trust what other customers have to say about your business more than the information that we provide on the listings.
It is then important that you make review collection part of your business practices in optimizing local SEO for multiple locations by encouraging satisfied customers to provide feedback, not just on your GMB profiles, but to other review platforms too.
How to Get Positive Customer Reviews
Getting positive feedback from customers may be tricky, but it is an effective strategy for boosting both your business’ reputation and local SEO performance. Reviews like these will ensure that you stand out in local search results while attracting a steady stream of new customers.
- Ask for reviews, especially right after a positive experience. Do not hesitate to ask satisfied customers to leave reviews by asking them directly after a purchase or service.
- Let customers know how easy leaving reviews is. Simplify the review process by providing direct links to your Google My Business, and other review sites that your business is in. QR codes on thank you pages, receipts, or in-store displays can also be effective.
- Respond to reviews. May they be positive or negative customer feedback, make sure to respond professionally. This will show that you value their insights and opinions as much, and may even establish relationships with them. When these customers see that you are taking the time to interact with them, they will feel valued and appreciated.
- Highlight positive reviews on your website. Showcase the customer reviews on your website, especially for each location. This can further boost your local SEO, and may even encourage other satisfied customers to share their experiences as well.
How to Deal with Negative Reviews
Negative reviews cannot be avoided. Yes, they can be challenging, but they also present opportunities to make improvements on your business, and even demonstrate responsiveness to customer feedback.
- Reply to negative reviews as quickly as possible. Engaging promptly demonstrates a proactive approach to customer feedback and highlights your commitment to resolving issues. This also plays a key role in preserving the reputation of your business, fostering trust with your customers, and signals to search engines that your business values and prioritizes customer relations.
- Maintain professionalism. Always respond to customer feedback in a calm, polite, and professional manner, regardless of the tone of the review. Avoid becoming defensive or confrontational, since it may discourage potential customers. Then, from here, address the issue raised by thinking and providing a solution.
- Acknowledge the issue. Always begin your response by acknowledging and recognizing the customer’s concern, and expressing genuine empathy. This helps validate their feelings and show them that you actually mind. Do not forget to offer a sincere apology for any inconvenience or difficulty they have encountered as well, regardless of who was at fault.
- Encourage positive reviews. Even with negative reviews, continue to encourage satisfied customers to share their positive experiences. Increasing the volume of this positive feedback can help in enhancing your overall rating. And the more positive reviews you get, the less impact any individual negative review will have.
Collect as many testimonials as you can, and respond to both positive and negative ones. Actively doing so shows that you value customer feedback, and are committed to excellent service – further strengthening your local SEO efforts too.
Earn Backlinks from Local Websites
Link building remains to be an important strategy for optimizing local SEO across multiple locations. Backlinks act as endorsements from reputable sources that boost business’ visibility, relevance, and authority in local search results – all of which are important ranking factors.
Focus on getting listed in local directories and citations. Create listings for each business location, keeping each information complete and accurate, to help establish your local presence within the area. You may also reach out to local bloggers for guest posting opportunities, sponsor community events, or engage with local publications by sharing newsworthy updates about your business.
Backlinks from local websites drive targeted traffic from potential customers who are geographically close to your locations, increasing the chances of conversions. This local relevance is particularly important for businesses in multiple locations, as it ensures each site gains visibility in its respective area.
Link Your Social Media
Aside from separate web pages, your different business locations also need their own social media profiles. Actively maintaining these pages can boost local SEO through location-specific content, engagement with local audiences. These profiles will also enable you to run location-targeted ads to reach potential customers in each area. Once you have this set up, remember to link your social profiles to your location pages to increase relevance.
Look at Local Competition
Want to know what’s working? Look at the top-ranking businesses in your area. Use tools like SE Ranking, Woorank, and the like to see what strategies they’re using to rank well in local search. This should give you things like content ideas, backlink profiles, citations, reviews, and other opportunities you can apply to your own location pages.
Key Takeaway
Optimizing local SEO for multiple locations really takes a lot of work – a demanding but rewarding process. If we take this approach with these strategies, it will not only ensure that each location ranks well in the appropriate searches but also build a strong digital footprint for your business. The result is a stronger connection with local customers, increased foot traffic, and ultimately, greater business success.
Implementing this multi-location SEO strategy may actually sound like a tricky approach to expand your customer base and drive growth to your business in the online market. But with these strategies that I have laid out, you can tailor your SEO efforts to suit the multiple locations of your business without spreading your resources too thin.
SEO
9 HTML Tags (& 11 Attributes) You Must Know for SEO
HTML is a markup language that forms the basis of most webpages.
It is arguably one of the most fundamental parts of technical SEO.
Using HTML elements, SEO professionals are able to communicate information about the page to users and search bots.
This can help to clarify the importance, nature, and order of content on a page, as well as its relationship to other webpages.
What Are HTML Attributes?
Attributes are additional information added to HTML elements. They sit within the element, such as:
They are values that are used to modify the element, giving additional context about it.
In the case of the HTML tag above, the attribute, rel=”canonical” modifies the link tag to say to the search bots that this URL should be considered the canonical of a set.
Format Of HTML Attributes
HTML attributes consist of a name and a value.
For example, when defining an image, the name “src” is used and the value is the file name of the image. The “alt” attribute specifies an alternative text to show if the image cannot be displayed.
Types Of HTML Attributes
Attributes are usually classified in four ways; required, optional, standard or event.
Required attributes are ones where their absence from a tag means that tag would not function correctly.
Optional ones are, as the name suggests, not required for the tag to work but can be used to specify additional information or behaviour for that tag.
There are attributes that can be used with most HTML elements, and some that are very specific.
For example, the “style” attribute can be used to define the look of an element like the colour or font size. These universal attributes are known as “standard” or “global” attributes.
There are other attributes that can only be used with certain elements. Commonly, ones that are used for SEO will modify a link tag. These are elements like “rel” and “hreflang.”
Event attributes are added to an element to define how that element should behave in response to certain actions like a user mousing over a button. These attributes define how a function should be executed.
For example, an “onclick” attribute would define what a JavaScript function should do when a user clicks a button. These attributes allow developers to create more interactive pages from HTML tags.
Why HTML Attributes Are Important
HTML attributes are important because they allow developers to add additional context and functionality to websites.
They are particularly important for SEO because they give much-needed context to tags. They are critical in how we guide the search bots in crawling and serving webpages.
Attributes allow us to easily prevent the following of certain links, or denote which pages in a set should be served to users in different countries or using other languages.
They allow us to easily signify that a page should not be indexed. A lot of the fundamental elements of technical SEO are actually controlled through HTML attributes.
Common Attributes Used In SEO
1. Name Attribute
The name attribute is used with the tag.
It is essentially a way of specifying to any bots that may visit the page if the following information applies to them or not.
For example, including means that all bots should take notice of the “noindex” directive.
You will often hear this called the “meta robots tag.”
If the following were used , only Google’s bot would need to take notice of the “noindex” directive.
This is a good way of giving commands to some search bots that are not needed for all.
2. Noindex Attribute
The “noindex” attribute is one commonly used in SEO.
You will often hear it being called the “noindex tag,” but more accurately, it is an attribute of the tag.
It’s formulated:
This piece of code allows publishers to determine what content can be included in a search engine’s index.
By adding the “noindex” attribute, you are essentially telling a search engine it may not use this page within its index.
This is useful if there is sensitive content you want to not be available from an organic search. For instance, if you have areas on your site that should only be accessible to paid members, allowing this content into the search indices could make it accessible without logging in.
The “noindex” directive needs to be read to be followed. That is, the search bots need to be able to access the page to read the HTML code that contains the directive.
As such, be careful not to block the robots from accessing the page in the robots.txt.
3. Description Attribute
The description attribute, better known as the “meta description,” is used with the tag.
The content of this tag is used in the SERPs underneath the content of the
The tag is used to link a resource to another and appears in the
of the page.
These links are not hyperlinks, they are not clickable. They show the relationship between web documents.
5. Rel=”nofollow”, rel=”ugc” And rel=”sponsored attributes”
The rel=”nofollow” attribute tells bots that the URL within the href attribute is not one that can be followed by them.
Using the rel=”nofollow” attribute will not affect a human user’s ability to click on the link and be taken to another page. It only affects bots.
This is used within SEO to prevent search engines from visiting a page or from ascribing any benefit of one page linking to another.
This arguably renders a link useless from the traditional SEO link-building perspective, as link equity will not pass through the link.
There are arguments to say that it is still a beneficial link if it causes visitors to view the linked-to page, of course!
Publishers can use the “nofollow” attribute to help search engines determine when a linked-to page is the result of payment, such as an advert.
This can help prevent issues with link penalties, as the publisher is admitting that the link is the result of a legitimate deal and not an attempt to manipulate the rankings.
The rel=”nofollow” attribute can be used on an individual link basis like the following:
anchor text of link goes here
Or it can be used to render all links on a page as “nofollow” by using it in the
like a “noindex” attribute is used:
You can read more here about when to use the rel=”nofollow” attribute.
6. How Google Uses The Rel=”nofollow” Attribute
In 2019, Google announced some changes to the way it used the “nofollow” attribute.
This included introducing some additional attributes that could be used instead of the “nofollow” to better express the relationship of the link to its target page.
These newer attributes are the rel=”ugc” and rel=”sponsored.”
They are to be used to help Google understand when a publisher wishes for the target page to be discounted for ranking signal purposes.
The rel=”sponsored” attribute is to identify when a link is the result of a paid deal such as an advert or sponsorship. The rel=”ugc” attribute is to identify when a link has been added through user-generated content (UGC) such as a forum.
Google announced that these and the “nofollow” attribute would only be treated as hints.
Whereas previously, the “nofollow” attribute would result in Googlebot ignoring the specified link, it now takes that hint under advisement but may still treat it as if the “nofollow” is not present.
Read more here about this announcement and how it changes the implementation of the rel=”nofollow” attribute.
7. Hreflang Attribute
The purpose of the hreflang attribute is to help publishers whose sites show the same content in multiple languages.
It directs the search engines as to which version of the page should be shown to users so they can read it in their preferred language.
The hreflang attribute is used with the tag. This attribute specifies the language of the content on the URL linked to.
It’s used within the
of the page and is formatted as follows:
It’s broken down into several parts:
- The rel=”alternate,” which suggests the page has an alternative page relevant to it.
- The href= attribute denotes which URL is being linked to.
- The language code is a two-letter designation to tell the search bots what language the linked page is written in. The two letters are taken from a standardized list known as the ISO 639-1 codes
The hreflang attribute can also be used in the HTTP header for documents that aren’t in HTML (like a PDF) or in the website’s XML sitemap.
Read more here about using the hreflang attribute correctly.
8. Canonical Attribute
The rel=”canonical” attribute of the link tag enables SEO professionals to specify which other page on a website or another domain should be counted as the canonical.
A page being the canonical essentially means it is the main page, of which others may be copies.
For search engine purposes, this is an indication of the page a publisher wants to be considered the main one to be ranked, the copies should not be ranked.
The canonical attribute looks like this:
The code should sit in the
of the page. The web page stated after the “href=” should be the page you want the search bots to consider the canonical page.
This tag is useful in situations where two or more pages may have identical or near-identical content on them.
9. Uses Of The Canonical Attribute
The website might be set up in such a way that this is useful for users, such as a product listing page on an ecommerce site.
For instance, the main category page for a set of products, such as “shoes”, may have copy, headers, and a page title that have been written about “shoes.”
If a user were to click on a filter to show only brown, size 8 shoes, the URL might change but the copy, headers, and page title might remain the same as the “shoes” page.
This would result in two pages that are identical apart from the list of products that are shown.
In this instance, the website owner might wish to put a canonical tag on the “brown, size 8 shoes” page pointing to the “shoes” page.
This would help the search engines to understand that the “brown, size 8 shoes” page does not need to be ranked, whereas the “shoes” page is the more important of the two and should be ranked.
Issues With The Canonical Attribute
It’s important to realize that the search engines only use the canonical attribute as a guide, it is not something that has to be followed.
There are many instances where the canonical attribute is ignored and another page selected as the canonical of the set.
Read more about how to use the canonical attribute correctly.
10. Src Attribute
The src= attribute is used to reference the location of the image that is being displayed on the page.
If the image is located on the same domain as the container it will appear in, a relative URL (just the end part of the URL, not the domain) can be used.
If the image is to be pulled from another website, the absolute (whole) URL needs to be used.
Although this attribute doesn’t serve any SEO purpose as such, it is needed for the image tag to work.
11. Alt Attribute
The above image tag example also contains a second attribute, the alt= attribute.
This attribute is used to specify what alternate text should be shown if the image can’t be rendered.
The alt= attribute is a required element of the tag, it has to be present, but can be left blank if no alternative text is wanted.
There is some benefit to considering the use of keywords within an image alt= attribute. Search engines cannot determine with precision what an image is of.
Great strides have been made in the major search engines’ ability to identify what is in a picture. However, that technology is far from perfect.
As such, search engines will use the text in the alt= attribute to better understand what the image is of.
Use language that helps to reinforce the image’s relevance to the topic the page is about.
This can aid the search engines in identifying the relevance of that page for search queries.
It is crucial to remember that this is not the primary reason for the alt= attribute.
This text is used by screen readers and assistive technology to enable those who use this technology to understand the contents of the image.
The alt= attribute should be considered first and foremost to make websites accessible to those using this technology. This should not be sacrificed for SEO purposes.
Read more about how to optimize images.
The More You Know About How Webpages Are Constructed, The Better
This guide is an introduction to the core HTML tag attributes you may hear about in SEO.
There are many more that go into making a functioning, crawlable, and indexable webpage, however.
The crossover between SEO and development skill sets is vast.
As an SEO professional, the more you know about how webpages are constructed, the better.
If you want to learn more about HTML and the tag attributes that are available with it, you might enjoy a resource like W3Schools.
More resources:
Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 10, 2024
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 11, 2024
Roadmap Update – WordPress.com News
14 Tools for Creating and Selling Digital Products (Expert Pick)
Expert Embedding Techniques for SEO Success
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 12, 2024
The Secrets of One of the World’s Largest Ad-Free Blogs – WordPress.com News
Google Warns About Misuse of Its Indexing API
Assigning The Right Conversion Values To Make Value-Based Bidding Work For Lead Gen
How to Connect Your WordPress Site to the Fediverse – WordPress.com News
-
SEARCHENGINES7 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 10, 2024
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 11, 2024
-
WORDPRESS7 days agoRoadmap Update – WordPress.com News
-
WORDPRESS6 days ago14 Tools for Creating and Selling Digital Products (Expert Pick)
-
SEO7 days agoExpert Embedding Techniques for SEO Success
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: September 12, 2024
-
WORDPRESS6 days agoThe Secrets of One of the World’s Largest Ad-Free Blogs – WordPress.com News
-
GOOGLE5 days agoGoogle Warns About Misuse of Its Indexing API
You must be logged in to post a comment Login