Create Localized Content
Rank Better In Your Region
So this week I’m going to cover “Creating Localized Content.” It is the third part in my “Crush Your Local SEO” series. The previous video in the series, “How to Claim Your Online Profiles” touched on the importance of claiming any stray profiles you have online and how it would help your domain authority as well as your search ranking. This week I’m going to give you a quick tip to help you rank better in your geographic region.
SEO on a Local Scale…
For those of you who don’t know, SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is the process of setting up and maintaining your website in such a way that you are easily found in Search Rankings. I’ve started this series to focus on things you can do to improve your Local SEO, which is a niche of SEO that focuses on your appearance within a certain geographical area.
How Do You Make Sure Customers in Your Local Area See You?
If you’re a business owner, you want your business to rank for your services in Google. If you are targeting customers in a specific area, it can get tricky. How do you know if your keywords are going to reach the desired audience? After all, you can optimize your page for “Tree Service”, but if it isn’t visible in your target area, it isn’t doing you any good.
Luckily, there is a way to help push Google in the right direction. If you include areas that you are targeting in your subheadings, as well as your content, then that will help clue Google in that you want to target these areas in particular. For example, say you wanted to tell everyone about your knitting shop in Richmond Virginia. In your subheading, you could use the following:
Richmond, Virginia’s Home of Knitting Supplies!
You could go on to mention the geographic location in your content on your homepage. In that case however, I have to warn you that moderation is the key. Add your location once or twice max on your homepage. Add it too much and you’ll trigger a red flag in Google for spam content and end up being penalized. Nobody wants that. However, if you mention the location once in your subheading and once or twice, depending on how long your content is, it should work to show Google what area you want to associate with your services.
This is a quick and easy way to tip off Google on the locations you want to target. Another good spot would be in your title tag, and your body meta tag, although as we’ve mentioned, use it sparingly. You don’t want to just spam your content full of the location, less you get flagged for spam, in which case your ranking is certain to go down.
So in summary, including your geographic locations in your meta tags and sprinkling them sparingly in your subheading, as well as your content can be a great way to focus Google’s targeting on your specific location. Just use them very sparingly in order to avoid being flagged for spam. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
Till next time!
