Ready to go global with your SEO?
Maybe you’ve taken the steps to optimize your local SEO strategy and are looking to expand further.
Or perhaps you’re new to SEO and want to learn about how it can work for you on several scales.
Whether you’re a company with a single local presence or one that operates in multiple cities, we’ve got the tips for you when it comes to optimizing your SEO for multiple locations.
Read on to learn more about taking your local SEO strategy to a global level.
1. Know Your Local SEO Strategy
Before you can take your local SEO strategy to the next level, it’s important to make sure it’s giving you the bang for your buck.
If you haven’t had a clear strategy thus far, now is the time to put one in place. Back it up to square one and consider what process and outcome goals you’d like to meet with your SEO strategy.
Make sure your business is listed in online directories. A lot of companies miss out on this excellent opportunity for maximizing basic local SEO. Also, consider getting a Google My Business page.
Encourage your clients to write you online reviews. Monitor these online reviews and respond immediately to anything that may be negative. Investigate structured data as a means of giving searchers more information about your product or company.
Now is a good time to use analytics in order to determine what your local SEO is doing for you. Keep track of your conversions, new visitors, and page visits. Make note of keywords that are proving successful (or unsuccessful).
2. Examine the Market
Even if you already have a solid local SEO strategy in place, it’s always good to check out the market and your competition.
These things are constantly changing and can definitely impact the expansion and success of your SEO strategy.
How do you examine such a big, evolving market? No problem. First, break it down into two things: a target market and an overarching, more general market.
An example would be if you are trying to sell garden hoses. Your general market would be garden supplies and equipment. Your target market would be suppliers of specific types of garden hoses.
A simple, well-executed Google search can give you some fantastic leads on your competition in both types of markets. It can also give you a sense of how you can hone your strategy to really stand out in your target market.
When performing your search, pay attention both to content, links, and rankings. Treat it like research and take notes as you examine the market. This is a good thing to perform throughout the optimization process of your SEO strategies.
3. Identify Your Budget
Once you’ve truly examined the market and identified your niche, now is the time to nail down your budget. If you already have an SEO budget, now is also the time to adjust.
If you can, put a tangible number to the size of the target market you are going for. (And make sure it’s actually your target market!) This is often largely dependent upon a city or town’s population size.
Also, keep in mind anything that might impact buying seasons or cycles.
Let’s go back to the garden hose example for a minute with this one. You’re likely to see a spike in purchases of your product around spring and summertime when people are out and about in their gardens and needing garden hoses.
Identifying this type of trend will enable you to plan your budget throughout any off-seasons or high demand periods.
Also, keep in mind that your local SEO strategy budget should fit within the scope of your general online marketing budget.
Not sure about how much of your budget should go towards SEO? This is a common concern with businesses everywhere. In general, give more weight to the tools that are most likely to give you success, and which you will be using most.
If your e-newsletter isn’t doing much for you, but your local SEO strategy has given some results, then voila. There’s your answer.
It’s key to keep in mind that SEO is now becoming the leading online marketing tool. It’s pretty important and should take up a large portion of your budget.
4. Break It Down
SEO can incorporate many different types of strategies, and we want to make sure you’re set with each one in order to optimize your online presence for multiple locations.
The first of these strategies is your linking strategy.
Make sure you’re building high quality and very specific links that will directly target your local presence. Check out what your local competition is doing with their links for a good idea of what this looks like.
You also want to make sure that each page is optimized for local searches. This fits within your overall content strategy.
This is going to be very important for the next step. Choose a keyword phrase and make sure all of your text is optimized for this (i.e., internal links, H1s, and title pages).
5. Change Up Your Content
Your website and design are leading factors in your SEO performance.
When it comes to making sure your local SEO is optimized for multiple locations, it’s absolutely critical that your content is different for each location’s page.
We know that this means more work on your end. However, just copying and pasting location names for identical content may actually get you in trouble according to Google’s terms.
Think of each page as your local page to optimize. Input high-quality content that is individually optimized for local searches, per location. The URL for each page should be specific to that page’s location.
The more unique these pages, the more likely you are to maximize your local SEO strategy for multiple locations.
Looking for ways to improve your content quality? Write longer articles, incorporate blogs, and make sure you aren’t just throwing in keywords willy-nilly.
6. Perform Audits
Performing a local SEO audit is one of the best ways to gauge how your strategy is working and what you can do to improve its performance on local and global levels.
When you’re doing an audit, pay attention to those keywords above all. Are your links ranking for these keywords specifically? How are they ranking? How are your pages structured?
Check multiple search engines, not just Google. These include Yahoo and Bing, for example.
You’ll also want to see how you’re doing with all of your local profiles. Make sure that everything matches across these profiles so that you can officially claim them.
It’s critical that you use this audit as an opportunity to get rid of anything that might be an error. Be sure to keep track of the data you obtain as a reference for future audits and changes.
7. Consider Google Places and Images
There are so many other tools at your disposal when it comes to optimizing your local SEO strategy for multiple locations. A lot of these are often overlooked.
Google Places, for example, can do a lot for your company, especially given the fact that most customers search for businesses and services online.
If you don’t have a physical office or company location, not to worry. You can also make use of Google Places’ option of designating services.
Images are also a way for you to maximize your SEO, believe it or not. You can name the files of your images according to the keyword that you’ve chosen for optimization. Alt text is also an option.
These may feel like small things, but they are fundamental tools that can boost your local and global SEO.
8. Get a Grasp on Google’s Rules
Last but certainly not least, you’ve got to know the rules when it comes to optimizing your local SEO strategy.
Read up on Google’s quality rules and make sure you constantly refer to these as you go about strategizing. You don’t want to risk a violation in any capacity.
Reach out to a Google support team member if any questions arise.
Optimizing Your Local SEO Strategy for Multiple Locations
SEO really is your solution to local and global business success. It is what will keep your business competitive. In this way, it is imperative rather than optional!
When it comes to optimizing your local SEO strategy for several locations, there are some key things to keep in mind. Make sure your local SEO strategy is on its game, and keep tabs on the current market and your budget.
Optimize your content and linking strategies, and present unique content across the pages of your site for each location. Know Google’s quality guidelines and make use of other tools to inch up your global SEO.
At Digital Neighbor – Your Nearby SEO Agency, we’re all about being your partner when it comes to online marketing. We’ve got Google analytics and SEO down. Check out our digital consulting services or let us know what we can do to transform your online marketing game into a championship.
Get started on maximizing your local SEO strategy today by hiring a Local SEO Company!
