Before you start promoting your business online to an American audience, you should consider some of the features that you will definitely encounter in the process. Local optimization of the site in the United States is one of the most important stages to which you should devote enough time. By missing this moment, you will allow your competitors to bypass you, and, as a result, you will lose potential customers. So, if you are interested in comprehensive local promotion, leave a request and we will contact you.
How it works and what is needed to promote a regional business - read on.
What is Local SEO
Local SEO in the United States market is the optimization of a business website at the regional level, to attract customers interested in ordering services or purchasing goods in a specific region/city/state. This approach to business promotion allows you to significantly save budgets and efforts: it is much easier to promote a specific city or state than an entire country.
Studies show that about half of all Google search network users from the USA use local queries for searches, that is, they add the names of states or cities. In addition, a third of all search results in the USA are websites of local businesses.
This means that local business promotion in the United States is something that will help you get closer to your potential customers.
Remember that not only Google is popular in the USA, but also other search engines. A few articles ago we talked about SEO promotion in Bing - use our tips so as not to miss out on potential customers.
What you need to attract local customers in America
In order for local optimization in America to bring good results, you should carefully consider your strategy. It must include:
- competitor research;
- fixing technical problems;
- semantics collection;
- site optimization work;
- Creating and working on a profile in Google My Business;
- building link mass;
- Monitoring new growth points for your site.
Also, to keep your finger on the pulse, you will need SEO analytics tools — choose the ones that suit you best from our selection.
In general, the process of promoting a local business is similar to classic resource promotion but has some features.
Yes, for regional promotion, two types of factors can be distinguished:
- those that affect the appearance of the company in Google Maps;
- those that affect the position of the site in the search results.
Below we will look at how it works.
On-page optimization of site pages
Local optimization in the USA necessarily includes working with semantics - collecting keys by which users will find you in search. The good news: is you do not need to process a huge pool of data, because the main thing is to focus on local queries. You can collect them in any way convenient for you, for example:
- using services (Serpstsat, Ahrefs and others);
- using search suggestions;
- by exploring popular directories, for example, Yelp.
In the latter case, to select the right words, you need to enter your main keyword in the search, and then study the list of suggested businesses. In their descriptions, you can get whole phrases that can be used for your local promotion.
Important! The popularity of voice search in Google is growing every year. It is especially relevant for local businesses: people often dictate queries by voice to find the right location in the city right now. Take this into account and collect even the longest keywords with many clarifications - these are the key phrases that can be dictated by voice.
You can use the collected semantics to optimize your site pages: create meta tags (title and description), and write content. Along with links, these actions significantly affect the site's ranking in Google. In no case do not duplicate content! Even if you provide the same services, but for different cities in the state, create your own unique and high-quality content for each page.
If you really want to promote your business in local search results in America, pay special attention to the contact block. NAP (Name, Address, Phone) is incredibly important for local optimization in the United States. Google analyzes this information on your page, and if it contains errors or inaccuracies, your company may even fall out of the search results.
Indicate as many contact details as possible: mobile phone, fax, email, physical address. It would also be useful to add working hours if your company is open 24/7 — be sure to indicate this.
Important! Be sure to check the functionality and convenience of the adaptive version of your site — people are more likely to use smartphones to search for something on the Internet, and a poorly adapted site will repel them and they will go to a competitor.
External site optimization
Promoting a business in regional search results in the US market also includes link building. How to get links for local promotion?
Registration in Google My Business and ranking in Google Maps
Local search results in America consist not only of links to pages. It also includes Google Maps and Google My Business cards, and for many users, this part of the search results is the most attractive and priority. We wrote about how to register a Google My Business account in one of the previous articles, so if you haven't done so yet, we recommend that you create a company profile in GMB as soon as possible according to our instructions.
It is important to remember that your information must be consistent: all contact details on the site must be similar to those you specified in the GMB card, as well as in any other directory. Any discrepancy is an alarm bell for Google. Errors can significantly affect the promotion of the site in local search results.
Exchange with partners
If you cooperate with other local businesses, you can agree on exchanging links with partners: this will be a plus for both them and you. The best option would be to place your business in the "Our partners" block - this way your company will be visible to users visiting the partner's website.
Sponsorship
Becoming a sponsor of a local event, you can quickly make yourself known. Organizers can place your logo and a link to the site on their page, which will not only positively affect the reputation of your site, but also become an additional source of traffic.
Local directories
Creating a company profile in directories is a key step for successful business promotion at the local level in the USA. Choose the most relevant and high-quality directories for placement, and indicate only relevant information in them, especially NAP (which we talked about above). Do not forget to promptly update the information and check reviews.
Crowd marketing
Word of mouth also works well in America. Post comments on local forums to create resonance and interest potential customers in your benefits. But be careful: the more promotional your messages look, the less likely someone will want to use your services.
Important! Reviews play an important role for local businesses. Make them available on your website, and don't forget to provide feedback on reviews from visitors on other platforms, especially Google My Business.
Conclusions
Local website promotion is a must-have for businesses that want to promote themselves in the American market. But you need to put in a lot of effort to get a really good result and not make things worse for your website. If you don't want to take the risk, you can always order website promotion abroad from the professionals of Idea Digital Agency. Our experts know exactly how to improve your business's visibility in the US through local optimization without hurting it.
