Keyword research is a critical part of any SEO strategy. Learn how to optimize your website, Google Business profile, and content for local searches that drive relevant traffic.
Keywords
Keywords are the foundation of any digital marketing campaign. Whether you’re a small business owner looking to attract more online traffic or improve the performance of your existing campaigns, keywords are the key. Local keyword research is a process that helps you uncover the search terms people in your area use to find products or services like yours, so you can target them in your advertising and content.
To start, think about the products or services your business offers and brainstorm a list of related keywords. Then, do online research to find out how popular those keywords are. Tools like Ubersuggest and Google’s Autocomplete can help you get a feel for what searchers are searching for. It’s also a good idea to look at the competition – analyze their websites and SERPs to see what keywords they are targeting.
It’s important to remember that just because a keyword has high search volume doesn’t mean it’s the best one for your local SEO strategy. Instead, you should focus on search terms that have strong local intent. This means searchers are actively looking for a local product or service. You can identify local intent by looking for words that include city names, neighborhoods, or other geographic references. Additionally, you can look for terms that trigger local features in the SERPs, such as a map pack or local business listings.
Once you’ve compiled a list of potential keywords, perform a KD analysis using Ahrefs or Surfer SEO to determine how feasible it is to rank for those keywords. You want to focus on those keywords with a KD score of 0-49%, which means they are possible or easy to rank for.
Finally, it’s important to track the performance of your keywords over time. This will give you a clearer picture of how your SEO efforts are working and can help you make data-driven decisions about your campaign. You can do this by analyzing the results of your competitors’ SEO efforts, as well as tracking your website’s organic traffic and conversion rates. We recommend using Google Search Console (GSC) and AHREFs to track your progress.
Competitor Analysis
Local keyword research helps businesses understand how customers search for products and services in their geographic area. It also provides insight into competitors’ strategies and allows for optimization of content. Moreover, it can be used to identify new product and service opportunities. However, most small businesses do not spend enough time conducting local keyword research. As a result, they miss out on potential leads and revenue.
First, brainstorm a list of local keywords that are relevant to your business. This can be done using tools like Ubersuggest, Google’s Autocomplete feature, People Also Ask or by viewing SERPs. Once you have a list, it’s important to narrow down the keywords by considering things like search volume, keyword difficulty, and search intent.
To get the most out of your local keyword research, it’s a good idea to include keywords in as many different pages on your website as possible. This is especially important if your business serves multiple locations. For example, if you offer plumbing services in London and Manchester, you should have a dedicated page for each city. Also, make sure that each location page is optimized for its own unique set of local keywords.
Once you have a list of local keywords, it’s a good idea to create dedicated service pages for each product or service that your business offers. This will allow you to optimize for these keywords and rank highly in the search results. It will also give you the opportunity to answer common questions that searchers might have about your business and its services.
It’s important to remember that the top three ranking pages for any given search receive 54.4% of the total clicks. As a result, it is essential to rank in the top three results for each local keyword that you are targeting. This can be done by including the keyword in your title, meta description, and image alt text.
Competitor analysis is an essential part of any successful marketing campaign, and local keyword research is no exception. By analyzing the competitors’ websites, you can see what terms they are targeting and how well they are performing. You can then use this information to improve your own website and content strategy.
Content Creation
Creating high-quality and relevant content that aligns with your target keywords is an important part of any local SEO strategy. It helps to increase your visibility on search engines, and ensures that potential customers are finding what they’re looking for when they visit your website or store.
Using your target keyword research to guide your content creation can help you develop content that reflects the needs and interests of your customers, which can result in higher organic traffic. It’s also important to use your local keyword research to identify any content gaps that your competitors are filling, and then create content that competes with them in those areas.
Local keyword research is particularly useful when it comes to creating blog content or writing articles for your business’s website or social media accounts. By understanding what terms your customers are searching for, you can create content that speaks directly to them. This will help you to attract more traffic and convert them into paying customers.
To conduct local keyword research, you can use free tools such as Ubersuggest and Google’s Autosuggest. These tools can help you find related keywords and determine how popular they are. They can also give you ideas for how to phrase your search queries. For example, instead of typing in “dog groomer,” you might try something like “portland dog groomer.” Ubersuggest can also help you determine the search volume for each keyword and whether it’s worth trying to rank for.
Another great way to find local keywords is to look at your competitors’ websites and social media channels. You can see what keywords they’re targeting and how well they perform, which can give you some good ideas for your own strategy.
In addition to researching keywords, you should also consider the different services your business offers. This can help you to identify implicit local keywords, which are searches that don’t include a location or any other keyword modifiers. Implicit local keywords are often more difficult to rank for, but they can be a great source of leads.
Incorporating local keyword research into your SEO strategy is essential for small businesses. By targeting the right search terms, you can attract more organic traffic and improve your chances of converting them into customers.
Link Building
Local links are critical to a small business’s SEO. They help Google determine a website’s quality, which in turn affects its local search rankings. In order to build high-quality links, it’s important to follow a strategy that targets relevant sites in your industry. This means searching for blogs that write about the same topics as yours and finding opportunities to pitch articles to them. This technique is called link building, and it’s one of the best off-page SEO strategies for local small businesses.
Local keyword research helps you identify the terms that potential customers use to find your products or services. It also helps you understand the search intent of those terms. This is a vital piece of the puzzle, and it’s something that many business owners overlook. When you use local keywords, you put yourself in a better position to rank for those terms, which is the only way to attract potential customers.
Conducting local keyword research is relatively easy, especially with the help of free and paid tools such as Ubersuggest, Google Keyword Planner, and Moz’s Keyword Explorer. It’s also a good idea to check out your competitors’ websites to see what they’re targeting for their local SEO campaigns. This can give you ideas for the keywords that you should target yourself.
To get a complete list of possible local keywords, think about all the ways that people might search for your product or service in your area. For example, if you offer dog walking and grooming services, consider all the different ways someone might search for that term. Then, run those terms through a keyword research tool to identify their search volume and keyword difficulty.
Once you have a final list of keywords, you can begin to optimize your site for those words. This will include optimizing your website’s URL, H1 Tag, SEO title, and meta description. It’s also important to use local keywords in your website’s content, such as on your service pages and in blog posts. Remember to be consistent with your keywords and avoid using too many of them.