How to Create a Strategic Local SEO Plan

Optimizing a business’s web presence is vital in the online age. Local SEO is a digital marketing technique that is focused on increasing visibility in localized search engine results, meaning the results that are displayed when a searcher is looking for a specific result in his or her local area.

Executing a successful local SEO campaign requires the business owners to work in close partnership with either their internal SEO team or external consultant, pooling their knowledge of the business and its local customers with their SEO’s technical expertise. Here, we look at how to create a local SEO plan.

Why local SEO matters

Search experts estimate that almost four billion local search queries are typed into Google every day. That’s 45,000 Google searches every second that are specifically looking for something in a localized area. Getting local SEO right can be an “absolute goldmine” for small businesses with big aspirations according to the owner of one Hawaii SEO agency. He cites the example of a local solar energy company in Hawaii that started small and used local SEO to win local business worth millions of dollars.

Get onside with Google for local SEO

When people say search engine optimization, what they really mean is Google. Other search engines exist and are used, but Google holds more than 90 percent of search engine market share. The first step in creating a strategic local SEO plan is to understand Google and how it handles local SEO.

Read Google’s guidelines that explain how to create a local business listing. This also details eligibility criteria, the most important of which is that to qualify, a business must offer some kind of face-to-face customer service. The guidelines document is core to creating your local SEO strategy. It helps you to first establish that the business or specific location that you wish to focus on in your local SEO campaign is eligible for a local business profile on Google. If it is, it then gives highly detailed guidance on how to complete and optimize your Google Business Profile, including what to include and how to deal with specifics such as business hours and contact details.

Identify your local SEO strategic goals

If you are not clear where you want to go, you will struggle to get there. Everyone wants to do more business or increase their profitability, but what specifically do you want local SEO to achieve? For example, you might be like that solar energy company in Hawaii and want to rank locally for a specific service. Or perhaps your goal is to develop all your business’s online and offline assets for an entirely new business location.

Regardless of the breadth or narrowness of your focus, you need to have a clear vision of what your local SEO campaign is setting out to achieve. This could be in terms of foot traffic, business leads or even something as simple as a growth in local sales.

The important thing is that it is measurable and relevant. A goal like ranking number one for a specific keyword sounds great in a strategy meeting. But achieving it does not tangibly benefit the business unless it also delivers on some other metric like customer numbers or profit margins.

Finally, with relevant and measurable goals established, set a realistic timeline. Local SEO measures do not mature overnight, so be realistic here, thinking in terms of months as opposed to weeks.

Local SEO is a powerful tool that can deliver significant business benefits. But it requires a coherent and properly documented strategy if it is going to build your local business reputation and drive growth.