Building Local SEO Outside Your Core Location: A Complete Amazing Guide in 2024

Building local SEO outside your core location means expanding your business’s visibility and online presence to attract customers from areas beyond your primary location. This approach is essential for businesses looking to grow into new markets or regions, as it involves optimizing your digital strategies to rank higher in local search results across multiple locations. Unlike traditional local SEO, which focuses on one area, this strategy aims to ensure that your business is discoverable by local audiences in various cities, towns, or neighborhoods where you operate or wish to gain traction.

Why It’s Important to Expand Local SEO

For any business that wants to grow beyond its initial market, building local SEO outside the core location is critical. It allows you to tap into new customer bases, increase brand awareness, and ultimately drive more sales. Effective local SEO for multiple locations involves setting up dedicated digital assets, tailoring content to each region, and consistently refining strategies to stay ahead of local competitors. This guide will walk you through the steps to effectively build local SEO outside your main area.

1. Optimize Google My Business for Each Location

Google My Business (GMB) is a must-have tool for any local SEO strategy. It helps businesses appear in local searches and on Google Maps, making it easier for potential customers to find you. If your business operates in more than one location, it’s crucial to set up a separate GMB listing for each location. This way, each of your business locations can appear in local searches relevant to its area.

How to Optimize GMB for Multiple Locations:

• Create Distinct Listings: Make sure to set up a GMB listing for each of your business locations. Ensure that each listing is complete with accurate information, such as business name, address, phone number (NAP), and working hours.
• Consistent Information Across Listings: Consistency is vital. The information provided in your GMB listings should match the details on your website and other online platforms to avoid confusion.
• Respond to Reviews Regularly: Engaging with customer reviews is essential. Whether it’s a compliment or a complaint, responding to reviews shows you care about your customers, which can improve your local rankings.
• Location-Specific Keywords: Include keywords that are specific to each location in your business description. For instance, if you have a plumbing business, use phrases like “plumbing services in [city name]” to target local searches.

For a detailed understanding of how GMB works, you can refer to Google My Business.

2. Develop Location-Specific Landing Pages

Having separate, location-specific landing pages on your website is a highly effective way to improve your local SEO efforts across multiple regions. Each of these pages should focus on the specific services or products you offer in that area, with localized content that speaks directly to the needs of local customers.

Best Practices for Location-Specific Pages:

• Incorporate Regional Keywords: Conduct keyword research to identify the search terms potential customers use when looking for services in that specific area. Integrate these keywords naturally throughout the content on each location page.
• Create Engaging Local Content: Tailor the content on each page to reflect local interests, events, or issues. This will not only make your business more relatable to the local audience but also boost your relevance in local searches.
• Showcase Local Customer Testimonials: Including reviews and testimonials from customers in the area can build trust and increase conversions. This local validation can make your business more appealing to new clients.
• SEO-Friendly URLs: Ensure that your URLs are concise and include location names. For example, using /plumbing-services-boston/ will help search engines understand the page’s focus better than a generic URL.

3. Build Local Backlinks for Authority

Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your site. Building local backlinks from trusted, local sources can significantly improve your local search engine ranking. When other reputable local businesses or websites link to your content, it indicates to search engines that your business is credible and reliable in that specific region.

Effective Ways to Acquire Local Backlinks:

• Collaborate with Local Businesses: Partnering with local businesses for events, sponsorships, or co-marketing efforts can result in backlinks from their websites. This cooperation helps your business gain local recognition.
• Engage with Community Events: By sponsoring local events or supporting community projects, your business can be listed on event websites, community blogs, and other local platforms, leading to more backlinks.
• Submit Your Business to Local Directories: Make sure your business is listed in local online directories. Popular directories such as Yelp or regional business listings are excellent for driving local traffic and gaining valuable backlinks.
• Work with Local Bloggers and Influencers: Connecting with local bloggers or influencers can help expand your reach. Their endorsement can bring more attention to your business and lead to authentic, quality backlinks.

4. Continuously Monitor and Adjust Your Strategy

Successfully building local SEO outside your core location requires constant monitoring and refinement. Using data-driven insights, you can identify what works and what doesn’t, allowing you to adjust your strategy as needed. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console can help you track important metrics, including website traffic, local search rankings, and user engagement.

Key Performance Metrics to Track:

• Traffic Analytics: Regularly monitor which pages bring in the most traffic. Identifying top-performing location pages can provide insights into successful strategies that can be applied to other areas.
• Local Keyword Rankings: Keep track of how your local keywords rank over time. If you notice that some keywords are underperforming, consider revising the content or adding new relevant keywords.
• Conversion Rates: Measure how well your location-specific pages convert visitors into customers. High-conversion pages are indicators of well-executed local SEO strategies.
• User Behavior: Analyzing how users interact with your site (e.g., bounce rate, time spent on page) can help you understand the effectiveness of your content.

5. Enhance Local SEO with Schema Markup

Schema markup is a type of code that you add to your website to help search engines understand your content better. By adding location-specific schema to your web pages, you make it easier for search engines to display accurate information about your business in local search results.

Advantages of Using Schema Markup:

• Improved Local Search Rankings: Schema markup can improve your visibility in local searches, including appearing in rich snippets, which often draw more attention than standard search results.
• Better Information Display: Search engines will have a clear understanding of your business information, making it more likely to display correct details such as address, contact number, and opening hours.
• Enhanced User Experience: Providing structured data means users will get essential information about your business quickly, making it more likely for them to visit your site or location.

Conclusion

Expanding local SEO outside your primary area is a smart strategy that needs consistent effort and clever optimization techniques. By setting up Google My Business listings, creating location-specific landing pages, getting local backlinks, and tracking performance, your business can grow its reach across different regions. Plus, using schema markup helps search engines understand and showcase your business details accurately, boosting search rankings and local visibility.

If you’re considering this kind of expansion, it’s important to understand tools like heatmaps, which can give insights into user behavior. You can learn more about this here: what is heatmap local SEO.

For businesses aiming to grow, investing in a solid local SEO strategy across multiple locations is key. Remember, local SEO success doesn’t happen overnight; it takes ongoing optimization, community engagement, and the flexibility to adapt to shifting search trends. With the right strategy, your business can thrive in new markets and attract a wider audience.

Please follow and like us:

See more