As the surrounding competition grows, businesses are scrambling to incorporate SEO into their digital platform strategy. However, successful SEO isn’t that easy. It consists of many levels. And, like all well-built structures, no SEO strategy can succeed without a quality foundation to rest upon. Below are some examples of SEO foundation pieces specifically designed for the local sphere.

On Page Foundation

Your company has paid for a quality UX/Design, but will anyone see it? A beautiful website is worthless if no one visits it.

Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Title Tags and Meta Descriptions are the first things prospective customers see when searching for your business. In other words, they’re your first piece of online marketing. Follow these rules:

  • Keep them focused with keywords and other relevant information.
  • Load them with local neighborhood terms to tell search engines (like Google) your location.
  • Use them to draw in users (potential customers) to click on your site.
  • Remember, title tags show up directly on the search engine results page (SERP).

URL structure

Your next step lies in the organization of your URL structure. Focus on these two helpful hints:

  • Keep your URL structure relevant to your location and the services you provide.
  • Make sure to match the headings and page content with the names in the URL. This informs the search engines on the page’s general information.

Authority

Both Domain Authority and Page Authority are calculated using multiple metrics and can be improved over time to ensure a high search engine performance. This places an importance on retaining domains and capitalizing on previous domains with high authority.

Internal Link Structure

The internal link structure importance lies in the targeted key search terms. It also brings enhanced authority to high-traffic pages within your website.

Website Navigation

Pages with the most user engagement aspects need to be the easiest to find!

Local Foundation

Accurate Google My Business (GMB) Address and Categories

Google My Business allows owners to ensure basic information (name and address) matches what is listed on their website. Over the last few years, GMB has continually upgraded this basic information’s importance, thus allowing Google to confirm websites and GMB are backing each other up. This information in GMB can also appear on SERP elements like the knowledge graph.

Google My Business has also given more importance to categories of late. The categories tell search engines what your business does. It is also a great way to target and differentiate specific services offered by businesses. This proves especially successful with senior living facilities.

Consistency of the Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP) across Tier 1 Citations

These days, it seems like there are an unlimited number of citations to chose from. That’s why starting with a strong foundation has become increasingly important.

  • Take care of the major tier 1 citations, such as Google My Business, Yelp, Bing, and Facebook.
  • Maintain correct information to attract referral traffic from sites such as Yelp.

Location, Location, Location

As in real estate, your website’s location is everything!

  • Trends such as “near me” searches, have made physical location a qualifier for SEO, especially in the storage website world.
  • For example, when someone performs a local city search or a “near me” search, the business’s proximity becomes one of the foundational elements for search engines.

Let G5 Help

At G5, we’re not just interested in building the best websites, but ensuring those websites receive the most traffic. Below are some of the ways we work to ensure a successful online presence.

  • We build sites with SEO in mind, complete with a strong on-page foundation, using the elements above.
  • We implement an SEO strategy across tested and proven verticals.
  • We perform regular updates to Google My Business to ensure correct and up-to-date information.
  • We help with public edits and make sure Yelp and other citations are displaying the correct information.

To learn more about the advantages of maintaining the foundation of your SEO strategy, contact the G5 SEO team today.