Five Surefire Ways to Get Your Clients Ranked Locally

By Sean Brooks on Sep 6, 2021

In order to develop a true local SEO strategy for your clients, you have to understand what audiences your clients are trying to serve. Where do they live? What are their interests? What are their unique needs?

Instead of trying to measure all of this for yourself, a company that provides white label SEO services can do this for you. They’ll use the methods listed below (and more) to narrow down your ideal audience, making it easier for your clients to reach the exact people they need to grow their business.

Fix All Your NAP Information

NAP stands for name, address, and phone number. Usually found inside most business directories (along with your website), your NAP can also be listed inside geographic or industry-specific directories as well, helping position both where you operate and what you do in your local community.

Unfortunately, if you’ve changed your address or phone number at any point in time, there’s a good chance that your NAP information is incorrect on some directory listings. In fact, a 2018 study by Search Engine Watch found that as many as 3 out of ten customers found inaccurate information online in the previous year, with as many as 36% ending up calling incorrect phone numbers — and 22% visited locations with incorrect addresses!

This obviously creates a huge headache for the consumer, and Google recognizes it. That’s why businesses with inconsistent NAP information across a variety of different business directories will receive lower rankings from the algorithm. With less certainty concerning where your client’s business is and what they do, there’s less confidence Google has in showing their business in the SERP’s.

Generate Local Content

Your clients will not only work in their local community, they’ll also be active members of it. That means sponsorships, events and scholarships are all up for grabs, some of which — especially links from .edu websites — can be extremely powerful in generating inbound link authority.

Google looks to these types of links as ways to geolocate your client’s business, so while they may not appear in search results for cities hundreds of miles away, they’ll be extremely visible to people Googling generic search terms in their area. Phrases like “plumber near me” or “best veterinarians in my area” should reveal their business names near the top.

If you can’t find any external links to connect with, try creating your own content. Blogs that talk about the best things to do in your local area or advertisements for local events can be a great way to signal to Google where you are. They don’t take very long to create, but they will funnel customers to your client’s sites who may not even be looking for them in the first place. When the time comes, your client’s customers will have your client’s business top of mind and contact them when they’re in need of their goods or services.

Network with Complimentary Businesses

Nothing says local like building local relationships. Businesses that are adjacent to each other, but not in direct competition, can be a goldmine for improving your local search presence and finding a target audience. Any white label SEO company worth their salt will include it in part of their pay per result SEO plans.

A customer that is interested in building a house, for instance, may reach out first to a general contractor, who will, in turn, put them in touch with a plumbing company and an HVAC technician. If those other businesses have established relationships with them through past projects, then you have a pipeline of steady leads that you can sell to.

This also helps with local SEO link juice. Something as simple as a link on a complimentary business’s website that directs traffic to your client’s will not only send virtual customers to your site, but will also signal to Google where your client’s business is located. In return, your customers will enjoy higher search rankings.

Optimize Social Media Accounts for Local Keywords

Here’s a statistic that will blow your mind: Over half of the entire world’s population uses social media including kids, grandparents and even people with limited access to the Internet. What’s more is that the average person has eight social media accounts each, spending an average of 2.5 hours every single day.

Social media is everywhere, but if you can learn to harness its reach, you can deliver a flow of perfectly primed customers right to your client’s doorstep. You can do this by creating high-quality engagement posts and paid ads, but you can also recheck your page’s information to make sure the contact info is current and monitor the channels for any brand mentions. If you see any feedback — good or bad — engage with it.

Although Google has explicitly stated that they do not consider social media engagement in local SEO rankings, there is evidence that links published on social media and actual profiles themselves do rank on search results, which means you should optimize those for keywords.

Optimize Your Google Listing

Keeping tabs on all the developments with Google listings can be time consuming. That’s why it’s such a good idea to leave this type of monitoring in the hands of a company that handles white label SEO services. The number of features inside your clients’ GMB profiles is increasing every day, and daily activities like review monitoring and post generation require a vigilant eye.

But before you get into those more regular activities, do a full GMB audit on your client’s sites. Look at their competitor’s listings and see what categories they’re ranking for, what service areas they operate in and what keywords they’re targeting. You should try to insert several of those inside your client’s GMB profile but slip in some adjacent ones as well that can help you rank for keywords that their competitors overlooked.

Remember too that Google uses a few key factors that determine their SERPs for local businesses: relevance, distance, and prominence. By optimizing your GMB profile for these three items, you can exponentially increase your local visibility.

The Google analytics dashboard should reveal the KPI’s that matter the most to your clients: phone calls, directions, and clicks. Pay per result SEO companies focus primarily on these, since they only get paid when the company is able to capitalize on these important metrics.

Ready to Scale Your Agency? Let us Help!

Good agencies maintain, but the best agencies scale. Let us help you take care of the behind-the-scenes work with our white label SEO services, while you focus on growing your business. With over 16 years in the business, we know how to help you take your agency to the next level, so contact us today to get started!