As a remote-first agency, we work with businesses all around the world and know how valuable it is to achieve top search engine rankings for industry-relevant keywords. But for many businesses, targeting local keywords also affords a great opportunity to generate organic traffic in a less-competitive setting.
Performing well in local search offers a range of benefits to teams of all sizes. Data shows 60% of mobile users rely on local search results to find contact details for nearby businesses, while 76% will visit that business within the next 24 hours. Add AI search trends to the mix, with terms like ‘open now near me’ rising globally by over 400%, and you can see why mastering local SEO is an exciting prospect.
That leads us nicely to a recent request from a client about a problem we helped them to fix, and the story that inspired this very post. It all starts with a question . . .
Should your homepage target location-specific keywords?
Yes, a little, but also not really.
Actually, it’s a bit complicated, so let’s start by laying out the problem that our client asked us to fix.
Targeting local keywords: homepage vs dedicated location page
A client we build links to offers accounting services nationally and locally from their London office. They want to attract local customers by targeting London-related keywords but aren’t sure which page to use.
Previously, their homepage ranked well for high search volume keywords like ‘London accountant’ and ‘accountants in London’. However, after improving their technical SEO by redirecting local services links to their London-specific page, search engine rankings for their homepage started to noticeably decline.
What went wrong?
The following screenshots help to visualise the issue.
In these images, you’ll see the homepage and location-specific page’s organic search performance for terms including the local keywords ‘accountants London’ over six months after the pages were changed.
The orange line represents search engine rankings, the blue details how frequently the page was visited.
For the homepage, we can see its ranking dropped from page two to page three over the six months following the local SEO change. At the same time, the number of page visits also decreased.
For the location-specific page, we can see search rankings climbed from a low of page seven to a high of page three. A good start, but not quite there yet.
What can we do?
On the one hand, as long as high search volume terms have been identified via local keyword research, terms on the location-specific page should generate just as much local search traffic as they did on the homepage. Given some time, this means a more suitable page will rank well for relevant local keywords.
Ultimately, the current drop will be negated and local customers will be brought to a more helpful page.
On the other, a sizable drop in organic traffic for relevant local keywords on the homepage even for a few months could lead to a drop in business. What’s more, given the sometimes volatile nature of SEO, there’s always the possibility that search performance for local keywords on the London page falls short.
Do we wait for rankings to stabilise? Maybe revert the changes? Or, should we try a different approach?
Local search results: building a long-term local keyword strategy
To find an effective solution, we need to first lay out the facts, then build on the positives.
Via local keyword research and the analysis of local search results, here’s a rundown of what we know.
Both pages are good candidates for local SEO strategies
Putting a positive spin on things, it is possible to improve local search rankings and attract more local customers regardless of which avenue we take. Both the homepage and the location-specific page are great candidates for local SEO; both can successfully rank for high volume local keywords individually.
We’ve already seen that the homepage can reasonably reach the higher climbs of search engine results pages, specifically for high volume local keywords containing the term ‘London accountants’. In a similar vein, the location-specific page has already climbed from page seven to page three in only six months.
Raising the homepage’s local search visibility will likely be easier
If our focus were on short-term gains, we might consider switching back to mastering local SEO on the homepage. The homepage is simply more powerful in regards to SEO and organic search performance, so switching back to the old local keyword strategy will likely lead to more impressive short-term results.
But, we want more than short-term results. In essence, the whole purpose of this exercise is to ensure the client’s target audience receive helpful information when they search for their service using relevant local keywords. This way, we can attract a local audience who will go on to become satisfied customers.
Raising the London page’s local SEO rankings offers long-term benefits
We need to remember that the goal here is the long-term success of the business; finding a successful way to draw more potential customers to the client by raising their visibility in local search. If we act to bring targeted traffic to the London page, we can also free the homepage to target wider search trends.
This local SEO strategy allows the homepage to maintain a broader focus and showcase the full range of services offered by the client. Over time, this will allow the client to adjust their homepage more freely to meet new search trends without impacting wider local SEO efforts generating leads elsewhere.
The takeaway?
Continuing to focus our efforts on improving local keyword rankings for the location-specific page offers the greatest opportunity for long-term local SEO success. We can more appropriately add valuable local keywords to raise online visibility and encourage satisfied customers without diluting homepage content.
But what about the current drop in targeted traffic? Well, there are actually a few wider local SEO tactics we can explore to address that concern and find an ideal balance between short and long-term success.
How to improve local search rankings: our top recommendations
Our advice, in a broad stroke, is to continue targeting the most valuable local keywords we can find on the location-specific page while making the homepage a little more generalised. This will help the client measurably raise online visibility for each page in search results for relevant keywords across the board.
That said, we don’t want to ignore all local SEO efforts on the homepage, as the client’s target audience could come across it organically and miss valuable information. With this in mind, below we’ll walk you through our top recommendations and the reasons why these practices are good for local SEO.
Improving local keyword performance: 3 tips for quick wins
To start, we advised the client to focus on three actions designed to generate short-term SEO wins.
1. Continue to optimise the London page for local search
Now that we’ve decided the location-specific page is our primary target for local SEO, we need to begin broadening its scope to target the most relevant local keywords we can find. On this point, it’s critical to remember that practices like keyword stuffing will hinder the rest of our local SEO efforts, so with every step we take, we need to ensure we’re finding the right balance between keyword usage and readability.
Local keyword research will help us to uncover both high search volume keywords and those with a low keyword difficulty score. It’s wise to include a broad range of terms naturally in on-page content to help attract more local customers. In our case, this means targeting high search volume terms like ‘London accountants’ alongside broader variations like ‘central London accountants’ and ‘accountants near me’.
To help boost local search rankings, relevant local keywords should be added to headers and body text where appropriate. A great way to include some broader variations of local keywords is to add them into FAQs. Here, we can expand on helpful content by incorporating local keywords into introductory text, as well as speak to Google’s E-E-A-T metrics via helpful content like online reviews and client testimonials.
2. Adjust the homepage to send clearer signals to search engines
Next, we want to signal to search engines and potential customers that the homepage is exactly that, a homepage. In addition, we want to point the client’s local audience towards their location-specific page.
Local SEO-friendly ways to achieve this include:
- Metadata adjustments: Meta descriptions and page titles help Google work out the purpose of a web page. If two or more pages target local keywords, search engines won’t know which to rank for local search queries. So, let’s remove local keyword mentions from the homepage’s meta data.
- Strategic internal links: We don’t want to completely ignore that the business is based in London and we want to make sure local customers can find the London-specific page. To do this, we’ll add an organic mention of London accounting services to the homepage that links to the London page.
To expand on strategic internal links, we want to make sure any mention of local keywords is natural. An example of this may be a brief sentence like ‘trusted by London businesses since xxxx’, or ‘discover why our London accountants are recommended by xxxx’; natural terms that add value while helping our SEO.
3. Build a local SEO-friendly internal linking strategy
Our last tip to improve local SEO performance in the short-term is to enhance the client’s internal linking strategy by building links with local search intent to the location-specific page. Just as we did with the homepage, we want to point visitors to the London page naturally from other areas of the business’ site.
To do this, we’ll use local keyword-rich anchors like ‘expert accountants in London’ and ‘trusted London accountants’ to point visitors towards the London page from other areas of the site. This will tell search engines that it’s the London page that should be promoted to users that enter search queries with local intent, while also boosting organic traffic to the London page from other highly-visited pages on the site.
Mastering local SEO: 5 tips for long-term success in local search
So, we’ve seen how the local search SEO efforts mentioned above can generate meaningful results in the short-term, but to really master local search, we should explore some more long-term optimisations.
Generally speaking, efforts to increase visibility in local search results over time will focus on targeting local keywords in high-quality content, as well as improving the user experience across your website.
1. Publish blog posts targeting long-tail keywords
High-quality blog content is great for local SEO as it offers a great opportunity to target niche, long-tail keywords. A business’ target audience will likely seek out their services using specific queries with local search intent, terms like ‘How to choose a London accountant for SMEs’ for example. Blog content is the perfect place to attach that phrase to the business in a natural way that meets Google’s E-E-A-T criteria.
2. Optimise content for featured snippets and AI overviews
Featured snippets and newly-introduced AI overviews are key to performing well in local search results. Often, searchers will act on the first piece of information they see, so positioning your local business as Google’s top result can be very valuable. A great way to do this is to answer common, industry-relevant queries in your site’s FAQs, a good example in our case would be ‘What do London accountants charge?’.
3. Boost your website’s authority through backlink outreach
Acquiring high-quality backlinks from authoritative sources around the web tells search engines your content is helpful, signalling that your local business should be promoted to your target audience. Work to secure backlinks from sources like local directories, chambers of commerce, niche blogs and other online platforms relative to your industry to help raise your brand’s online visibility in local search results.
4. Improve page load times and mobile user experience
Page load times across both desktop and mobile versions of your site are a critical ranking factor, with just a one second delay is known to reduce page views by 11%. To perform well in local SEO, it’s critical to show search engines that your site provides a great user experience, meaning if you want to attract local customers you’ll need to ensure all of your site’s elements are properly optimised for all platforms.
5. Enhance and regularly update your Google Business Profile (GBP)
Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is a crucial tool in terms of local SEO, as Google checks the details you post here to see whether your content answers queries with local search intent. The more detailed and engaging your GBP is, the better you’ll perform in local SEO, so keep your page updated with relevant business listings, positive reviews and timely responses to customer questions.
Extra local SEO tips to keep in mind
- Use keyword research tools: Keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner can help you identify relevant local keywords with high search volume to target on your site and in blog content.
- Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC): Google views sites with consistently high engagement as helpful and valuable to web users, so encourage online reviews, testimonials and unique UGC.
- Explore analytics and AI tools: Analytics and AI-powered tools like Google Analytics, ChatGPT and SEMrush can help you find relevant local keywords and uncover emerging trends in local SEO.
- Foster local community engagement: Posting content that resonates with your local community is great for engagement and local SEO, so post regular content about local events, news and stories.
Wrapping up
Performing well in local search results can be invaluable for all kinds of businesses, with search trends increasingly pointing towards queries with local intent. To attract more potential customers in your area, it’s important to raise your visibility in local search, but doing so shouldn’t hurt your wider SEO strategy.
Best practices include improving local keyword performance on one location-specific page, pointing to that page from other areas of your site with relevant keywords and targeting niche long-tail keywords in high-quality blog content. As demonstrated above, these smart moves are key to mastering local search.
