Local SEO Strategies That Deliver More Calls and Leads

Word of mouth and repeat customers is the key to most of the local businesses. This is effective for some time. However, if you’re looking for a constant stream of fresh leads calling your phone or filling out your contact form, you’ll need to be seen where people are looking. And right here, folks go looking at Google before they do just about anything. Local SEO is the way to reach those queries. It’s not hard, but it does take practice. 

This article analyzes the strategies that really make a difference. No fluff. No vague advice. The only tactics that help local businesses rank higher, be found more, and turn searchers into actual paying customers.

Your Google Business Profile is the first thing you need to fix.

The one free tool you have to build local visibility is your Google Business Profile (GBP). It influences what is displayed upon search of your business name or a service that you provide in your neighbourhood. If it’s not complete or up to date, you’re leaving leads on the table.

These are the things to do correctly:

•      The business name, address and phone number should be exactly the same as what’s displayed on your website.

•      Choose the most specific main category of your business

•      Include your hours and maintain them (including holidays)

•      Include authentic images of your business, staff and projects

•      Write a description that includes the city and services (but not keyword stuffing)

Google takes this profile as a reference to include your business in the local map pack. The three-result snippet on top of local searches is a highly clicked area. When you’re not in it, your competition is taking your leads.

The truth is, local citations are important for rankings.

A citation is any place online that lists your business name, address, and phone number. Google looks at these to ensure that your business is legitimate and consistent. If your citations vary in details, such as address format, phone number, etc., you can negatively impact your rankings.

Begin with the larger directories:

•      Yelp

•      Bing Places

•      Apple Maps

•      Facebook Business

•      Better Business Bureau

•      Complimentary industry-specific online directories for your niche

So assess what you already have. BrightLocal or Whitespark can help you discover existing citations and identify any incorrect ones. Correct any mistakes before making new ones. Quality is more important than quantity.

What Kind of Reviews Get You More Leads?

But reviews convert too; they’re also a ranking factor. If a business has 80 reviews with a rating of 5 out of 5, the business will receive more calls than another business with 10 reviews with a rating of 5 out of 5, even if they both are ranked the same. Individuals check reviews prior to calling.

Many more reviews are easier to achieve than most businesses understand. It’s as simple as asking. Here is what works:

•      After a job, send a follow up text/email with direct link to your google review page

•      Educate staff to reference reviews at conclusion of all service encounters

•      Include a QR code embedded in your receipts, invoices or business cards that points to your review profile.

•      Answer all feedback, positive and negative. Demonstrates activity and engagement

Don’t purchase reviews or incentives. Google can see patterns and will either take out suspicious reviews or punish your listing.

Writing Location Pages that Rank and Convert.

If you run more than one city or neighbourhood, you must have individual location pages for each one. It has been observed that a single page with a list of multiple (but not all) cities will not rank high for any of them.

The following should be included on each location page:

•      Unique title tag containing service and city names

•      A heading that is H1 and matches the search intent of the individual searching for that service in that city

•      References to significant local sites, areas or details.

•      An easy-to-find phone number that’s placed on every page of the website.

•      The Google Map that displays the location of your service or your own area.

Never duplicate content on location pages. Write original writing for each city. If you are aiming for 10 cities: 10 different pages, 10 different versions of the content.

What’s important for On page SEO in local search?

On page optimization is not a sexy topic, but it’s effective. These are the fundamentals that actually do affect local SEO:

•      Title tags: Use your main keyword in the title along with the city name. Make sure they are less than 60 characters.

•      Write a short summary with a call to action in the meta description. It does not directly impact rankings but it does affect click through rate.

•      Use header tags: H1 should be the topic, H2s should be subtopics. Make them readable and not keyword stuffed!

•      Schema markup: Apply LocalBusiness schema to your homepage and location pages to ensure that Google can easily understand your NAP information.

•      In addition, make sure to include links between pages, blogs, and your service and location pages to transfer authority and aid Google’s crawling process.

These all don’t take very long to set up. And hardly any businesses get involved. This is where you have an edge.

The ways in which local blog content attracts qualified traffic.

Blogs aren’t solely for big brands! They can use it to build the pages that meet the specific queries their potential customers are entering into Google. And when you respond to those questions more effectively than anyone else, you’re rewarded with the traffic.

Consider what questions your customers have before they hire you. Those questions are your topics of content. For example:

•      A Austin plumber might ask: How much does water heater replacement cost in Austin?

•      A Denver landscaping company might compose: Best Grass Types For Denver Lawns.

•      How to select the appropriate flooring for Florida Humidity would be the title of the article for the flooring company in Fort Lauderdale.

These posts are optimized for long tail keywords. People are already interested in hiring someone when they read them. It’s just a matter of being at the right place at the right time, presenting a good article and a clear call to action.

Place at least 1 or 2 posts a month.

Mobile and page speed are essential for local SEO and cannot be ignored.

The majority of local searches are conducted on cell phones. Your site will be too slow to load or broken on a mobile device and people will click the back button and go to your competitor.

Google also has mobile-first indexing, which means how your website performs on mobile is how Google will evaluate your website.

Use Google PageSpeed Insights to run your site. Look for:

•      Images that are too large. Compress them

•      Slow response time of the server. Think about using a different host that is faster.

•      Scripts that prevent page loading. Delay or eliminate them

•      The text is too small for reading on the phone.

•      If buttons or links are placed too close together for the finger to tap, the accuracy of the tap will be compromised.

If the site takes less than three seconds to load, and it functions well on a phone, then it will perform better than a slow, balky site any day. This is one of those things that impacts both rankings and conversion.

Understanding how to utilize local link building without getting too complicated

Google recognizes your site as trustworthy if you have links from other websites to your site. Local links hold more weight when promoting local SEO. It does not take hundreds of links from the large websites. A few, appropriate, local connections can go a long way.

Here are some ideas on how to get local links:

•      Organize or sponsor a local event or charity and get a link on their website.

•      Partner with non-competing local businesses and link to each other

•      Be quoted in a local newspaper article with a story idea relating to your business

•      Get involved in your local Chamber of Commerce and they will include a directory listing and link.

•      Guest post on local blog or community site

Remember quality not quantity. One inbound link from a trusted local news site or business organization can be well credited than 50 links from lesser well known directories.

What Is Working and Dropping is a method of tracking.

Local SEO takes time to show results. However, it is important to monitor progress so that you can be sure you are successful. When there’s no data, you’re just making things up.

If you haven’t already set up these tracking tools, do so:

•      Google Search Console: Displays keywords that are driving traffic to your site and how frequently your pages rank in search results.

•      Google Analytics 4: Provides information on visitor behaviour, landing pages and actions taken.

•      Google Business Profile Insights: Provides information on the number of calls, directions and website clicks received from Google profile

•      One of the rank trackers, such as BrightLocal or Semrush: Tracks the ranking trends for local search results over time

Check these monthly. Look for trends. Do more of what is working! If it is receiving traffic and no calls, make an adjustment to the call to action or the placement of the phone number. Numbers tell you what to pay attention to.

The Top SEO Errors that Local Businesses Make

There are some who put in the effort but still fail to get results. These are usually because of the two or three common problems.

•      Not using the Google Business Profile after it has been set up. It requires periodic postings, new pictures, and responses to reviews.

•      Inconsistent NAP data on the web. Google is confused when one business appears in two phone directories with two phone numbers.

•      Producing location pages that are thin or duplicate and lack real value.

•      Having no clear call to action on each page. If visitors don’t know what to do next, they leave

•      Awaiting results in a few weeks. A local SEO campaign typically needs to be implemented for three to six months to see significant results.

Sometimes it is more important to not make these mistakes than any one tactic to make. First firm up the basics, then adopt the more sophisticated stuff.

Local SEO is an ongoing process. It is an ongoing process. Businesses that pop up regularly at the top of local searches do so because they treat it as such. They update their profiles, get more reviews, post useful content and resolve issues as they come up. Learn the fundamentals introduced here, monitor progress and grow from there. The calls and leads will then come in.