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Look inside yourself. How to perform on-site optimization for a local website?

6 minutes of reading
Look inside yourself. How to perform on-site optimization for a local website?
Category SEO

If you own a local business, you may have heard about local search optimization but not sure how to get started or wondering if it’s worth the time and money to do it. In this post, we’ll cover what local search engine optimization means, the kinds of on-site optimizations that are most important for local businesses, and how to go about doing it in order to attract more local customers to your store or restaurant and get them buying more often. Let’s dive in!

Contents:

What is on-site SEO?

  • On-site SEO is the practice of optimizing a website so as to increase its rank in search engine results pages. The main aim of on-site strategy is to improve the visibility of a website so that it may attract more visitors from organic, or unpaid, search results. To do this, webmasters must focus on both the technical aspects of their site, such as its structure and code, as well as its content. They might also choose to backlinks (incoming links) in order to enhance a site’s authority.

Why is it important?

SEO is the practice of optimizing a website so as to increase its rank in the search engine results pages for certain queries. Optimizing a website for local SEO means optimizing it so that it appears as a top result for searches relevant to your business that are made in your geographic area.

  • 72% of users who did a Google search visited a store within 8km of where they were searching.

This allows you to reach not only the residents, but also visitors and tourists. All because Google is integrated with geolocation maps. The last few years have seen an increase in “near me” searches. We are more and more comfortable and we pay more attention to quality, which is why our online presence is one big electronic business card.

  • “Near me” searches increased by more than 150% in 2022.

Google local ranking factors

On-site optimization is the process of making your website more visible and attractive to search engines. There are many factors that contribute to your website’s ranking in Google, but here the most important:

  • Well written content and relevant to your target audience.
  • Easy to navigate and user friendly website.
  • Fast loading time, under three seconds.
  • Being mobile and responsive.
  • Social media integration.
  • Good reviews and UGC links.
  • 88% of users seek online reviews for local businesses.

On-page factors

SEO is critical for any business with an online presence, but it’s especially important for businesses that rely on local customers. Optimizing your website can help you attract more qualified leads and convert them into customers.

Title Tag

Ensure that the words in the title tag are relevant to what’s actually on the page so they’re easier to find when someone searches for keywords relevant to those pages. The most important thing is to keep the title short because most people don’t want to read through long titles and click away from your site before they see anything of interest.

Meta Description

Meta descriptions are brief paragraphs that describe what a page is about and provide links back to your website so visitors can stay on your site instead of clicking away. They should be between 150-160 characters in length, including spaces. The key is creating a compelling call-to-action that will encourage people who land on this post to take some sort of action whether it’s visiting another webpage, reading another blog post, or converting into an email subscriber.

H1 Tags (headings)

The H1 tag is one of the most important elements of on-site structure. That’s because it’s the first thing people see when they land on your website. Keep your tag under 60 characters and add some form of call-to-action in order to increase clickthrough rates and conversion rates. Try not to spam with keywords, but use them intelligently (along with other terms) for a natural look.

Keywords (and local ones)

For a local business, that means targeting keywords that include the city or region where you do business. You can also use geotargeting as a marketing tactic by identifying which locations are in your service area and providing them with more detailed information about your products and services.

URLs and canonical tags

A URL is the unique address of a specific page on your website. The canonical tag is an HTML element that helps webmasters prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the canonical URL, or original source, of a page’s content.

For example, if you have more than one blog post with similar content and each has its own URL but not its own canonical link pointing back to the original blog post where they originated from, Google will list all URLs in search results and rank them according to how many external links point back to them.

Image Alt Tag

An ALT tag is an HTML attribute used to provide alternative text descriptions for images on a web page. When search engines see an image, they scan the ALT text to try and understand what it’s about. This is important for local SEO because it gives you another opportunity to insert keywords related to your business and location.

Managing and optimizing internal links

One of the most important aspects of on-site optimization is managing and optimizing internal links. By properly linking your pages together, you can help search engines more easily crawl and index your site. Plus, you can help improve your site’s overall link juice, which can lead to higher rankings in search engine results pages.

Page speed and site structure

Every second counts when it comes to your website loading speed. Studies show that even a one-second delay in page response can result in a 7% decrease in conversion rates. To ensure fast loading times, start by optimizing your site structure. This means having a well-organized hierarchy and using smaller file sizes.

Add “About Us” section

“About Us” section is one of the most important elements of a local strategy. By adding relevant keywords and phrases, you can improve your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages. Plus, including information about your business’ history, location, and hours of operation can help potential customers learn more about your company.

Implementing Schema Markup

Schema markup is code (semantic vocabulary) that you add to your website to help the search engines return more informative results for users. This code helps search engines understand the content on your web pages and provide richer results. In turn, this can help improve your click-through rates (CTRs) and organic traffic.

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Final thoughts

Local SEO is an important part of any small business marketing strategy. It helps businesses promote their products and services to local customers. However, it can be difficult to get started because there are so many variables that go into the process. There are some ways you can start by identifying your location, creating content relevant to your industry, establishing social media profiles, and optimizing the site with keywords that people in your area might search for.

Aleksandra Pietrzak
Copywriter
Curator at the National Museum in Poznań, graduate of Art History at the Jagiellonian University and Contemporary Art at the Pedagogical University of Krakow, curator of exhibitions and author of scientific and popular texts. A lover of contemporary art, literature and travel.
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