If you are an SEO professional, you must have experienced some illegal desires from your clients. Sometimes, they demand a top position on the search engine within a month, or sometimes they want you to implement a keyword without thinking whether it is legal or not. One crazy keyword among the client is “Near Me” searches, especially when they want you to rank their website for a specific location. According to them, implementing the “Near Me” keyword in every third sentence is not keyword stuffing.
However, if you want to rank your website high for a specific location, the best way to do so is developing a killer location landing page.
How to create an outstanding location landing page:
The very first thing that an SEO professional should do is, making them understand that a great SEO is done to satisfy the search intent.
So, when it comes to optimizing the local page, the same logic should be implemented.
Below are discussed the checklist by following which one can create a perfect location page for their local business.
1. Name, Address, and Phone Number or NAP:
The very first thing to create a killer location landing page is the NAP or Name, address, and phone number. Make sure your Google My Business, location page, and other citations have the same NAP.
There are differences in opinions about keeping the exact match copy of NAP. While some say it is required to keep them exact, according to some, there is no hard and fast rule for that. Why go for controversy when you can play safe? Keep the exact match and stay safe.
2. Images:
There is no denying the fact that images play a crucial role in the location pages. However, the images should be used wisely to avail its benefits.
- Interior images:
Interior photos or images help people get a realistic view of what to expect from your business. This is especially beneficial for you if you are associated with healthcare business. - Exterior images:
Exterior images help your potential customers to find your business. They also play an important role in the decision-making factor.
- Optimize your image:
Your page should contain the image that is of high quality. Apart from that, you should optimize your image with metadata. Make sure your metadata is not using unnecessary information.You can use ImageOptim software to remove the excessive information and to show that the image quality is not compromised.
With ImageExifEditor, you can add metadata to your images like title, descriptions, etc.
3. Descriptions of your business location:
One of the major reasons behind the failure of most businesses is, they use the same description for all their location pages. All they do is, they just change the location name.
We understand your business is the same for different locations. But you should make it unique. Below are some ideas by following which you can make the descriptions of your business location unique.
- Services:
Do you offer any services that are unique in comparison to other locations? Or, Is there any service that is more popular to a specific location than the others? Highlight them. - Nearby locations:
You can interlink the other locations that are nearby. This will help in minimizing the copied descriptions. - Products and brands:
In case your location is a store, you can include some major brands that one might find near your location. - USP:
Mention the unique selling proposition or what distinguishes your business from your competitors.
4. CTA or Call to Action:
It can be said that CTA or call to action is the backbone of SEO when it comes to promoting your business. However, most businesses often overlook it on their location pages.
Adding a CTA is not everything. Make sure your CTA is meaningful and aptly goes with your business.
- A few options for CTA
- Reserve table (for restaurant business)
- Get directions (link it to Google Maps)
- Shop now (for e-commerce sites)
- Request appointment
5. Directions to business:
By including directions to your business, you can benefit in two ways. Your users will find your business easily and you will get a geo-specific keyword naturally.
Mention nearby businesses in your directions. This will help your potential customers to find your business easily whether it is located in a shopping mall or an outlet center.
6. Embedded map:
By embedding a map to your business, you can help the users to figure out your location more precisely.
You can also use the Google Maps API to create a custom map solution and include all your other nearby locations.
7. Schema:
It is a good idea to venture your local business beyond the standard local business markup.
Find out and select the most specific business type that is relevant to your business.
Title and meta description:
The basic requirement of a local location page is optimizing it with title and meta description. People often think that optimizing the title and meta is not important since their target is ranking the page in the map pack. But the truth is, local businesses also get traffic from the organic results.
Therefore, you need to make sure that your business local page is optimized with title and meta descriptions.
Title:
To make your title well-optimized, include the following elements –
- Brand name
- Keyword
- Geo-specific keyword
Meta description:
This is true that meta description does not have a direct impact on the ranking, but it is the key selling space in the SERP. It can be said that science meets the art in SEO through the meta description.
9. Internal linking:
To add the relevant internal linking, you can try the following ideas. However, all ideas might not be relevant to your business. Therefore, choose the ideas wisely.
If your location provides some specific services, give the link to informational pages that explain the services.
- Link your other nearby locations
- Provide links to location-specific social media profiles
- Link the About Us page of your company
- Link your recently published blogs
10. Load Speed:
Last but not least, load speed plays a crucial role in the ranking factors, especially when it comes to local SEO.
A fast loading page can make a great difference in the map pack.
By using Google PageSpeed, you can determine the issues of your web pages’ load speed.
Go through the checklist properly so that you can handle the clients who want to rank their local page with keyword stuffing. Make them understand there are better ways to rank a local page.