3 Tips for Local SEO in Denver
Local SEO: What is this anyway?
Local SEO means all levers that serve to perform well in local search results. The aim of local search engine optimization is to provide users with results that are relevant to them in relation to a particular location. Either because they’re there right now, or because they’re looking for results for this place.
Search engines such as Google create their own index for local business listings, from which local search results are generated. For this purpose, user-related data such as the user’s location are evaluated. The ranking factors are quite different for different indices. For the local search, Google relies in particular on three factors:
- The distance of the user to the searched location
- The relevance of the search result for the search interest
- Importance and trustworthiness of the company based on online evaluations and offline awareness
There are several types of local search queries in Google search. If the user knows exactly which company he is looking for at which location, it is easy for Google to play out the right result. If, however, he only enters the term “flower shop” without a specific location, Google uses the location of the searcher to offer him the appropriate result. Search queries with location information also depend on the right keywords. More about that later. If you want to simulate a location for testing purposes, you can do this for example in the Chrome Developer Tool.
For whom is the local search important?
Local SEO is relevant to all companies that operate regionally and have a physical address where they serve customers. This includes, for example, restaurants, shops and service providers such as hairdressers, doctors, lawyers, craftsmen, etc. But Local SEO also plays a role for agencies, companies with local branches, public institutions as well as social and cultural institutions.
The size of the company is less important – rather the local reference must be given. The same applies to the type of product or service: as long as there is a local connection, local search engine optimization is an issue.
Okay, if that applies to your business as well, you can move it forward with our six tips for optimal local search results. But first of all: Make sure you know in advance who your target group is and what they are looking for. All the better the following tips for Local SEO can be implemented.
Our six local SEO tips
1. Create a Google My Business profile
In the first place of each Local Denver SEO strategy stands the creation and the care of the own profile with Google My Business. In this way, Google can display your company on Google Maps and Local Listings, as well as play the My Business entry in the Knowledge Panel on the right side of the SERPs.
In the Google My Business profile, you enter your data such as company name, address, city and postal code as well as telephone number and opening hours. In addition, the entry is linked to the website and thus verified.
The advantage: You can enter and update a lot of information yourself. It is even helpful if you log in regularly and update your information. Especially the opening hours should always be up to date! But also high-quality photos, 3D street views and 360-degree views within the premises are a plus in the ranking. The Google My Business Guidelines are therefore worth a look.
This is also a great way to interact with customers: visitors can leave reviews, ask questions and contribute their own photos. In addition, Google My Business offers more and more functions such as the delivery of events and statistics on visitor behavior (visit times, average visit duration, etc.). With the app, you can manage your entry practically from on the way.
If you also want to optimize your company for Bing, you should register it at Bing places for business. In addition, registration with Apple Maps Connect can be useful, because your information is also displayed on Apple maps.
2. Use the right keywords
Local SEO plays an important role in search queries with location information. Perform a keyword analysis and optimize your website to search queries with a specific location (example: “denver roofer”). In this way, Google can precisely match your offer to the local search interest. For large cities, additional districts should be considered.
If your offer is available across cities, then it is advisable to consider the region or the federal state. If you operate several locations, local differences may exist, for example in certain terms. That’s what you should look out for in your keyword analysis. For example, Google Trends can give you clues about regional differences in search queries.
Also optimized for individual products or services and generic keywords without location reference that are often searched in connection with a location. This increases your chances that your product will be found by exactly the right people.
Make sure that the local reference is guaranteed everywhere on your side. Company, product, and location should all appear here:
- In HTML code (e.g. markup of org, geo-tags)
- Metadata: Title and Description
- H1 headings and other headings
- Texts on your page
- Alt tags of images
- URL (only if new ones are created)
Also provides directions, parking situation, map sections and similar information with local reference. For multiple locations, it is recommended that you create subpages for each location.
Not only should you optimize your website in this way, but your keywords should also be used in your Google My Business profile, in entries in business directories and in your social media profiles on Facebook, Xing, Twitter etc.
3. Get Denver citations and backlinks
References to online yellow pages and directories, so-called local citations, give you important references. Not only do they increase your visibility, but they also provide Google with helpful signals about your company’s visibility and authority. Citations mention your company including all relevant information.
There are many different business directories in which entries can be published free of charge or for a fee. Depending on your business and target group, you should carefully consider which ones are relevant for your brand and your product.
Local apps, city portals, club sites, blogs and news sites on regional topics, event calendars or local company websites can also provide valuable backlinks and enhance the relevance of your company.
Another tip: Make sure that your company data is used consistently on all channels, whether in yellow pages, Google My Business, in the footer or header of your website or on your social media channels. This is described with the NAP formula (NAP: Name, Address, Phone). Why all this? When Google finds multiple identical references to your company’s name, address, and phone number, it boosts Google’s confidence in the validity of that information. Your business thus becomes more trustworthy.
5 SEO Mistakes You Should Avoid
1. White text on white background
One of the most common mistakes for beginners is the idea of placing white text on a white background.
The idea is to put as much text and as many search terms as possible on one page. However, the real visitor should not see them.
Many years ago, this method actually worked. But not for long.
This is simply wrong for several reasons. Google can now recognize if the text color and the background color are the same.
This makes the Googlebot suspicious and in the worst case it also devalues the whole website. So you lose hard-fought rankings.
So: absolutely avoid it!
2. Outgoing links improve the ranking
Technically and broken down to the link itself, an outbound link will bring you nothing.
But there’s still a lot of discussion about this myth. Often there are only links to your own internal pages. After all, you don’t want to refer visitors to other sources and thus lose them.
On the other side is the following argument and interesting consideration: If I link another web page, then my opposite gets that too.
Of course this sends a very positive signal and you draw attention to your own website.
If you perhaps email the other website operator about it, there is a very good chance of consideration. So they can share your content via their social media channels, link to you in another article or see it as the beginning of a long-term cooperation.
3. The more often the keyword appears, the better
Yep, this method actually worked once. Even if not very long.
That’s how you could do keyword stuffing in the past.
There the text, the meta description, the meta keywords and some other things were filled with a certain keyword as often as possible.
However, the texts have become unreadable for humans!
If you wanted to be found for e.g. “law firm”, you have simply put 100 times “law firm” as a word in your text. In the short term this worked well and brought you rankings.
But not for long.
Of course Google reacted quickly to this and measures interesting terms: How often does the term appear in relation to the rest of the text?
The company does not reveal exact figures about what the “right” ratio is. Google always points to a “natural relationship”.
Of course, the focus on a keyword makes sense. Only you should not exaggerate.
4. A high PageRank is important
Google evaluates websites with the help of a PageRanks.
This was invented by Larry Page (hence the name) and is based on this Stanford work.
There is an internal and an external PageRank. The internal is somewhat more complex than the external. The external, on the other hand, is public and works with a simple scale of 1-10.
If you look at the doctoral thesis, then the basis was and is that the more links to your website point, the higher your PageRank is.
In the past, PageRank and links from websites with a high PageRank were very relevant.
However, the PageRank is only of minor importance today.
A justified criticism of the PageRank is that it shows the interest of other website operators … and not the interest of other users.
In addition, the public PageRank has been discontinued since 2014. This means that it is no longer updated.
However, the internal PageRank remains alive.
5. Buying keyword domains and forwarding them helps.
We very often discover this confused construct in many companies: Thousands of keyword domains have been purchased and redirected to a target website.
I can promise you that it won’t do you any good!
The Googlebot is intelligent. He understands it when a domain simply forwards and has no content of its own.
So it makes no sense to buy the domain “blogbetreuung.at” and forward it to “ithelps.at” to be found with “blogbetreuung”.
In addition to that I have to say that a keyword in a domain has advantages in search engine optimization.
Even though keyword domains have generally lost importance, this MOZ study shows that they still rank a bit better.
The question is, for how long?
28 Ideas for Internet Marketing
No matter if your company is still fresh or you are an old hand in business – your marketing budget is certainly manageable. So much the better that there are dozens of ways to market your business that will only cost you your own time.
Here are 28 free marketing ideas that just cost you time. So you can put the few Euros you have into Facebook or Google Ads.
- Start a blog parade – you invite other bloggers to write on a specific topic. Here is a good guide.
- Participate in a blog parade – Set up a Google Alert to find suitable ones.
- Writing guest articles for a big blog.
- Invite guest authors – Invite other people to post guest articles on your blog.
- Give an interview – Make yourself an interview partner on relevant blogs and media.
- Interview with a person known to your target audience.
- Write a list article – people love lists and the longer the list, the more impressive your article and the higher the chance that your article will be shared.
- Inform other bloggers about an article of yours – If your article is relevant to others, share it via email, Twitter, Google+ with people who are well connected. It is helpful if you have quoted or linked to them in the article.
- Create infographics – with free tools you invest “only” time.
- Webinar offer – Webinars are genuine miracle weapons for more admittingness.
- Become a co-host of a webinar – Is there anyone who already reaches your target audience with their webinars? Then suggest a joint webinar.
- Create a topic page for an important keyword – Here you want to link your best 5 to 8 articles after a detailed introduction.
- Writing a link book and notifying the bloggers mentioned about it
- the best of your blog articles as a series – promote the series actively on social networks and in the newsletter. So old articles bring you new traffic.
- Write a review about a hot tool, product, offer, software or book and share it on social networks.
- About-me page – Write a truly compelling over-me page and share it with your network.
- Publish customer feedback – Request references with photos from your satisfied customers.
- Join and become active in a Facebook group – The group should include your desired customers. Be helpful and professional, then people will come to your profile and page.
- Create your own Facebook group.
- Run Facebook Sweepstakes by drawing winners from comments.
- Conduct fan photo contest – Publish the photos on Facebook and the blog and let fans vote. The winner gets your product.
- Start your email newsletter – Mailchimp, Cleverreach and most others are free to start with.
- A gift for your newsletter readers, e.g. a video that is only visible to them.
- Exclusive newsletter discount code for the first order or a specific product.
- Offer Upsell – Add an extra when someone buys something.
- Increase the price and make an offer “buy quickly at the old price”.
- create a one-page tool guide (tools, software, vendors recommended by you) and offer it in exchange for an email address.
- Give advice as a gift, e.g. people have to apply to you and you choose 3 winners.
A lack of budget is no longer an excuse. Because as you can see, marketing nowadays has much more to do with creativity than with a big budget. Start today and implement one of the ideas here!