If you are a local business that wants to get noticed in search engines and generate more customers, you need to understand local SEO. Ranking organically for your product or services within specific geographic area is just the beginning.
SEO tactics and approaches are regularly changing but a few considered steps can help to seriously increase your search engine visibility. Many local businesses simply don’t bother but if you’re Exeter based, then you need Exeter traffic. Visits from elsewhere due to broader keyword visibility may boost your visitor numbers but in reality your location may put them off. So, local SEO works to find improvements to ensure your services are found in a specific geographic area.
To help customers find you, we look at four key areas:
Benefits of an SEO audit
If SEO is a key part of your digital marketing strategy, regular SEO audits will ensure that you’re not falling behind. The key benefits of a regular SEO audit include:
- Check that competitors are not gaining traction
- Ensuring content remains relevant and up-to-date for users
- Internal link-building opportunities are maintained and remain consistent
- Your website structure remains compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines, to avoid potential penalties
How often should you have an SEO audit
How often you should have an SEO audit depends on how much your business depends on organic traffic, the size and complexity of your website and what your competitive landscape is like. Generally, we would recommend a detailed look at least once a year but if you have a website with many pages, you would probably benefit from a mid-level review every six months or even an ongoing monthly audit to check nothing major has taken place.
- Check your business model (bricks & mortar with one location, bricks & mortar with multiple locations, working from home, operating from one location to a wider service area, etc) then ensure it complies with Google’s guidelines.
- Develop a content strategy to strengthen your website because the quality of the website directly impacts how much value Google gives you on the automated local listing in search results.
- Develop a plan to encourage reviews across your digital footprint.
- Examine your social media presence and strategy.
Local SEO is straightforward when you know how and can be implemented as part of a comprehensive SEO audit or undertaken as a project to establish the basics.