9 Useful Local SEO Lead Generation Tactics for Marketing
According to a survey, 28% of local searches convert into a final purchase within 24 hours. Huge right! 35% of businesses believe that local SEO is important for bringing more leads to their doors.
In this fast-paced world and cutthroat competition, it is very challenging for businesses to stand out among the crowd, especially the emerging ones. Since these small to medium-scale businesses have limited budgets and resources, it becomes very difficult to grab customers’ attention, drive more traffic to their websites, and generate leads.
However, there are successful marketing strategies that have made a lot of startups’ dreams come true without demanding heaps of money, and local SEO for lead generation is one of them.
But where should I start? How to implement it in the right way so that I can pour more prospects into your sales funnel
Well, to answer such questions, we have come up with this blog, where we will be sharing nine useful local SEO lead-generation tactics for marketing.
So, keep reading!
Tried and Tested Local SEO Lead Generation Tactics
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Add your business profile to Google
A Google business profile, formerly known as Google My Business, is the very first step in the journey of local SEO. Studies found that 86% of people trust Google My Business results when searching for local services.
It is a free tool that marks your company’s presence online, and people can locate your products or services through searches and maps within that local area. Every piece of information you put out here helps people know where and how to reach out to you.
Here is how you can optimize your Google My Business profile correctly:
- Fill in all the details, including your business name, working hours, phone number, website link, company’s location, and some genuine, high-quality photos.
- Next, precisely mention the products and services you offer.
- Maintain a good rating. Request that your existing clients drop the bad words about your services.
- Promptly respond to queries.
- Keep updating your profile from time to time
A well-optimized Google My Business profile helps you to increase your profile visibility in local search results, grab more customers’ attention and finally boost the lead generation process.
Maintaining good online reviews
Online reviews are yet another important factor responsible for higher ranking in local SEO search results. According to a survey, 88% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust the words coming out of a friend’s mouth.
They have the greatest impact on customers’ final decisions about whether they are going to call you or not. This is why it is imperative to have good Google ratings.
For instance, if anyone is seeking different types of solar panel services and finds your Google My Business profile with a good rating and an ample number of positive reviews, most likely they will contact you for your services.
But how would you build such one?
For that, first of all, you need to request and persuade all your old clients to leave a word about your services. Call them, text them, or drop them a line; whatever method suits you, just reach out to them.
Next, always keep your support team ready to quickly resolve all customer queries. And whether it’s bad or good, your team needs to reply to all the reviews dropped on Google with the utmost patience. Remember, everything is online, and people are watching you.
Building local citations
There are many marketing strategies to improve your website’s ranking in local search results, and building local citations is one of them. Citations are referred to as the name, address, and phone number (NAP) information mentioned on other websites.
You might think it’s a very minimal thing, but if Google’s algorithm notices your NAP mentioned on other trustworthy and authenticated websites, it rewards you by boosting your website’s ranking in search results.
Need a further boost?
According to a survey, citations are responsible for holding 13% of a website’s ranking factors for local businesses, and 28% of the time, this search results in customers ending up visiting that business.
To build the citations correctly, first, ensure that you have put the same NAP information on all the sites. Next, ensure that your citations are listed in relevant directories on the web.
Optimizing your website’s content
One of the survey reports says 55% of website organic traffic comes from mobile phones. Consequently, search engines like Google or Bing constantly encourage the mobile version of a site to increase the local SEO rankings. This means your website must be responsive and should not take more than 3 seconds to open for the visitors.
Next, your content should be very well optimized. Ensure that all your service landing pages or blogs are optimized according to the local regions.
This way, they would be able to connect with you and might end up being your paying customers.
Incorporating local schema markup
Schema markup, or structured data, is a code that helps search engines better understand your website’s content. This helps your site rank in search engine result pages (SERPs) in the form of rich snippets and can thus help you earn more clicks.
But how does it relate to local SEO?
Adding local schema markup tells search engines all the important information about your business, such as your name, address, contact number, or working hours.
For instance, if your company has different working hours based on the day, you can specify each of these details with an OpeningHourSpecification item. This will let search engines clearly understand the variable timing. Similarly, you can implement the same for other different schema markups such as title, address, telephone, reviews and ratings, product schema, and more, depending on what kind of services your business is interested in offering.
According to a report, less than 1 percent of websites were using schema markup as part of their local SEO strategy in 2017. But now that you know how powerful this tool can be, use it as a powerful local SEO tool and get a competitive edge.
Analyze your competitor’s backlinks
Backlinks are an important part of a local SEO lead generation strategy as they create a sense of credibility in search engines that authenticated websites value your site’s content.
According to Moz’s 2020 report, your website’s backlink portfolio (number of backlinks and quality of backlinks on a chor text) accounts for 28% of all the factors used by Google’s algorithms to favor your site in local search results.
To build powerful backlinks, get started by first making a list of your local cream competitors and analyzing their backlink profiles. There are various tools on the market that can provide insights into where they are coming from and enlighten you on the opportunities for building one for you.
Also, when you start building backlinks for your site, ensure that you follow a balanced strategy of earning links organically through content marketing and social media platforms. Don’t ever think of buying the links from other websites or getting them from irrelevant sites. Search engines reward only organic and high-quality links.
Take advantage of social media marketing
Today, social media is a powerful tool, with 60% of the global population using it and a billion monthly active users. Needless to say, in order to boost your local SEO and generate more leads, you need to shake hands with social media marketing too.
It gives you an opportunity to take your business to a broader audience, raise awareness about your brand and services, engage with them by answering their questions, conduct online events, and who knows, you might eventually end up pouring more prospects into your funnel.
Consider it a form of free branding. It works well for small-scale businesses that don’t have enough funds.
So, once you are done with optimizing your GMB profile, website content, building quality backlinks, schema markup, and citations, it’s the next yet crucial step to boost your local SEO.
Collaborate with local influencers
Influencer marketing has always been a part of brands and businesses; however, the only difference lies in the sense of reachability and viability. Now, by collaborating with local influencers, even rising startups can harness their power, take their services to a mass level, and boost their local SEO.
Today, influential marketing has taken many forms, from social media channels to YouTubers to blogs. However, considering the context you are in, local bloggers and publications will be considered the most fruitful choice for your business.
Find local influencers in your niche, reach out to them, and discuss a word about how collaborating can help both of you mutually grow together. Also, keep in mind that only the right influencers can help you generate more leads. So, always cross-check if their followers are the ones you are targeting.
Attend local events and conferences
It might sound time-consuming, but not everything is done online. In order to boost your local SEO and generate leads, you need to build connections, and for that, you need to step out of your zone.
Participating in local seminars, conferences, or events gives you an opportunity to build people in your niche, get acquainted with the new technologies that you can implement in your business, spread the word about your brand and services, and increase your chances of getting backlinks from the attendees’ sites.
Similarly, if you attend a charity event, it will help you build long-term relationships and eventually boost your business credibility in the local region.
Wrapping-Up
Local search engine optimization (SEO) has been a proven lead-generation marketing tactic for startups. Executing all the aforementioned local SEO strategies correctly will help you increase your brand visibility in the local community, driving more leads to your doors and eventually turning them into paying customers.
However, keep in mind that lead generation is an ongoing process. Moreover, there are ever-changing search engine algorithms, real-time market trends, and dynamic consumer behavior that can also affect your digital efforts.
But one thing is sure: sooner or later, you will be able to generate more leads with the help of local SEO.
So, keep your sales team always ready, because who knows when and how someone calls to your door for your services?