Back to Blogs Back to Blogs

Local Business SEO Tips And Tactics

Most Australian businesses focus on SEO when they want to attract as large of an audience as possible. However, local businesses can benefit from optimisation just as much, if not more. If you want to attract a local audience from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and other cities, you have to attract search engines as well.

 

People who search locally have over a 70% chance of visiting a business in person on the same day. It’s understandable then that if your business wants to reach local demographics, you should develop a long-term SEO strategy.

But remember, for an effective SEO strategy that helps you reach your business goals, you must be looking at an ALWAYS on solution with optimum results being delivered between 6-12 months onwards.

GDR MEDIA GROUP IS YOUR LOCAL AREA MARKETING EXPERT, WITH OVER 40 YEARS IN THE GAME.

You can trust us to ensure you reach your audience using the best channel.
Our goal is always the same: to make marketing meaningful and deliver tangible results.

 

TO OPTIMISE YOUR WEBSITE AND DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY FOR LOCAL AUDIENCES, START WITH THE FOLLOWING TACTICS:

Optimise Content For Local Keywords

During keyword research, your goal is to cover as much ground as possible. Everything from generalised to long-tail keywords is necessary for your pages. In most cases, you’ll want a healthy balance of different types of keywords to attract organic traffic and search engine crawlers. As you might expect, when it comes to local marketing, you have to put an emphasis on local keywords.

The simplest way to do your keyword research is to use Google’s Keyword Planner. It’s a quintessential tool for any kind of SEO work. What makes it especially good in this scenario is its ability to show results by location. The location filter will help you identify the exact most relevant keywords for the area your business operates in.

Once you have your ideal keywords, you can start implementing them in your content. Don’t forget to add them to your metadata as well, as this has a significant impact on search engine rankings. Make sure that you don’t overuse local keywords, though. Keyword stuffing will make your pages look like spam, which negatively affects search engine rankings.

 

At GDR Media Group we are very experienced with SEO and what it can do for your business.
For one of our clients, in the past 6 months, we have increased their average Google ranking from 90+ to 45!

Let us achieve great things for your business too. Call us to find out more.

 

Set Up A Platform For Reviews

Few things are as effective at building customer trust as reviews. People don’t trust the word of businesses, as there are plenty of examples of false advertising out there. Reviews are seen in a different light. They let ordinary customers voice their opinions about particular products and services. Other customers like seeing them and reading about the experiences of those that have purchased products or services. However, they’re not just good for attracting customers.

Reviews also help boost your website’s rankings in a couple of ways. For one, the review system creates traffic and discussion for your business. While many businesses are worried about falsified negative reviews, these aren’t common and they don’t affect your traffic negatively. Just discussing your products will draw customers, and signal search engines that people are looking for your business.

Good ratings are just icing on the cake, but it’s still an important kind of icing. Encourage customers to leave reviews whenever possible. Their positive experiences will draw in others, who will then leave their own reviews. When it comes to negative reactions, you should always engage with a helpful response. Try to help customers that have problems with products. This proactive approach is seen as trustworthy by most consumers, and the engagement helps improve rankings slightly.

 

Strengthen Your Social Media

Social media has become a crucial part of every digital marketing strategy. If you want to engage customers, having a presence on social media marketing channels helps tremendously. It improves your brand strength and credibility among consumers. More importantly, it gives you a good place to advertise your products and services. On the most basic level, handling a social media page can give you free advertising. If you want more pronounced exposure through ads and promotions, advertising on social media can be very affordable.

You can also improve your search engine rankings with a well-managed social media page. These platforms can be a useful source of backlinks and mentions, which can bode well for your SEO. However, you have to post content that is relevant to your audience to attract them. If they get the information they need, they’re more likely to follow your pages.

Social media is especially important for local advertising. People prefer to see ads and posts from local businesses rather than international ones. A benefit of proximity is that you can also post content that relates to your city or state. Another viable option is to create comparisons of various businesses in your area and mention your own. It’s a great way to introduce your company to people that visit the local area.

GDR Media Group is an independent agency ready to be your marketing sidekick.
Contact us today for your FREE marketing workshop.

 

Utilise Google My Business

Google has a few helpful tools that you can use to improve SEO and promote your business. Chief among them is the Google My Business page. Using this feature is absolutely essential for any business, whether it’s aiming for a local Australian or international audience. Listing your company on this page makes it easier for customers to discover you.

When you set up a Google My Business page, Google will display your company in SERPs when users search for particular products, services, or businesses. It will also show your company on map searches in Australia, which is imperative for local marketing. A user who wants to find a nearby store or office will identify your company if it suits their needs.

You should optimize this page to achieve the best possible rankings. Start by regularly updating your contact and location info if you move. Make sure all the data is up to date and relevant to a user’s query. Add your company logo and relevant images to the page. Listings that are made up of text only rank worse than those that feature images of the business. Encourage consumers to leave reviews on this page as well, and once they do, you should respond to thank or assist them if they have problems.

 

List Your Business In Various Other Directories

Google My Business isn’t your only option for displaying your brand. There are also local directories that feature various types of businesses, and there’s no reason they can’t feature yours as well. Find the directories that showcase businesses in your niche.

Search engines like Google rank these directories well in local searches, as they’re representative examples of what the user is looking for. If you optimize your listing, users will likely end up on your website when they search local. This will help you get the most qualified leads in your area while boosting your rankings.

 

Optimise Your Website For Mobile

Mobile has become one of the premier platforms for customer searches. People are using their phones to look up products and businesses more than ever before, and the trend isn’t likely to subside any time soon. Phones are poised to overtake desktop computers as the primary source of searches. As a result, search engines have placed enormous value on mobile optimisation.

It’s important to note that mobile traffic is especially important for local businesses. It’s estimated that around 30% of all local searches are done through mobile phones. One reason for this could be that users suddenly decide they want to purchase or search for something, and their phones are a quick and convenient platform for these searches. It’s no surprise then that mobile searches lead to conversions at a higher rate than desktop searches.

Optimising for both mobile and desktop is an essential, but difficult task. You have to balance elements to increase page speed on both platforms, while not sacrificing aesthetics. Plenty of small Australian businesses find it difficult to dedicate resources to comprehensive optimisation on multiple platforms. In these scenarios, it helps to have some outside help. Businesses often enlist the help of a professional SEO company to optimise their websites. This lets owners divert resources to other elements of their digital marketing strategies while taking care of SEO in the most efficient way.

 

Market For Voice Searches

If you’re familiar with AI helpers like Siri and Alexa, you’ll know that voice searches are becoming more and more prominent in today’s digital market. People like the convenience of searching for something aloud, and today’s technology allows them to get accurate results from their searches. This is where SEO comes in.

There are some differences between SEO for voice and text searches. For one, it’s less formal. People usually don’t phrase their sentences the same way they would for a text search. There are more questions involved, as users ask their digital assistants directly. This means that queries tend to be different, and thus search engines look for different results.

As is the case with mobile searches, people use voice searches to find local products and services that they want immediately. This makes them more valuable to local businesses. It’s important that you do keyword research for voice searches and implement these keywords on specific pages. Since it’s still relatively early when it comes to voice searches, any optimisation you enact will put you ahead of the curb compared to most local businesses.

 

What GDR Media Group Can Do For You

There’s no doubt about the effectiveness of local SEO when drawing in your desired demographics. People like to cooperate with local businesses, and they place more trust in them. With a solid marketing strategy, you can improve your rankings on local SERPs and attract even more attention and customers to your business.

Keep some of the above tips and tactics in mind and you’ll reach new heights with your SEO strategy.

By Choosing GDR We Will

📈 DEVELOP A LONG-TERM SEO STRATEGY THAT SEES TANGIBLE RESULTS FOR YOUR BUSINESS
🤓ENSURE THAT WE ARE THINKING LOCALLY TO ATTRACT YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE 
🧲 ATTRACT ATTENTION TO YOUR BUSINESS

 
THIS ARTICLE WAS CONTRIBUTED BY NICK BROWN, CO-EDITOR AT MEDIA GURUS

Related Stories

Website Design

How Designers and Programmers Can Improve SEO Together
How Designers and Programmers Can Improve SEO Together

Digital Marketing

The Search Is Over: SEM vs SEO
The Search Is Over: SEM vs SEO
TOP UX PROVIDER