Internet promotion is the key to a company’s success. Of course, large brands have large budgets, which makes it easier to get a website to the top. But what about small and medium-sized businesses that need to be promoted for similar queries, but cannot spend millions on SEO? Most often, small and medium-sized enterprises are concentrated in one to two regions. This advantage will allow small companies to compete with large brands.
Features of Regional Promotion
Local SEO is a strategy for promoting a website in organic search in one or more regions. Search results in New York will be significantly different from those in another city with its market players and a smaller territory, such as Miami. Local SEO is a magic wand for small and medium-sized businesses that struggle to reach the top of organic search results for high-frequency keywords.
It is essential to recognize that a site can achieve high rankings in search results for a specific region if it contains content tailored to the audience of that region. In other words, the site pages should be optimized for a particular promotion region. The primary feature of regional SEO is considering the company’s geographic location. The area of physical presence is often the primary target in SEO promotion, and it is the easiest way to reach the top of the search results. If you don’t know how to approach this task, you can use Copify local SEO services. This way, you will get results without effort.
Local Keyword Searches
Optimizing a website for local search results starts with choosing the right keywords. If you have a small store or a company with a single office/point of sale, then it will be challenging for you to handle general commercial queries, such as “buy a chest of drawers” or “window installation”. The results for such queries are highly competitive, with many aggregators and large players competing. Therefore, it is better for small companies to immediately target queries that contain toponyms (city names) and optimize the site specifically for them.
For example, “buy a chest of drawers in Boston” or “window installation in Boston”. For such queries, local companies will receive a particular priority in ranking. In addition, such queries are less frequent and therefore less competitive.
Internal Factors
Of course, you should start with the content of your site. It is the information that search bots use to index pages.
Site Structure: Subdomains or Subfolders
If you plan to promote a site in multiple regions simultaneously, you will inevitably face the question of how to build a site structure that optimizes pages for each area.
You need to understand that one page can be optimized for only one region, or the entire country at once (pages without any regional optimization).
Typically, separate landing pages are created for each region. For example, there would be one group for New York, one for Los Angeles, and so on. It can be done in two ways: through subdomains or subfolders.
- Subdomains. In this case, a separate subdomain is created for each region.
- Subfolders. Sections are created on the site for each region of promotion.
The second method is more straightforward, in which new sections are placed on the main domain. Thus, new landing pages receive the weight of the main site.
There is no fundamental difference between subdomains or subfolders – search engines have long learned to correctly process both options for implementing regional pages.
Toponyms in Meta Tags
One of the most essential points in regional promotion is meta tags. Meta tags must contain a toponym (the name of the city for which promotion is being conducted). Otherwise, you will have to compete with the search results throughout the United States.
Address and Phone Numbers
Phone numbers in the site header and footer must belong to the region for which the promotion is being conducted. It is quite unusual to see sites that are promoted, for example, in New York, but their contact information is listed for Boston. The same applies to the address: if the site header/footer contains an address, it must belong to the region for which the promotion is being conducted.
SEO Texts
If users prefer to read about the topic before purchasing a product or service, SEO texts can be written for the website pages. These are texts that contain keywords by which the page is promoted. The peculiarity of regional SEO texts is that the toponym (city name) must appear in the text at least once.
Contacts Page
Creating a separate page with contact information is crucial for enhancing a website’s visibility in organic search results. Based on the data on the “Contacts” page, search engines determine which region the website will be ranked in. The page should contain as much contact information about the company as possible:
- Full postal address (including city and postal code)
- Phone
- Working hours
- Contacts of messengers and social networks in which the company is present (WhatsApp, Telegram)
External Factors
Other factors can help improve your visibility in a particular region. One of the most critical steps is registering with Google My Business. It is also worthwhile to spend time on link promotion. However, the primary importance remains with the previously listed methods of local optimization.
After Thoughts
Local SEO is an effective way to rank high in search results and capture a significant portion of your target audience for small and medium-sized businesses. To successfully promote your site, it is essential to determine the semantic core, structure, meta tags, content, and blocks, taking into account your region. Also, pay attention to external factors, such as reviews, links, profile in map services, and others.
Partnering with a digital marketing agency can help you implement these strategies more effectively and achieve faster results. Contact us today to boost your local visibility and attract more customers!
