4 Ways Local Businesses Can Optimize Their Landing Pages
Having an effective SEO strategy is necessary for every business and for brick and mortar companies, local SEO is especially critical.
Local SEO has the potential to yield more conversions than other types ofse marketing. If you’re not actively working on improving your search engine rankings, you’re missing out on new customers and thousands of dollars in sales.
SEO is so much more than just having some keywords scattered across your website. Search engine algorithms are more complex than they were in the early days of the Internet. Today, search engine results page (SERP) rankings are based on a variety of factors, like page loading speed, mobile friendliness, user experience, bounce rates, time on site, citations and much more. Most people think that the number one goal for SEO is to rank at the top of the page. While being the #1 spot does help, it’s useless unless the people who find your website take action.
Do you want to maximize your sales potential and reach more prospects in your area? Then you need a strong landing page where the visitors coming from Google, Bing and Yahoo will end up when they click the search results.
We’ve created these step-by-step instructions for building local landing pages that will lead to more sales.
Write Engaging Content
Most local landing pages are boring and unoriginal. People won’t spend much time on a bad landing page and may even exit it immediately. Google will take that as a sign that your website isn’t giving them the information they’re trying to find. This will negatively impact your search rankings. Make your landing page’s content stand apart from your competitors by making it engaging and informative. Use unique hooks, describe what’s special about your company, use captivating images and tell people why and how they’ll benefit from your product/service. There’s nothing worse than robotic-sounding copy, so make sure that your written content has a distinct tone and voice that aligns with your brand.
Remember we are a society of convenience and people have short attention spans. Nobody’s going to spend a long time reading your landing page. In fact, they probably won’t even read the whole thing. Keep your content concise and easy to skim so that people can digest your information quickly. Highlight key points underlining them or writing them in bold text. H2 and H3 headlines can also help with this as well as help with on-page SEO optimization.
Use Relevant Keywords
It shouldn’t be hard to incorporate relevant keywords into your copy. If you’re describing your business and industry, you’ll probably find that you naturally use these keywords without realizing it. However, you should review your content to make sure that you have the best keywords. You also should check your work to ensure that you’re not keyword stuffing since that can decrease your ranking. Your copy should sound natural and shouldn’t have the same keyword in every other sentence. Make sure that your headlines have your keywords too. “Home Improvement Services” is a much stronger headline for a contractor’s webpage than “Our Services” and is more likely to help your SERP rankings.
Location, location, location
To get a good SERP ranking for local search, you need to make sure that Google knows where you’re located. Just because your customers know your business’s whereabouts doesn’t mean that Google does. A good trick is to assume that Google has no clue where you are.
Your landing page should have your location in the text and at least one heading. For instance, a mechanic should use the headline “Boulder’s #1 Autobody Shop” instead of “Best Autobody” to help their rank in Boulder. Including your phone number as well as embedding a map with your location or including links to local resources can also help Google rank you higher in your desired area. If your business serves multiple towns and cities, you can list them on your separate landing pages.
Use a CTA (Call To Action)
Once you have people on your website, you need to direct them to take action. So many businesses fail to have a good CTA on their landing page and then wonder why they’re not generating leads or converting more of their web visitors. Don’t rely on people to automatically contact you or make a purchase. Tell them what to do explicitly. Pick a CTA that’s meaningful and specific to your business. For example, a retailer may prompt people to sign up for their email list so that they can promote sales and new products with email campaigns. Possibly offering a 10% off their first order to entice them to sign up. An insurance agency may direct people to complete a lead form, whereas a gym’s CTA might be to schedule a free fitness consultation. You may even consider testing different CTAs (split testing) to see which brings the best results.
Countless companies overlook their local SEO strategy. HubSpot found that 88% of people who do mobile searches for local businesses call or visit the store within 24 hours, and 18% will make a purchase within a day. Don’t leave all of that sales potential on the table. Follow these steps, and you’ll have a winning landing page and more sales.
Need more help? Give us a call, we would be happy to review your current position online.
