New York native and nomad by choice—Emily is a marketing & PR pro, now the founder of the award-winning R Public Relations, New York.
Marketing and public relations (PR) help ensure a business can reach its target audience through promotions and strategic communication, especially when tackling local search engine optimization (SEO) for service-based companies.
Local SEO is a targeted strategy that helps a company become more visible in local online search results by using specific regional keywords, website pages and online content. For business owners, targeted PR and SEO strategies that center on local SEO can improve overall visibility for service-based businesses—including expanding targeted customer reach and building brand awareness regionally.
When creating a localized SEO and PR strategy, it’s important to remember that these two elements complement each other. Integrating both of them can effectively enhance the local visibility of service-based businesses.
Let’s explore a few actionable ways you can utilize these tactics to get more eyes on your service-based business.
Set up a Google Business Profile.
Google Business Profile is a free and easy-to-use online tool that businesses of all sizes can use to manage their online presence in Google search results, and it’s a powerful tool for all professionals to utilize when tackling local SEO. Verifying your Google Business Profile helps get more relevant eyes onto your service-based business by improving its ranking in search results, putting it in front of more online users searching for regional companies.
Carefully optimizing the information in the verified profile can also help increase visibility in local search results, and this should be part of any strong SEO strategy. For local SEO, this strategy includes incorporating relevant keyword usage and phrases in your Google Business Profile that are tied to the region your clients are based in. Regional Google results rely on three primary factors:
• Relevance: How well a regional business profile matches search terms
• Distance: How far a search result is from any location terms used in the search
• Prominence: How well-known a business is and the information that Google has about a business online
Remember that local customers will see the most relevant profiles for their online searches, based not only on a business’s name but also its services. Use keyword research related to your services and your region to help guide the creation of your Google Business Profile, improve visibility and pull in customers.
Foster relationships with local publications.
Small businesses can easily overlook the importance of building relationships with local publications when they may want to aim for more well-known publications. However, it’s critical to remember that regional publications are invaluable for these companies.
Local and regional publications typically have both digital and print formats, which already have an existing audience of nearby readers who are the target demographic for these businesses. By fostering relationships with local publications, such as regional magazines, trade publications and newspapers, business owners can share press releases and seek out other press coverage opportunities—often for free.
Service-based businesses featured in regional publications gain unique exposure to their communities, which helps them build trust. Coverage may range from human-interest stories and professional insights to paid ads that support local SEO, especially for publications in digital formats. Regional SEO and PR strategies combine through these publications and directly tie businesses to their nearby target demographics.
Incorporate targeted link-building.
Targeted link building, which is the process of improving a business’s website search engine ranking by having external websites link back to the site, is a key part of any local SEO strategy. Remember that Google and other search algorithms heavily consider the relevance of a service-based business’s site when putting together search results. Link building improves search rankings and increases regional website traffic by communicating to search engines that a business’s site is an authority in its industry and is, therefore, valuable.
To incorporate targeted link building into your SEO and PR strategy, focus on high-quality link building instead of aiming for a large number of backlinks. Quality over quantity is the most impactful way to approach link building, which you can do in several ways:
• Collaborate with local and regional digital media publications and outlets.
• Create high-quality guest posts for regional blogs and sites relevant to your business’s industry.
• List your business on local and regional directories, like your town’s Chamber of Commerce website.
• Create content to passively attract backlinks, such as informative articles and industry reports.
Regional link-building is a long-term strategy that can show a service-based business is an authority in both its region and industry.
Local SEO is crucial for service-based businesses that have specific target audiences in the communities where they’re based, whether they offer construction, event planning, tutoring or accounting services. To reach the right audience, owners should approach regional SEO with combined marketing and PR strategies like those explored above.
Utilizing local SEO doesn’t simply enhance existing PR strategies as you manage your business—it’s the best way to engage directly with your most relevant customers.
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