A Super Local SEO Strategy is paramount if you own a small-to-medium internet marketing company and are perhaps becoming tired of not being able to figure out (no matter what you do) how to rank high on search engine pages. You are most likely missing the opportunity to boost your business chances of getting more traffic, thus raising your profit to a bigger scale. This entry is exactly the one you need to read.
Here, we are mainly focusing on the struggle that small-to-medium businesses face against the giant kings of marketing. This is sort of an e-commerce version of “David vs. Goliath” for SEO. Evidently, the idea behind this is to guide smaller entrepreneurs on how to rank high against the big guys without having to spend tons of money. How? Just by applying a few simple, although extremely useful, SEO marketing tips and a super local SEO strategy. These super local SEO strategies, can and will aid companies that still do not rank among the first options on the search engines, to position their websites next to those internet marketing monsters (such as Amazon, Apple, e-Bay, etc.).
Let us begin by setting the basic criteria that need to be fully met, as well as carefully addressed to gain higher ranking, traffic, ratings, and revenues. And yes! It usually goes down in that specific order.
These are the two most important strategies for super local SEO success. Let´s check them out.
Local SEO Strategy – Focus on your localized area first, before tackling the world
Generally, amongst the freshly-off-the-boat SEO campaign starters, there is that tempting tendency to aim for the big hitters first. One other temptation is to look for those juicy keywords that will theoretically drive humongous loads of traffic from anywhere in the world directly to your site in hopes to make your profits soar. If only it were that easy!
We hate being the carriers of disappointing news. The chances of that happening are incredibly slim.
Many start by burning their entire budget bidding against marketing moguls for ridiculously competitive keywords. However, in SEO you need to act smart. This means repurposing your business to dwell where there is little competition. That, of course, means your local area.
It is a waste of time, money, and effort, for small-medium internet marketing “Davids”, to attempt to play hardball against big transnationals with multi-million dollar marketing and advertising budgets. They will inevitably outrank any keyword phrase they want.
SEO and Bicycles
For instance, if your relatively new company sells bicycles, the use of keywords such as: “bicycle” or “bike” are not going to do anything for you. The massive world-class e-commerce “Goliaths” in that field, like e-Bay, Trek Bikes, GT Bicycles, Amazon, etc., have already spent millions to virtually own them.
Now, here is the catch and, more importantly, the key to outrunning those e-commerce giants at this SEO ranking race. Your internet marketing budget may not even match theirs. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have a shot.
The days when pay-for-play strategies benefited the rich and famous are gone. Google and other search engines have made it possible for small competitors to stand out from the crowd if they get smart. They now can and most certainly do outrun Goliaths by aiming straight towards their biggest weakness (Goliaths’ Achilles Heel if you will); their lack of presence at a local scale. That is where you need to focus your efforts. Better yet, go crazy and make it super local while you’re at it, and marry your business to a local search engine optimization.
But, what is a “super local search engine optimization?” you wonder. It means targeting a super specific location or anything within driving distance, especially for physically tangible products. This also works for online services companies who want to keep face-to-face contact with their customers.
How Super Local SEO works
Let´s go with a more in-depth explanation. Let´s pretend that what is being searched for is a bicycle for purchase. The buyer, let’s say Kate from Seattle WA, performs a search query on Google. She would probably type a generalized keyword like: “bicycle” or “bike” on the search bar. This will cue the search engine to organically array and display a list of sites containing the most relevant sites. This would probably include a Wikipedia link, with pertinent information regarding anything there is to be known about bikes, along with a bunch of major bicycle vendors worldwide. You can bet that Trek Bikes, GT Bicycles, e-Bay, and Walmart will be there.
The such outcome will induce the user to perform a “de-randomization” of her query. Meaning adding more details to her search solicitation, such as “type of bike,” “brand,” “range of price” or “location.” Because Kate is located in or near the Seattle area, she will probably include that in her query.
This is what she would probably write: “cheap red vintage bicycle in Seattle WA.” The search engine will organically prompt a list of locally adjacent businesses, which carry at least something remotely similar to what the query reads. Meaning that any company, or even any informal individual seller, who has published or linked anything related to a “cheap red vintage bicycle in Seattle WA,” would be shown organically on Google’s first pages.
This is the magic of search engines nowadays. You can have this informal individual, who obviously did not fight any keyword phrase battle, outrank most big brands. He only had to publish a super local sale ad on Craigslist for an old, second-hand bike that has been lying in his garage for years. That´s the power of a super local SEO presence.
The Power of Local Submission
Super local SEO owes its rapidly increasing growth to the whopping and unstoppable rise of smart mobile device usage over the last decade. Smartphones allow you to access amazing tools such as Google Maps, Google Places, and Yelp. And hundreds of business directories now let you submit your business and advertise to millions of potential customers. Just make sure that your business submission is under the appropriate business listing category.
Smartphones also provide useful features such as geo-targeting location, gaining more visible exposure for super local SEO searches.
Most entrepreneurs and businesses that take advantage of local SEO are broadly well-ranked in local searches. This is thanks to their physical address, and both a mobile and a local telephone number.
You need to make sure to keep your info updated, and signed into those geo-targeting tools. This is the best way to cement your e-commerce business to a particular town, city, region, or current location.
However, always bear in mind that “content is king”. These wise words, coined by Google, basically resume it all. No matter how much you optimize your local SEO strategy, your content must be relevant and on point. Fail to do so, and you won’t get anywhere near the first page.
If you run a locally based business or service, make sure you are optimizing for local searches. It can be done at a website level or, at least, on deeper pages within your site. Also, go for long tail geo-targeted keywords in order to maximize your super local search engine optimization.