{"id":102687,"date":"2018-02-13T14:31:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T19:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/beginners-guide-creating-local-content-ranks\/"},"modified":"2024-12-19T16:40:54","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T21:40:54","slug":"beginners-guide-creating-local-content-ranks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-gb\/insights\/blog\/local-search\/beginners-guide-creating-local-content-ranks\/","title":{"rendered":"A Beginner\u2019s Guide to Creating Local Content That Ranks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The importance of local SEO<\/a> cannot be overlooked. With the rise of mobile use and Google\u2019s increasingly sophisticated understanding of user intent, ranking locally has become the best way to increase footfall into local businesses. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Rather than focus on the Local Pack (which is the map\/geographic-focused results often appearing at the <\/span>top of the SERPs\u00a0<\/span><\/a>this post will focus on rankings for locationally-focused content and landing pages in the natural results. The most important signals can be seen below.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Research by Moz<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"List<\/p>\n

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  1. Link Signals<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Overview<\/b><\/p>\n

    As with all search ranking factors, links are still the major signal used to determine relevance to a particular query. They act as endorsements – so the better the endorser, the higher the value of your page. Google uses links in several ways. The main factors are:<\/span><\/p>\n

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      \n
    • Number of different linking domains<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Authority of linking domains<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Relevance of linking pages (a big win in local search is local recommendations and locally relevant content linking to you)<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Page authority of link origins<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Anchor text of inbound links (keyword and locational relevance)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Recommendations:<\/b><\/p>\n

      This is one of the harder areas to control, as to get links naturally and effectively, they should be earned\/won rather than bought or requested. This simply requires putting out content that is more useful and engaging than that of your competitors, is visually pleasing and easy to use and, ideally, as unique as possible. \u00a0<\/span>
      \n<\/span>
      \n<\/span>There are a number of tricks and techniques to boosting your chances of getting some links that are locally and topically relevant. Here are just several:<\/span><\/p>\n

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        \n
      • A competition (this could involve local bloggers or members of the public)<\/span><\/li>\n
      • Host an industry event celebrating and exhibiting your products and services<\/span><\/li>\n
      • Nominate your business for an award<\/span><\/li>\n
      • Host a community event and provide value<\/span><\/li>\n
      • Giveaways <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

         <\/p>\n

          \n
        1. On-Page Signals<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          No matter how good your linking signals are, if Google can\u2019t determine the topic or location of your page, you will not be shown for relevant locational queries. <\/span>
          \n<\/span>
          \n<\/span>In this context, on-page signals means the content on your page and how rankable it is. Does it relate to the search queries you want? Does it contain the information relevant to that query?<\/span>
          \n<\/span>
          \n<\/span>This ranges from including the basics like name, address and contact details (telephone number, email address), to ensuring you have a decent keyword density on the page. \u00a0This includes frequency of locational terms as well as industry terms. \u00a0<\/span>
          \n<\/span>
          \n<\/span>For example, if you were a gym (where x is the location), you may want to include the terms \u2018x gym,\u2019 and \u2018gym in x\u2019 a few times. Synonyms and secondary keywords should also be used, not only to prevent it from becoming monotonous and repetitive spammy robot-speak, but to fire up Google\u2019s latent semantic indexing capacities and to help you rank for those terms. \u00a0<\/span>
          \n<\/span>
          \n<\/span>For a fitness club in Colchester, for instance, here are some phrases you might want to consider:<\/span>
          \n<\/span>
          \n<\/span>\u2018Gym in Colchester\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u2018Colchester health and fitness club\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u2018Colchester gym\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u2018Fitness Classes in Colchester,\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u2018Health Club\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

          David Lloyd\u2019s local club pages are handling this well:<\/span><\/p>\n

          \"Important<\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n

          It isn\u2019t just density which is important – keyword placement is perhaps even more significant.<\/span>
          \n<\/span>
          \n<\/span>Like in our example above, make sure you include your primary keywords in your metadata, headers and secondary headers; drop a scattering of synonyms through your main copy, always making sure it reads well for humans.<\/span><\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n

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          1. Behavioural Signals<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            By this we mean how users are interacting with your page. Are they finding what they are looking for and are they staying on your content for a decent amount of time? Did they engage with many elements on the page? Did they bounce?<\/span>
            \n<\/span>
            \n<\/span>There are three questions to keep in mind here:<\/span>
            \n<\/span>
            \n<\/span>Firstly, are people going to select your page over the competition? \u00a0Make sure you stand out in SERPs with engaging and descriptive metadata and, where possible, snippets. This consideration is mainly to improve click through rate. If your result gets no clicks, Google will favour results that do.<\/span><\/p>\n

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