Businesses that rely on local customers and foot traffic are the ones who benefit the most from local SEO. Such businesses include local retail stores, restaurants, and home and professional services like HVAC and law firms.
But many business owners in these industries find the online world overwhelming. As the SEO agency, it’s your duty to help them understand local SEO strategies and how these can be beneficial to their business. This way, they can easily understand the value you can provide to their company, increasing their chances of being converted into SEO clients.
Here are the top local SEO strategies that speak to local business owners and how to pitch them effectively.
Table of contents
- Google Business Profile optimization
- Citation building
- Local link building
- Local content creation and local keyword targeting
- Online reviews and reputation management
- Community relationship building
1. Google Business Profile optimization
Google Business Profile is a free tool local business owners can use to manage their online presence across Google. It gives them control over how their businesses appear on Google Search and Maps. Create and optimize their Google Business Profile now and turn people who find them online into real paying customers.
Strategy
Creating a Google Business Profile for a local business is simple enough. Just follow the intuitive steps on the platform. The more complex task is optimizing the profile itself.
It starts with the right business information, such as the business name, address, phone number, and website link. Choose the right categories on the platform to represent the products and services of the local business.
Optimize the Google Business Profile by writing a concise and informative business description, adding more business details like operating hours, and enhancing the visual appeal of the profile with high-quality images.
But optimization is not just a one-time thing. You have to do it regularly. You need to track their business information to keep it accurate since there may be business or platform changes that may require you to adjust the information you share online. And you can regularly post on the profile and respond to customer reviews.
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When pitching to potential SEO clients, it’s always important to share the benefits of the local SEO strategy. Emphasize how these benefits align with their business goals and objectives.
In the case of Google Business Profile optimization, here are the benefits you should highlight: giving a positive first impression, improving their overall online visibility, and increasing trust.
A Google Business Profile is often the first interaction of a potential customer with their local business, so an optimized profile can help give a positive first impression. It can help search engines understand their business as well, so the business is more likely to appear in relevant searches. A regularly maintained and optimized profile also gives the impression of authority and trustworthiness, which can only be good for the leads entering their sales funnel.
2. Citation building
Citations are mentions of business names, addresses, and phone numbers, or entire listings like directories such as the Google Business Profile. There are other directories and platforms where listings can be created, like TripAdvisor and Yelp. Citations play a crucial role in a company’s online presence and search rankings.
Strategy
Citation building, cleanup, and monitoring are the three main parts of this local SEO strategy. Citation building is about creating more listings and mentions of the company’s name, address, and phone number. There are two kinds of citations you can build – general citations from high-authority platforms like Facebook and the Google Business Profile and location or niche-specific citations like TripAdvisor.
Citation cleanup is about auditing existing citations and identifying inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Fixing these errors is crucial because keeping them up can cause confusion for both potential customers and search engines.
And citation monitoring is about consistently looking for inaccuracies and inconsistencies to be able to clean them up immediately. It also involves managing profiles, especially the reviews in the Google Business Profile and other listings.
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Highlight the benefits of building, cleaning up, and monitoring citations to both potential customers and search engines.
When the local business has many and accurate citations, potential customers can easily find important information about their company. This can lead to potential customers finally reaching out and inquiring about their products and services. Inaccuracies and inconsistencies just create friction in their sales funnel as these can lead to inhibitions and questions that make potential customers look the other way.
These citations are also great for search engines. Search engines heavily rely on the information businesses have online to know more about their business. With many and accurate citations across the internet, search engines will have a lot of material to know more about these businesses, making the businesses appear accurately and competitively in the right search queries.
3. Local link building
Link building is about acquiring backlinks to improve a company’s authority and visibility. Local link building focuses more on backlinks that are locally relevant to specifically improve the company’s authority and visibility in a specific geographical area.
Think of backlinks as “votes.” The more votes a business has, the more search engines view them in a good light. There are a lot of nuances in link building, but this is a great general example.
Strategy
There are many links you can build, including citations from mentions and listings in directories. This makes local link building complementary to citation building and Google Business Profile optimization. But don’t ignore other link types, such as those from authoritative and locally relevant websites, local bloggers and influencers, news and other local publications, and social media.
To actively build links, you can reach out to the webmasters and owners of these channels with proper outreach strategies. You can also build relationships and network within the SEO client’s geographical area and niche to find more localized link building opportunities. A pseudo-passive way to build links is to develop relevant and shareable local content. This can naturally build links.
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Most local SEO strategies that speak to local business owners benefit both local leads and search engines. Sure, local link building can still help local leads through user experience, but it’s a strategy that leans more toward search engines through authority and visibility.
Having numerous and strong authoritative and locally relevant links makes a business competitive in the online world. Search engines will value the business because it has a lot of good “votes” from known players. Building a strong link profile is a great long-term strategy for local SEO. Make sure to emphasize these points to convince these local business owners to try local link building.
4. Local content creation and local keyword targeting
Local content creation and local keyword targeting is about creating locally relevant content and optimizing it for locally relevant keywords. This can actually be two different services since local keyword targeting can be its own thing. After all, you can also optimize for locally relevant keywords with citation and link building. But in this case, let’s just combine the two services into one entry in this list of local SEO strategies.
Strategy
Developing content sounds simple enough. But it can actually be complex, particularly for local SEO. You need to do extensive keyword research to identify locally relevant terms that potential customers are interested in.
From these keywords, you can make locally relevant content. You can write blog posts addressing local topics and events and industry-related news. You can create landing pages specifically optimized for specific areas. There are more kinds of content you can utilize, including locally relevant infographics and videos. Additionally, consider collaborating with local influencers or featuring local businesses in your content. You can even share local content on platforms such as social media or the Google Business Profile to enhance your online presence. For instance, crafting a press release about a local event or achievement and distributing it through Press Release Services can help boost visibility and engagement within the community.
Develop a plan first before committing to a content strategy. Don’t be afraid to be creative. You can collaborate with local influencers, feature local businesses, or share local content in social media or on the Google Business Profile. There are so many things you can do with content.
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Local content is all about authority, connection, and visibility. If the local business shares locally relevant content, they build authority by becoming a local resource. If they connect and engage with their audience and potential customers, they resonate more with their community. And if they are highly visible locally because of their content, they have more eyes on them and more opportunities to convert people into customers.
All these benefits are likely to align with the business goals and objectives of the local business owners you are pitching local SEO to. Make sure to highlight these benefits in your SEO pitch.
5. Online reviews and reputation management
Online reviews and reputation management is about monitoring a company’s customer reviews on various platforms like their Facebook page, Google Business Profile, website, or anywhere else they have an online presence. The goal is to influence the perception of the business by managing and replying to reviews. This local SEO strategy speaks to local business owners. Even if they don’t know much about SEO, they are definitely aware that reputation is everything.
Strategy
This strategy has a lot of moving parts. It can involve citation building since you need listings for customers to leave reviews. After all, how will customers leave reviews when you don’t even have a Google Business Profile? Monitoring and responding to reviews is also just part of the strategy. Yes, it’s important to look at reviews, understand them, thank good reviews, and explain your side in bad reviews. But online reviews and reputation management services are more than that.
This kind of local SEO service can also deal with review generation. There should be a strategy to encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews. It can also deal with marketing. Reviews can be integrated with marketing materials to build social proof. And it can also deal with automated tools, such as those that help track mentions and reviews across the web.
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Online sentiment is crucial to a company’s success. Emphasize this when pitching this local SEO strategy to local business owners. Getting and monitoring positive reviews enhances the client’s credibility in the local community. When the community is tight and small enough, these reviews can actually make or break a business.
Having a lot of positive reviews is an immediate competitive advantage. Leads are more likely to convert when they see and know that their community views the client’s business in a good light. Responding to reviews, whether positive or negative, also improves engagement. It can demonstrate the company’s commitment to their customer base and locality.
6. Community relationship building
Community relationship building in local SEO is about actively engaging with members of the local community, whether they are potential customers, business owners, or even fellow SEO professionals. This helps establish a positive relationship between your SEO agency and the local community you are targeting.
Strategy
Finding local opportunities, reaching out to members of the local community, and providing value are the most important aspects of community relationship building.
Find local opportunities by researching the most prominent members of the community, such as other businesses, influencers, potential customers, and more. You can also look for events where members of the community collaborate, such as educational sessions and workshops. These events provide great networking opportunities. You may even get high-quality leads here where you can pitch your SEO products and services.
Reach out to prominent members of the local community via various communication channels. You can send them an email, contact them via phone or social media message, or simply approach them at an event. But don’t approach them like a salesperson. Approach them like you mean to build a relationship and provide value.
Provide value to the members of the local community in a variety of ways. You can provide something for free, like free SEO audits and trial versions of your local SEO products and services. You can also create local content. And as mentioned earlier, local content creation can even be an entire local SEO strategy in itself.
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Building a relationship with the members of a local community helps build a positive brand image, which can speak very well to local business owners even if they don’t know about SEO. By integrating with the local culture, your potential SEO clients can connect better with their potential customers and peers. This can reduce the friction in their sales funnel and even increase their number of leads.
Engaging with the community and contributing to local growth can also strengthen customer and peer loyalty, making sure that they stay within the company’s sales funnel. It also improves their overall visibility in the community, improving their reach.
Learn how to pitch local SEO strategies to businesses
There are many local SEO strategies that speak to local business owners. Improving visibility, building positive relationships, and building authority and credibility are things business owners understand even if they don’t know much about SEO.
All it takes is a little push. Explain the intricacies of your processes and approaches. And then elaborate on the potential benefits they can experience with the execution of these local SEO strategies. Before you know it, you can convince these local business owners and convert them into real paying SEO clients.
