In part four of the SEO tutorial, we'd like to address Local SEO, give you some final tips and encourage you to be interested in your website's search engine optimization for the long run.
Search Engine Optimization for local businesses
Are you running a local business that depends on customers coming to your location? If so, you can optimize your website so that it can be found in conjunction with using a location. If someone were to type Pizza London into Google search, your restaurant might appear.
Business Listings can help with achieving a higher ranking in searches using local keywords. These Business Listings make your local business visible on the internet and usually contain a link leading to your website, a so called Backlink. One of the most popular platforms for this is Google My Business. Your listing here also makes your business visible in Google Maps. If your website is found within a local search query, a map might also appear in the search results.
Furthermore, it is important that you use local keywords on your website. They basically work the same way as regular Keywords, but they contain an additional, location based term, for instance a city name.
Profiles on Facebook and Instagram could also help boost your ranking in local search queries.
The following blog article provides helpful hints and additional reading material that could help with improving your local ranking:
When and where can I see the success of my search engine optimization?
After Google has indexed changes on your website, it might take a few weeks or months until they come into effect. If your changes were successful, your website's ranking will gradually improve bit by bit.
You can check out how your website is doing using Google Search Console. Under Performance, you can view how often your website appears when certain search terms are used. Among other metrics, you'll find the exact Queries here, as well as the number of times your website has been accessed - the clicks. The following metrics are relevant for you:
- Clicks: the amount of times your website has been clicked using organic search results from Google search
- Impressions: the amount of times your website was visible in Google's search results
- Average CTR: an average that shows how often your website was clicked in relation to the impressions
- Average position: your website's average position in search results. The lower the value, the better
These insights allow you to perform targeted changes, for instance on keywords that are being used on your website.
How does my website become competitive?
Always keep an eye on the competition and be aware of current strategies and trends within your industry. If your website has been online for a while and has fought its way up the search engine ranking, it's time for a competitor analysis.
This enables you to determine where your website stands currently, why a certain competitor seems to be one step ahead, or you can confirm for yourself that you did everything right so far. We've collected tips and tools for competitor analysis in our blog article:
Closing words
We hope that these tips can support your optimization efforts. Please remember to continuously work on your website content to make it more appealing for search engines.
Moreover, note that Google might also revise its algorithm for website indexing. Try to keep up with new SEO developments. You can find plenty of helpful sources on the internet.
Need further SEO assistance?
We recommend you check out Google Digital Garage. Among other things, you can find the free course Fundamentals of digital marketing here, which includes knowledge on SEO and other online marketing topics.