In today’s digital world, local SEO is crucial in helping businesses reach potential customers in their area. A staggering 9 out of 10 search engine users look for local businesses online, and nearly 5 out of 10 Google searches focus on finding local information. If your business isn’t ranking well in local search results, you could miss out on valuable clients and opportunities. Local Search Engine Optimization, or Local SEO, is a strategy that improves your rural small business’s online visibility by optimizing your content, social profiles, links, and citations for local search.
As a local rural business, utilizing local SEO techniques is essential for increasing your chances of survival in a competitive market. In this post, I will explain what local SEO is and how it works and provide tips and tricks to help you optimize your rural small business website for local search.
What is Local SEO?
To reiterate what I said previously, Local SEO is fine-tuning your website to cater to a specific geographical area, typically your town or service area. This ensures that searchers can find your business both online and offline.
Three Types of Local Search Results
In the realm of local search engine results pages (SERPs), there are three distinct types:
- Sponsored or Google Ads
- Local Pack (also known as Google Maps Pack, Google 3-Pack, or Local 3-Pack)
- Organic
Sponsored Results
These are prominently displayed at the top of search result pages, marked with an “Ad” or “Sponsored” label.
Local Pack
The local Pack refers to the Google search results, which highlights the top local businesses relevant to a user’s query, accompanied by a map and key business information.
Organic Search Results
Organic search results refers to the non-paid portion of the SERPs and they are ranked and displayed based on their relevance to a user’s query. These listings are determined by search engine algorithms, which consider various factors such as keywords, content quality, backlinks, and overall website authority.
Improving your organic listings through local SEO strategies is vital for a rural business like yours to increase visibility and attract potential clients. Rural businesses like yours can improve their organic search rankings by optimizing website content with relevant keywords, creating valuable and informative content that resonates with your local audience, and acquiring quality backlinks from authoritative sources.
10 Ways to Improve Your Rural Local SEO Strategy:
To optimize for local searches effectively, it’s essential to inform Google that your rural small business serves a specific area and aims to connect with clients in that region. This can be accomplished through a variety of methods:
1. Claim and Optimize Your Google Business Profile Listing:
Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly known as your Google My Business Profile (GMB), is one of the top factors that Google considers when ranking businesses in local organic search results and the map pack. Therefore, it’s essential to claim and optimize your GBP listing.
To do this, you will want to provide the following:
- Your full and correct business name
- Your physical store/office address
- Your exact location on a map
- Your business category
- Your phone number
- Your website
Additionally, you will want to upload photos of your business, provide your business hours, and provide additional categories and phone numbers if available.
You can further optimize your GBP profile by regularly sharing business updates and fresh content.
2. Keep Mobile in Mind
Mobile searches account for a significant portion of local searches. According to Think with Google, “60% of smartphone users have contacted a business directly using the search results (e.g., “click to call” option).” Therefore, creating a mobile-friendly website and adding click-to-call buttons on your site and GBP listing is essential.
3. Collect Reviews
Authentic reviews, particularly positive ones, are critical in your local search and map pack ranking. Therefore, work towards collecting more authentic reviews for your small business. Focus on sites where Google would expect companies like yours to have reviews, including consumer directories and social media.
4. Focus on Local Link Building
Link signals such as linking domain authority and quantity are among the top factors that influence your ranking in local searches and local pack results. Therefore, target authority websites in your target service area and gain valuable backlinks from local sites.
5. Ensure NAP/Citation Consistency
Google considers citation signals such as name, address, phone number (NAP) consistency, and citation volume in local SERPs. Therefore, ensure your business NAP is consistent across all platforms and websites, including major citation websites like Bing Maps, Yelp, and Facebook.
6. Make the Most of Social Listening
Use social listening to find out what people in your target locations are saying about your business or in general. Make the most of these insights to discover how you can change your strategy or even your products and services. Your social listening efforts could also help you in determining what types of local content your target audience may be interested in.
7. Optimize Online Directories and Citations
Optimizing your online directories and citations is crucial for local businesses to improve their search engine visibility and attract more consumers. Consistency and accuracy of your business information across online directories and citations using a local citation finder are essential to help search engines provide relevant local search results to users.
Here are the major map data aggregators:
- Neustar Localeze
- Factual (Now part of Foursquare)
- Data Axle
These aggregators provide a large amount of map data for popular search engines and directories like Apple, Yelp, Bing, Google, and Trip Advisor. To ensure your small business is visible in these directories, you must verify that your citations are consistent and complete across all four data aggregators. Any spelling, abbreviation, suite number, or phone number discrepancies can cause problems for your search engine visibility.
In addition, removing any duplicate listings, you may find is important, as this can negatively impact your SEO ranking.
8. Improve Your Internal Linking Structure
Internal linking is an essential aspect of SEO and is crucial in improving website navigation and overall user experience. Effective internal linking distributes page authority and ranking power among pages, thereby enhancing the website’s visibility in search engine results.
To improve your website’s internal linking structure, start by creating a sitemap that outlines the website’s structure and helps to identify any gaps or areas that require improvement. Ensure that your website’s navigation is easy to use and intuitive, with descriptive and relevant links to the page’s content.
Additionally, consider adding contextual links within the body of your content to connect related pages and improve user engagement. By improving your website’s internal linking structure, you can help search engines better understand your website’s content, improve user navigation, and improve your website’s search engine rankings.
9. Optimize URL, Title Tags, Headers, Meta Description, and Content
Optimizing your website’s URL, title tags, headers, meta description, and content is crucial for local SEO.
Sure, here are some tips on how to optimize URL, title tags, headers, meta description, and content:
- Use keywords: Incorporate relevant keywords in your URL, title tags, headers, meta descriptions, and content to help search engines understand what your page is about.
- Keep it concise: Keep your URL, title tags, headers, and meta descriptions concise and to the point. This helps to improve user experience and makes it easier for search engines to crawl your content.
- Use descriptive language: Make sure your URL, title tags, headers, and meta descriptions accurately describe the content on the page. This helps users and search engines understand the relevance of your content.
- Be unique: Ensure each page on your website has a unique URL, title tag, and meta description. This avoids confusion for users and search engines.
- Include your location: If your business is location-based, consider adding your location to your URL, title tags, headers, and meta descriptions. This can help improve your local search rankings.
- Optimize your content: Ensure that your content is high-quality, relevant, and engaging. Use header tags to break up your content into sections and make it easier to read.
10. Local Landing Pages
Local landing pages are pages on your website that are optimized for a specific local area or region. These pages help your business rank higher in local search results for that particular area. To create effective local landing pages, you should include location-specific content, such as information about the local community, events, and attractions. It’s important to use keywords relevant to the area and include your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on the page. You should also have clear calls to action, such as “Visit us today” or “Call for more information.” Make sure the page is easy to navigate and is mobile-friendly. Creating high-quality, location-specific landing pages can attract more local customers to your business and improve your overall local SEO performance.
Bonuses
Participate in Your Local Community
Participate in your local community by partnering with a nonprofit, sponsoring an event, or appearing in local media.
Additionally, to improve your ranking, emphasize a Chambers of Commerce membership in your local community, as this can provide an external inbound link to your website.
Local SEO Tools
There are many local SEO tools that can help rural businesses like yours get better rankings. These include:
- Whitespark Local Citation Finder
- Screaming Frog
- Moz Local
- Ahrefs
- Buzzstream
- BrightLocal
By using these tools and the tips I have outlined above, you can ensure your rural small business can be seen by more people in your rural service area.
Conclusion
In conclusion, optimizing your rural local SEO strategy is key to unlocking your business’s full potential and ensuring your long-term success. If you’re ready to take your rural small business to new heights, contact me today, and together, we’ll develop and implement a tailored rural local SEO strategy that drives growth and attracts the clients you need.
