If your marketing client has a local business, you want to target customers in their nearby area. One way to do this is to optimize local landing pages so they are found by search engines and shown to your client’s local target market. Optimizing local landing pages should be an important part of your SEO strategy for all your local business clients.
A local landing page is a web page that is specifically designed to target a specific geographic area or location. The whole idea is to give information to those in the area who are searching for the local business’s products or services. So, naturally, the content of a local landing page will be targeted geographically. For example, it may contain a local address, reviews by local customers, and content important to those in the region. A local landing page should also give your client’s local customers reason to visit or contact the business.
This localized content enables Google to understand that the client’s products and services are relevant to customers geographically near the business. Google then knows to rank the business in local searches.
This does not mean that all local landing pages serve the same purpose. For example, some create awareness for a product or service, some focus on generating leads and some try to drive traffic to physical locations. For example, a local landing page for a restaurant might include information about the restaurant’s menu, location, and hours of operation, as well as customer reviews and ratings.
Optimizing your client’s local landing pages can help their business increase profits and grow in many ways. These include:
There are many ways to optimize local landing pages. Here are some of the most important ones.
Start out with a clear understanding of your client’s target audience. If you don’t understand your audience, you are never going to be able to connect with them. Look at demographics, interest and search intent.
2. Use location-specific keywords: We’re sure we don’t need to tell you at this stage that words matter. It’s critical to use location-specific keywords in local landing page content. Use them in the page title, heads, body copy and metadata. This is the primary way search engines understand that location is a critical aspect of this page, so will know to serve it up to those in the area.
2. Include local content information: Include the name of your business and your phone number. If it’s local, it’s probably a business with a physical location, so include the address.
3. Use schema markup: Schema markup is structured data that search engines use to understand your pages. Use schema markup to provide additional context to search engines about the location and services offered on your landing page. This can improve the visibility of your page in search results.
4. Optimize for mobile: A lot of people do local searches on their phones and tablets. It’s critical that you optimize local landing pages for mobile.
5. Reviews and testimonials are great for local landing pages: Search engines love reviews, and people like to see what businesses their friends and neighbors frequent.
6. Build local links: Don’t forget the importance of link building to optimize local landing pages. Link building is an important SEO strategy for boosting search engine rankings.
If the optimization of your clients’ local landing pages is sorely lacking, Umbrella can help. Contact us here or call us at (866) 760-2638 for a free consultation about how we can help you help your clients’ local businesses to drive more traffic and increase profits.