MedResponsive is a reputable digital marketing company with extensive experience in all aspects of digital marketing – from SEO, SMO, PPC, and branding to website development, content writing, application development, and more. With an expert team of SEO consultants and digital marketers, the company helps businesses implement both on-page and off-page SEO techniques to improve search engine results.
In this podcast episode, Dame Colquhoun, our Solutions Manager/SEO strategist discusses the key local SEO trends for 2021. As search engine algorithms and user behaviors continue to evolve, it is important to stay ahead of the curve for maintaining a competitive edge. Join us as we discuss the most impactful local SEO strategies, emerging trends, and practical tips to enhance your online visibility and drive more local traffic to your business. Whether you’re looking to refine your current method or adopt new strategies, this episode provides valuable insights to help you succeed in the dynamic world of local SEO.
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Hello –
This is Monica Thomas the Search Marketing/SEO manager for medresponsive.com
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0:00 – Need help getting better rankings for your local site? Implement these local SEO tips within your business website. These tips can help to improve your rankings and attract your target audience.
0:13 – What Are the Key Local SEO Trends for 2021?
0:18 – Introduction to Local SEO
Local SEO means targeting searches which primarily come from any specific geographical area surrounding the place where your medical business is located. It focuses on optimizing your website content for search terms like your city name, your specialization etc. To get information for local search, search engines rely on signals such as local content, social profile pages, links, and citations to provide the most relevant local results to the user. So, local SEO means optimizing a website to increase leads, traffic and overall brand awareness that it would gain from a local search.
1:08 – Ranking for Local Searches – Google’s Tools and Factors
According to PR Newswire, studies have shown that 70 percent of small businesses do not focus on local SEO. And with Local SEO you’ll be taking steps to optimizing a website to improve leads and traffic, while increasing brand awareness from a local search standpoint. So, if you want your business to be successful, your website must be optimized for local search. Let’s look at Google’s tools and factors to rank for local searches. Here’s the list –
- The location where the searches comes from
- Keyword(s) used in the search
- Shares on social media
- Name, Address & Phone (NAP) information
- Google Map star ratings
- Identifying the presence of Google Map listing, and lastly
- The number of check-ins at the business location
2:16 – Making A Website More Locally Optimized – Top Techniques
Now let’s review the following simple to implement techniques to help your website become more locally SEO optimized. And this also goes with medical industries, any kind of industries.
2:33 – One option is – Promoting online reviews: Online reviews are an important element for any business. This is because users greatly rely on online reviews before making any purchase decisions. With every year, the dependency on reviews grows steadily because it is a quick way to see how engaged others are with a brand, or how reputable you are, and so on. 91% of people trust online reviews and good reviews can help turn a passive shopper into a lifelong buyer. Some of the best ways to get reviews is by asking the customer face-to-face about your service/products, via email, or asking for a review after a sale offer. Make sure to respond to all reviews, whether good or bad. This shows transparency within your business and may encourage more people to leave reviews.
3:33 – Next step is – Voice search optimization: As voice assistants like Google, Alexa, and Siri continue to improve, it is always advisable to improve your local SEO to help these assistants answer the questions that people may normally ask. Make sure to adjust your keywords so as to maintain a conversational tone.
3:56 – Next step is – Good backlinks: Backlinks are essential for local pack results and localized organic results. Looking at the photo above, for instance (you can view this on the onsite content, by the way), you will see some key features to pay attention to. Knowing the domain rating helps to understand the strength of said domain. As the tip of the iceberg you can get a glimpse into the power of the site. Diving deeper, say into referring domains, lets us see how credible their domain rating, domain score, or domain authority is. Knowing the number of domains flowing to a site lets you know that others may be interested or trust some or all of the information put forth on the site. Looking further into the types of referred domains, including the backlinks already attained by your backlink source or competitors, will give you more of a definitive answer into the backlinks’ power and relevancy to your site.
5:02 – Another option is – Engage with potential customers on social media: Engaging with potential customers is essential for improving the growth of your business. Social media is an ideal medium to engage with potential customers. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter help to build both a good relationship with your customers as well as a steady source of leads and followers.
5:32 – Using locally-focused keywords: Using relevant and locally-focused keywords in your content improves online visibility. Creating content with locally focused keywords will improve local traffic as well. To get these keywords try the following: Google keyword planner – here you can look at – the CPC for each keyword, the monthly traffic and the competition. These 3 will give you a better insight to two truths:
- How competitive it is to rank for a keyword, using the competition column and that of course, is on the Google Keyword Planner.
- And lastly, the CPC column – where you will see how in demand a keyword is just by how much your competitors are willing to spend on a click.
6:27 – Develop a mobile-friendly website: As one of the ranking factors and due to mobile devices being used to access basically everything today, it is important to have a mobile optimized website to drive more traffic. There are tons of mobile friendly site testers out there. Here are 2 free options to use:
- Mobile-Friendly Test – a Google product to Test how easily a visitor can use your page on a mobile device, and last,
- mobiReady – A free tool for developers, designers and marketers to test website performance on mobile devices.
7:09 – Power of local directories: Getting noticed through this medium can be difficult, but it can be achieved by improving local SEO. There is a wide range of categories in local directories where your business can fit. So, make sure to find the best fit for your business and create an account. Here are 5 Web Directories that have value. Also, find the rest of the 23 listed items from Amelia Wilson from Search Engine Journal.
- BOTW (best of the web) – used by more than 16 million businesses, they boast 40,000 – 60,000 visits per month, half of that traffic being US based.
- Lastly, Spoke.com- with 1.4 million companies and 5 million people listed on their site you can add a web listing for a business or a person and stand a solid chance of getting noticed.