Prepare For Local SEO in 2015

How will local marketers adapt to the changes in 2015? A recent survey showed a shift toward traditional web ranking factors as the most assured way to optimize your website. Find out how to improve your website internally as well optimizing for local areas.

With Google’s most recent local algorithm update, how does this change affect local marketers in 2015? A survey conducted at Moz identified which ranking factors matter the most. The survey showed a definite shift toward more traditional web ranking factors, such as on-site signals and links.

The best thing to do for local search success in 2015 is to improve your website internally. Take a look at your competitors’ sites and compare it to yours. While doing so, be sure to avoid these common pitfalls.

1. No home page content—Make sure customers and search engines are able to identify what you’re all about. It is necessary to add more useful content immediately.
2. Only a few sentences on a page—Viewers need immediate information, so pack every page with useful content.
3. Spamming keywords—Listing keywords that do not provide useful information will not help you rank well in Google. Instead, focus on incorporating keywords that are useful for customers.
4. Awful title tags—The title tag should summarize the page. It shouldn’t be a list of keywords. You’ve only got about 500 pixels of width for your title tags; use them wisely.

With on-site signals carrying so much weight, it is important to correctly optimize for local areas.

1. Include city/state in your title tag—Including your city and state is an important signal for local relevancy.
2. Include city/state in your H1 heading—Although it doesn’t have to be the entire heading, what’s important is including your city and state in the page heading.
3. Include city/state in your context—optimizing for local search won’t work unless you’re talking about your local area in your content
4. Include city/state in your alt text on images—Google cannot see what’s in your images, so alt text helps provide a better understanding of your page content.
5. Include city/state in your URL—Make sure to edit your URL structure to include your city and state information in your URLs. Important Note: If you’re going to update your URLs, don’t forget to set up 301 redirects so that the old address is permanently pointed to the new one.

For the coming year, what’s most important is knowing how to optimize your website, not thinking about how to make it rank. When you start thinking about how to make your site the best in your niche, that’s how you’re going to get your site to rank better and convert more visitors.

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