Most local businesses are just a couple of website tweaks away from doubling their online visibility. Mistakes in setting up and structuring websites can actively hurt their ranking positions, which reduces the number of calls they receive from local customers. In this blog post, I'm going to help you fix that. You'll learn how to structure your local business website to improve your local rank. By optimizing your site structure, you can get more calls, more traffic, and of course, more customers.
Introduction
Local businesses have immense potential for growth just by making a few website tweaks. Many have issues in their website setup that hinder their online visibility and rank position. This blog post aims to guide local businesses on how to structure their websites to improve local SEO and get more customer calls.
Understanding Local SEO
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is crucial for any business that wants to be found online. For local businesses, SEO focuses on improving visibility in local search results. In this post, I'll cover how to build topical relevance, authority, and trust with Google's algorithm so your business can shine in local searches.
Structuring Your Website
Homepage
For a business with a single Google Business Profile (GBP), the homepage typically serves as the GBP landing page. This is the URL you provide in the website box of your Google Business Profile.
Why the Homepage?Your homepage is usually the most powerful URL in your domain. Linking it with the GBP makes it more likely to rank farther and farther from your business address.
Key Elements for the Homepage:
Title Tag: Should exactly match the GBP primary category and city.
Local Business Schema: Must match the GBP information exactly.
Google Maps Embed: Include a map of your GBP location.
Review Widget: Embed GBP reviews.
Example of a Title Tag: "Plumber in Houston | Joe's Plumbing"
Title Tags and Local Business Schema
Your homepage's title tag needs to precisely match the primary category of your GBP and the city. Local business schema should also align exactly with the details on your GBP, ensuring Google sees the consistency.
Google Maps Embed and Review Widget
Embedding a Google map of your GBP location and a review widget that pulls in reviews from GBP can help build credibility and trust.
Utilizing GBP Categories and Services
Most businesses make the mistake of choosing only one GBP category. Google allows you to choose up to ten. For each additional category on your GBP, you should create a GBP category page on your site.
Creating GBP Category Pages
Link from Homepage: Ideally, include an editorial link within a relevant paragraph.
Title Tag: An exact match for the secondary category and city name.
H1 Tag: Focus on the most relevant service to that GBP category.
H2 Tags: Address other relevant GBP services on the category page.
Creating GBP Category and Service Pages
Every service listed on your GBP should have its own page on your site. This creates a substantial body of topical relevance for all categories and services on your GBP.
Content on GBP Category and Service Pages:
H1 Tag: The most relevant service to the GBP category.
H2 Tags: All other relevant services.
Content is King
Each category and service page needs a well-written article focused on the city where the GBP address is located. This is crucial because it's hard to rank GBP profiles for cities where the address is not located.
Rank Tracking and Supporting Content
Use a local rank tracking tool to monitor your position on a map. This will help you see which areas you're not ranking in the top three for. For local SEO, position four is the first loser, so you need to be in the top three.
Adding Supporting Content
If you're not ranking well for certain services or categories, create supporting content to bolster those areas. Focus on adding content for services near your GBP address first.
Expanding With Location Pages
To rank farther away from your GBP, add location pages targeting specific neighborhoods. Google's algorithm struggles to rank your GBP in a city different from your address, but not neighborhoods within the city.
Steps to Create Location Pages:
Overlay Maps: Use Google Maps to identify neighborhoods.
Neighborhood-specific Content: Write pages targeting the GBP primary category and the neighborhood.
Linkage: Ensure the location page links to the homepage and neighborhood-specific pages.
Conclusion
Once your basic website structure is in place, start producing supporting content and location content to improve rank positions for specific categories, services, or neighborhoods. This may seem like a lot, but tools like ChatGPT can help you write content quickly.
For more tips on using AI to optimize your content, check out my other video on leveraging AI for local SEO.
Quote:
"Most local businesses are just a couple of website tweaks away from doubling their online visibility."
With a strategic approach to your website structure and content, you can boost your local SEO and attract more customers.