Create a local SEO strategy

1. Enter your product name and city into a keyword research tool such as Ahrefs or Google Ads Keyword Planner to get search phrases that include your city or state.

Filter out keywords that are highly competitive or have a high keyword difficulty. Download the results to a .CSV or Excel spreadsheet file.

2. Choose 1-7 high-volume keywords from your spreadsheet and run a Google search on them - make notes on the results.

Include search intent, which is the user’s reason for searching on a particular keyword, and search intent type, which can be navigational, informational, or commercial.

3. Group the keywords according to search intent type and write content for each search intent.

Place most focus on writing or improving your product or service pages.

4. Create a listing on Google My Business (GMB), add your business details as they are displayed on your website, and include other information like interior and exterior images.

Use a consistent name, address, and phone number. Choose the category that appropriately describes what you do and write a business description and include your keywords when writing. List all your services or products as they are shown on your website. Verify your listing. Publish blog posts and offers to GMB as well as your website.

5. Ask your sales team to download the GMB mobile app and enable live messaging to quickly capture leads from local search results pages.

Give people a way to make appointments with you online, such as a Calendly link.

6. Send a thank-you email to your customers after delivering a product or service and ask them to leave a review on your GMB listing.

Copy your GMB listing review link by clicking on the share icon in the Customers section of your GMB mobile app. Respond positively to all reviews. Google likes it when you engage with the community.

7. Create a Bing Places listing and import your GMB listing into it to save time.

8. Use Google search to find local business directories in your city, state, and country.

Use your industry and services or products as search keywords along with your location (city, state, country). Sign up, fill out the details, and keep your name, address, and phone number consistent with what you have on GMB and your website. Sign up on international directories that categorize based on location as well, such as Yelp.

9. Use a tool like Whitespark’s Local Citation Finder to find all mentions of your business NAP, both previous and current, to discover inconsistencies.

If you changed your business address in the past, the tool will discover where the old address is mentioned on the internet. Go to that website and edit it.

10. Reach out to collaborating businesses - such as distributors, contractors, suppliers, and neighboring businesses - to request a link on their website.