SEO, What’s Working Now Amid the Lockdowns?

What is happening with localized searches for businesses everywhere is that Google knows where those searching for information are located at the time of their search, and so they provide relevant search results to their geographic area.

This is why it is so important for local businesses to make sure to localize your content in order to maximize its value.

As an example of what I am saying, at the time of writing this, I am sitting in my office at my desk, located in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada.

When I go to Google and type in “dentist”, well… pictures are worth a thousand words, so check out the screen print below which is from my search results.

screen print of Google search for dentist

All of my Google search results clearly show Oshawa as the destination of any of the dentists I might be interested in attending.

These are pages, websites, and title tags that specifically mention Oshawa dentist.

Google knows where I am located, so understand that this is happening no matter where the searcher is located at the time of their search.

So, if you type in “dentist” (without the quotation marks, of course) then you will get the results from where you are at, whether you are located right here in Oshawa, in Winnipeg, Manitoba; New York, NY, USA; or even in Australia.

Search results in Google are being localized.

So, you need to check to see if your website is appearing in search results for the areas you want to have your site appear in searches. Because if your website is not, then you need to do something about it.

If you want your business to rank locally you must build out a page for EACH city or area that you want your website to rank in, along with every service you are offering in those areas.

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Examples:

Whitby

yourbusiness.com/whitby/service1/
yourbusiness.com/whitby/service2/
yourbusiness.com/whitby/service3/

Oshawa

yourbusiness.com/oshawa/service1/
yourbusiness.com/oshawa/service2/
yourbusiness.com/oshawa/service3/

Bowmanville

yourbusiness.com/bowmanville/service1/
yourbusiness.com/bowmanville/service2/
yourbusiness.com/bowmanville/service3/

And, if you want your business to rank in different cities within other provinces, then you would need to add anther level of information in order to include the province you wish to rank in also.

Examples:

Winnipeg, Manitoba

yourbusiness.com/manitoba/winnipeg/service1/
yourbusiness.com/manitoba/winnipeg/service2/
yourbusiness.com/manitoba/winnipeg/service2/

Toronto, Ontario

yourbusiness.com/ontario/toronto/service1/
yourbusiness.com/ontario/toronto/service2/
yourbusiness.com/ontario/toronto/service3/

Yes, this means more pages for your website but only when it is appropriate.

However, this is how you can take advantage of having your business website listed in search results for all of the different areas you service with your business.

This means that you do not have to have your business located in those areas, but you do need to have landing pages created for every single area you want your business listed in, if you want your website to rank in those areas in Google’s search results.

Publishing blog content is another vital tool that you can use that will increase your authority in your business.

Here is where you can create content (or have content created for you) using terms that would attract your target audience, but that are not competitive keywords.

Doing this, along with a few quality backlinks (done right, of course), and you will find your site ranking well for the areas you want to appear in search results.

Easy Wins Analysis

These are keywords that your website is close to the top in ranking for but not in the top 3 positions on Google’s page 1 results.

Easy wins are also known as pre-traffic rankings.

Google Organic CTR Breakdown by Position
Source: https://backlinko.com/google-ctr-stats

According to the graph shown above, the click through rate (CTR) for pages appearing on Google’s page 1, position 1 will receive about 31.73% CTR, whereas if your website appears in positions less then page 1, position 1, the percentage of CTRs drop drastically and accordingly.

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The aim is to improve any posts you have ranking in positions 4 through to 10, on Google’s page 1 search results.

It is much easier to rank higher for a keyword your site is already ranking well for.

Building quality backlinks such as ‘white hat’ guest posts made on sites with domain authority of DA10+ and DA50+, as well as foundational links (natural text links), month after month for six months to your identified target pages will have those pages ranking higher in no time at all.

screen print of Google's Featured Snippet

Instead of simply sitting on a hidden gold mine, you can use SEO tools that can help to identify these pages, and then figure out what you need to do in order to improve your website’s rank.

Sometimes simply building assorted links over time can dramatically improve your website rank, and can even reverse losing traffic, when done correctly.

Summary

So, if you are in a niche that is difficult to advertise for then SEO can be a very powerful tool.

Create those local landing pages if you want your website listed in other areas that you provide your business in, as discussed above.

You CAN do this even if you don’t have the physical locations, in order to capture more searches.

Creating relevant blog content and quality back linking, on a consistent basis, can definitely have your website up front and getting noticed in no time at all.

This method has been tested in major cities in the United States, and it is said to be working wonders.

Adding relevant content for low competitive keywords is ALWAYS recommended to anyone who wishes to have their website rank higher in search results AND gain authority too.

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SEO (search engine optimization) doesn’t have to be complicated, sometimes you just need to take action.

Depending on your area in Canada, your website could get better search results quicker by following the advice that I have shared with you here.

ADDITIONAL INFO: With the lockdowns having caused so many local businesses to have to close their physical doors temporarily, Google offered advice on How to pause your business online in Google Search.

Many local business websites are experiencing temporary drops in ranking, some seeing upwards of a 20% drop or worse, due to the “essential needs” sites flourishing during these unprecedented times.

Thus, you need to understand that your Google Analytics data will be skewed during these times.

DO NOT PANIC.

You will get through this.

During these times, many local businesses are pulling their advertising.

With the reduction in their advertising, those selling advertising spaces may be reducing their advertising costs in hopes of keeping their regular customers.

This is why you might give serious consider for increasing your ads, especially with local TV stations, such as Peterborough’s CHEX TV.

Why not request your demo today?

Even the best marketers with the most effective websites will tell you that they seldom convert more than 5% of their website visitors into paying customers when their website was their ONLY means of marketing.

Source: The HOTH webinar

Trish

Website Designer for Parr's Publishing. As a full certified Internet Specialist, I help business owners and organizations increase their profits by providing them with a fully managed, custom designed website as well as basic Search Engine Optimization.

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