It can take over five impressions with a customer before you begin generating brand awareness. Meanwhile, nearly 60% of consumers prefer shopping from brands they already recognize. If you’re not appearing in front of local customers online, you could lose potential sales.
With local search engine optimization (SEO), you can gain every opportunity to reach nearby consumers.
How can local SEO strategies boost your brand visibility, exactly? Read on to find out!
Appear in Local Listings
A strong local SEO strategy will help you appear on multiple online listings. When consumers search for specific products and services, your brand could appear.
Google considers three main factors when ranking local content, including:
- Relevance (does your business match the search intent)
- Prominence (is your business well-known)
- Distance (how close is your business to the search engine user)
Developing a local SEO strategy can help you appeal to all three criteria. Then, you can appear in front of consumers on local directories.
Consider working with an experienced digital marketing agency this year. They can claim and optimize your listings on different sites and directories. One of the most important directories to consider for local SEO is your Google Business (previously “Google My Business”) listing.
Your Google Business profile will provide consumers with key pieces of information about your business, including your:
- Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Category/subcategory
- Products and services
- Website
- Business hours
- Posts
- Photos/videos
- Customer reviews
Google might even display your information on the local SEO 3-Pack. The 3-Pack map takes up prominent space on search engine result pages (SERPs). Taking up prominent space on SERPs can help you gain brand visibility.
When searching for your product or service, consumers will begin to see your brand before any other online.
Appearing on multiple directories will ensure consumers keep seeing your brand. Remember, it takes multiple impressions before you develop awareness. You can also appear on:
- Yelp
- MerchantCircle
- Manta
- Yellowbook.com
- Angieslist
Make sure your name, address, and phone number (NAP) remain consistent across all listings. Google will review the information that appears on your site to ensure accuracy. Consistency can help you rank for relevant searches.
Understand Local Personas
As part of your local SEO strategy, it’s also important to understand your target audience. Then, you can create user-focused content to appeal to those consumers.
When researching your target audience, consider their:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Work positions/titles
- Industry
- Buying behaviors
- Interests
- Hobbies
- Pain points
- Local spending habits
Create distinct buyer personas based on the research you gather. Then, you can start creating personalized content to connect with each group.
Develop a list of targeted keywords for each buyer persona, too.
Conducting local keyword research can help you appear for searches related to your products, services, and business. Each time you appear for a relevant search, brand awareness will grow. In time, brand awareness can become brand recognition.
Consumers will have an easier time remembering your brand when they need your products or services in the future.
Align With the Search Intent
The right local SEO strategies can also help you better understand the consumer’s search intent. Their search intent can help you understand what the consumer expects to find from their search. Understanding their intent will ensure you rank locally for their searches.
Otherwise, Google might not display your content.
When developing your list of target keywords, determine if the user’s intent is informational, navigational, or transactional. Focus on long-tail keywords, which are more precise (making it easier for you to understand their intent). Look for keywords that contain the words “near me” as well.
Generate Backlinks
Backlinks are one of Google’s top ranking factors. The more backlink a post has, the more traffic it can generate through Google SERPs. The right local SEO strategies can help you generate more backlinks.
Backlinks appear on other websites and send readers to your content. As you generate traffic through backlinks, people will become more aware of your brand. You can use backlinks to generate website traffic and brand awareness.
Once people begin visiting your website through backlinks, Google could start boosting your organic rankings. Ranking higher on SERPs will ensure consumers see your content before another brand’s. Then, you can generate brand awareness before your competitors get the chance.
You can start generating backlinks from local sources (news agencies, influencers, consumers) to rank locally.
Provide Local Content
As part of your local SEO strategy, it’s important to create helpful, local content. Writing informative, engaging content can help you generate more website traffic. Generating more organic traffic could boost your organic rankings.
Content marketing will give you an opportunity to demonstrate your experience and expertise within the industry. Consumers might begin to view you as a go-to resource and thought leader. Then, you can continue attracting them to your brand, enabling you to remain top of mind.
Generate Reviews
An effective local SEO strategy also includes generating consumer reviews. Consumers can leave reviews on your Google Business profile for other consumers to find.
Generating positive reviews can boost your brand’s credibility and authority. Future customers might feel more inclined to trust your brand after reading reviews, too. Then, you can leverage that brand trust to encourage future leads and sales.
Gather Data
Using these local SEO strategies can help you rank locally, allowing you to attract more people to your website. Generating more website traffic can help you learn more about your target audience. You can use Google Analytics to gather helpful data.
The data you generate can help you create more effective digital marketing campaigns in the future.
Then, you can create personalized content and ads to appeal to your target audience.
Go Local: Discover How Local SEO Strategies Can Help Firsthand
To recap, how can local SEO strategies help you generate more brand visibility? With a strong local SEO strategy, you can appear in front of local consumers online. Each time you appear, brand awareness can grow into brand recognition.
You can also attract more people to your website, enabling you to generate more leads and sales.
Need help developing your local SEO strategy? We’re here to help.
Contact us today to get started.
