When it comes to local search engine optimization, many people think of it as an afterthought, but that’s because they don’t have the right tools at their disposal to make their online presence known in the local realm. If you’re not on the first page of Google with your business name when people do a search, they won’t find you – and they certainly won’t become customers. Thankfully, there are plenty of useful tools out there to help you take your game to the next level and get that coveted first-page ranking in Google.
Local SEO s a strategy for optimizing a business’ website for search engines to drive traffic to their location. In this case, the geolocation strategies of keywords are used. All searches are then limited to a given group of recipients most often associated with a given city. So it is a way to personalize SERPs results.
The main steps of local SEO are keyword analysis and selection, content, linking, and technical aspects related to the website’s functionality. First of all, a local approach has a narrow target group and area, as opposed to a global approach. Among others, we are discussing medical, gastronomic, entertainment, cultural, and service businesses in any given city that provide competitive services and products.
Developing a strategy and obtaining data is not an easy task. You can take care of it yourself or hire a good SEO agency, but it’s worth trying to find out more about your site yourself. How? You can use the tools available on the web for this purpose.
The largest search engine in the world, which is Google, promotes websites that are useful to Internet users. In the case of local SEO, Google My Business, integrated with maps, turns out to be a reliable tool. The relevant business card will be displayed in the SERP results along with basic details such as address, opening hours, photos, reviews and comments. Your website is then much more readable and, moreover, it works with indexing robots.
Now that you have your site set up, it’s time to make sure you’re getting traffic and conversions. To do this, it helps to know where your visitors are coming from. Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to track visitor activity on your website by recording data such as page views, time spent on site and other metrics. You can use this information to figure out which pages are performing well and which need improvement.
One of the most useful local oprimization tools is Google Trends. This tool helps business owners find out what their competitors are doing, as well as see trends for their industry in different geographic locations. You can also use this tool to get an understanding of how well your brand or website has done over time. This tool makes it easy to spot trending topics, which can be helpful for brainstorming content ideas. It’s a great way to learn about what’s happening in your niche without having to spend hours searching.
Moz offers a comprehensive suite of tools for improving local search rankings, from mapping your business location to creating listings on sites like Yelp. You can also use their toolset to manage and optimize your online reputation by identifying negative reviews, and responding to them. With this information, you’ll be able to see what keywords they’re ranking for and where their link profile is heading. You’ll also have access to a list of their social media profiles, as well as a map showing them on an interactive Google map.
Semrush is one of the most popular tools for local businesses trying to boost their visibility. It’s a powerful suite of marketing and competitive intelligence tools that will help you find out about your competition and drive more traffic to your site. With it, you can see who your competitors are, which keywords they’re targeting, what content they’ve published on those keywords, how many social shares their posts have received and much more. All this data should be enough to give any business a great idea on where to focus its efforts when it comes to optimizing content.
Growthbar is a free tool that offers detailed analytics on your website’s performance. It also provides handy insights and guidelines on how to improve your site based off what you see. It’s not just for business websites either – it can help any personal blog or social media page. You can use the reports to benchmark yourself against other businesses, get more shares, and more likes. To start, simply type in your domain name and then choose which report you would like to download.
GeoRanker has a unique feature that tracks the ranking of websites across multiple regions across the world. These locations are shown on heat maps and you’ll see the color-coordinated dots of those high on the ranking in those specific locations. Locals can leverage this info while mapping out their campaign to improve or maintain a good rank. The local rank tracker shows exactly how the rank stands in any location. Moreover, it has a citation finder that makes it easy to see what sources your competitors use.
With the review monitoring feature of Yext, it becomes easy to take action in regard to your reviews no matter what sites they’re on. In other words, all reviews can be compiled in one location for an easier job for you to manage. With a click or two, it automatically optimizes all of your business listings so they are compatible with voice search.
Synup tracks your business performance on search engines, local directories, and review sites. Synup crawls over 200 local search engines and directories to find data inconsistencies, ensuring your citations are accurate. It can also help you track your web rankings and traffic, notifies you when people leave comments and allows you to respond to them.
It’s free to check a company’s visibility on Google as well as analyze its competitors’ rankings. A company’s position and visibility can be checked without registration, without e-mail address, and for free.
The internet is a vast and expansive place, and it can be difficult to stay on top of all that’s happening. With new developments happening daily and any given moment, staying up-to-date on local search engine optimization can seem like an impossible task. That’s why we created this list of helpful tools for local SEO strategies. Don’t take care of everything yourself – let yourself make the work easier.
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