What Is Local SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of persuading search engines, like Google, to show your website to their end-users as the best solution for their problem.
With our SEO expertise, we help small to medium-sized businesses improve their search results presence in their local area(s) of business.
Local SEO involves applying SEO fundamentals to rank business websites and their Google My Business (GMB) profile listings in the map pack (aka. the snack pack, 3-pack) and the organic listings.
Who Can Benefit From A Local SEO Campaign?
Any local business that wants to capture more leads from web search traffic can benefit from local SEO.
Most businesses have a Google My Business listing, but most never get to one of three map pack positions.
Yet, being on the map-pack is where you’ll get most of your leads from as it stands out from the paid Google Ads and the traditional organic search result listing.
A few businesses that can benefit the most from a local SEO strategy are:
- Law Firms
- Plumbers
- Tree Removal Services
- Junk Removal
- Pest Control
- Chiropractors
- Dentists
- Surgeons
- House Cleaning
- I.T. Services
- Electricians
- Roofers
- HVAC
If your Google My Business profile isn’t ranking in one of the top 3 positions of the map pack and your company’s website is on page 5 for your customer-driven keywords, your business can tremendously benefit from a local SEO campaign.
What Makes Our Local SEO Campaigns Effective
The foundation of a successful local SEO campaign is keyword research. We choose the best keywords for the clients we work with that are most relevant to the business and keywords with buyer intent.
Once our keyword research complete, we start our core SEO processes.
Every local SEO campaign comes with core processes that move the needle and gets your website and GMB to your desired ranking result. These processes are done weekly, monthly, and quarterly by our local search engine optimization team.
Below are the core principle processes we cover for each local campaign we launch.
Technical SEO
For every new local SEO client, we perform a technical audit. A technical audit analyzes the website to detect common issues that could hold it back from local ranking success.
Note: If a client has a new website with no optimization done yet, we save tech audits for a future date.
A few on-site technical issues include 301 redirect chains, site speed, site structure, duplicate content, site security, 404 error pages, and more. Once the site has an excellent technical foundation, we proceed with our content marketing strategy and re-run a tech audit every quarter to ensure our SEO “t’s” are crossed, and our “i’s” are dotted.
Content Media Assets
It’s important to remember that one of the strategies to get search engines to favor and rank your website (and GMB) higher in the results is to convince sites like Google that your website is one of the most credible options for their users.
We persuade Google to see your GMB and website as the #1 solution to their web searchers’ problems by publishing one or multiple optimized articles (we like to call them content media assets) on your site’s blog every month.
Sharing these articles on your social media channels (that link back to your website and has GMB info about your business) also helps in the overall local SEO process.
Our monthly content development strategy is 100% evergreen, long-term, based on keyword search volume, brand awareness, aims to get natural backlinks, and is safe from Google updates.
On-Page SEO
Every keyword our agency aims to rank gets put through rigorous page optimization. We ensure every service page and blog post that we publish gets optimized for your keyword targets using the best local SEO and advanced on-page practices.
Backlink Acquisition
An essential ranking factor to ranking a business website and its GMB is having more domain authority than your competitors. The articles and pages we create monthly are great but won’t rank higher if the algorithm doesn’t recognize your site as an authority in your local area and industry.
We build topical and geo authority over time by building links (aka. backlinks) to your website from other websites through our backlink outreach, guest posts, and business listings.
Our link acquisition campaigns are done monthly, and the link velocity depends on the clients’ industry and geo-target competition.
Google Maps SEO
Your GMB listing shows up anytime someone types in your business’s company name on Google. And when optimized correctly, your GMB can rank in the top 3 map pack search listings. We optimize your GMB listing for the correct categories, address, phone number, hours, images, and more based on data-driven competitor analysis.
Ranking in the 3-pack on Google maps also requires citation building. Citations are references for your business (i.e., Yelp, Foursquare, Yellow Pages, etc.). They don’t transfer much link value but are a local rankings factor.
The above SEO tasks are the fundamentals tasks of our campaigns. Unlike some agencies we’ve come across, we focus on these fundamentals and always see great success for our clients.
In some instances, before we start a new client’s campaign, we ask if they’ve worked with an SEO agency before. When they’ve had a poor experience in the past and dig further, we typically find out that the previous agency was neglecting the fundamentals or was poor at implementing the fundamentals we just covered.
Local SEO Pricing Plans
Our local SEO services are reasonably priced, and on average, start at $999 per month but can go up from there depending on the stage of your current website & GMB(s) and the competitive landscape of your target keywords. To get a quote for your website, get in touch here.
Note: if you’re quoted at or below the $500 mark, chances are the agency you’re talking to is only doing keyword research, technical and on-page SEO. Your business website will have a hard time ranking at that low price point, and you’ll continuously pay with little to no results. Get in touch with us, and we’ll be happy to help you understand your SEO options.
We pride ourselves in being SEO fiduciaries and transparent about all our local SEO services, whether you’re a client or not.
How to Hire A Local SEO Expert Consultant
Hiring a local SEO agency to produce results for your business can be challenging. It’s also challenging if you don’t know what to expect out of an SEO campaign. To get a better understanding and benchmarking on choosing a good SEO consultant for your business, watch Google’s own Maile Ohye explain to business owners how to best hire an SEO agency.
Consider Complementing Local SEO with Paid Search
In the video above, Maile, a 10+ year Google employee, and Search team member stated that it takes anywhere from four to ten months for an SEO agency to produce meaningful results.
“Wow, that’s a long time!” says a lot of business owners we talk to. There’s no doubt about it; local SEO takes time, which is why we alternatively recommend pay-per-click Google Advertising. It’s a much faster way to get leads from Google as you’re paying per click to appear at the top of the search result pages.
Some clients prefer to do both SEO and PPC in one go. Whichever way you want to craft your online lead generation strategy, let us know, and let’s talk about improving your business’s digital marketing in 2024!