Local Search Engine Optimization simply refers to the process of using your target location as a keyword string with the keyword strings you use in SEO.
It looks like this:
- a divorce attorney in Dallas, TX
- Tampa, FL’s Bake More Pies
- the construction company Oklahoma City, OK turns to for remodeling.
You use local SEO whether you use your company name, a service you offer, your brand or a search string, also called a long-tailed keyword, in conjunction with the location.
The Importance of Proper Grammar and SEO
When it gets written correctly, the keyword terms fit perfectly and grammatically with the location. Sometimes, people try to implement this on their own with less than perfect results. While you could conceivably follow an online guide to implementation, you need to know that the guide provides appropriate instruction.
Many guides leave out the importance of natural language. They also fail to mention the importance of connecting words. Let’s look at both of those terms in depth.
Natural Language and Connecting Words
Natural language means you would hear or read a person who spoke the language properly – as in with grammatical correctness. Some individuals make the mistake of copying terms directly out of Google AdWords without adding the words that make the search string grammatically correct. Those words called connecting words, make the keyword string connect naturally to the rest of the text in which it appears.
Natural language does not refer to slang, lingo or smack talk. Natural language refers to the manner of speaking of an adult person of normal intellect and education.
So, what is normal? The US Census tracks age and education levels attained among other items. Among those 25 years or older, 89.90 percent attained a high school diploma or GED, while more than one-third, or 34.98 percent earned a Bachelor’s degree. Some of the individuals in the census though were still in college, accounting for 61.28 percent of the US population that had some college education but had not yet attained an associate’s or bachelor’s degree.
So, natural language refers to how a typical educated person expresses themselves verbally or in writing. This requires appropriate grammar and those connecting words.
Connecting words refer to more than just conjunctions. They refer to prepositions as well. You might see a blog that writes “divorce attorney Dallas TX” within a sentence, but that violates both proper grammar and natural language by leaving out the connecting words and punctuation. Bing and Google now rank for quality of content. Both algorithms consider the quality of blog writing which refers to grammar and how naturally the keyword terms and location fit into the sentence and paragraph.
What’s Location Got to Do with It?
Optimizing your content for your location can help you draw in more customers and move more individuals through your sales funnel when done right. When done wrong, your search engine ranking plummets because the content did not rank well.
When properly implemented, the message with localization ranks highly and draws more customers by topping the search results. Here’s the best thing about using localization; it lands you more ready-to-buy customers.
That fact stems from a different algorithm update that both Bing and Google made a few years ago. As the number of smartphone users began growing, both major search engines noticed their data showed people made searches for businesses while out and about. They weren’t doing what people had done for many years and researching stores or shops or products from the home computer. They conducted a search for a coffee shop, for example, from the new location of their bank or the dry cleaners. While at one store buying groceries, they searched on their mobile phone for the closest place to pick up paint or a band saw.
Bing and Google updated their algorithms to push the local results of a search term to the top of the front page, in marketing lingo, above the fold. Doing that rewarded the e-commerce websites that already listed their locations by address, city and state.
Marketing nerds like our team at Bake More Pies read every word that the search engines write about their algorithm updates. Digital marketing gurus noticed the change and realized that our customers could also benefit from localizing the content. Thus, began the practice of including the location of a business in the blogs and web pages written about it. While the only place you once found the location of a business was the footer of its website or the About page, the location now fits into each blog posted and every page of the website. As this branch of SEO grew, appropriate local SEO also linked the use of Google My Business listings with Google Maps.
The Problem with Doing It Yourself
The integration of the location into your business listings each piece of text collateral, the fancy marketing term for articles, blogs, webpages, whitepapers, etc., brought about some consternation and the mistakes discussed above. Those mistakes in misuse of the localization stemmed from do-it-yourselfers who read a guide written by a source that did not work professionally in marketing and did not provide local SEO services.
A lot of guides to SEO mention using AdWords or Google Advertising tools to find underused keywords or to determine on which keywords to bid. They do not mention that the search engines read the terms in a blog as the same whether you use the prepositions or not but discount the quality if you used them with improper grammar or punctuation. The latter lowers the quality of your blog.
Let Us Help: Our Local SEO Services
You could do it yourself, certainly. Bake More Pies can help you implement localized SEO the right way the first time though. We serve all of Tampa, FL and its surrounding areas with digital marketing services including local SEO and SEO as well as advertising design and ad production. It makes more sense to use us for a range of marketing options since that results in higher quality marketing products and a seamless connection between all marketing collateral.
We design websites every day. We also write the content for them so our skills at search engine optimization remain sharp. We integrate SEO into business listings on sites like Google My Business every day.
Because we also strategize advertising campaigns plus design the ads, we can integrate the localization into each piece of collateral so that every piece matches. Your print ads in the newspaper will match those you use online. Your social media posts will carry the same localized information as your website. This cross-channel and cross-media integration ensures a more successful campaign. It brings about improved search engine ranking for your company, your brand and your products.
We can help you beyond the Tampa, FL area, too. As digital marketing gurus, we regularly work online. Our remote officing skills fly right off the charts. You could live and work in Miami, FL or Miami, OK and we could help your business by localizing your marketing collateral with your Google My Business listings, Google Maps and review sites like Yelp, Yahoo Business and Yellow Pages.
Your SEO encompasses so much more than just your website. Let us help you connect the many channels and media your business and brand need to reach effectively to move more people into your sales funnel and through it. We can help you bake more pies or build more widgets or sew more pants. Contact us today to discuss how our local SEO services can help you!
