How to Improve Local Rankings In Google Maps For A Single Location Business
Competition for local search rankings on can be tight, especially for competitive local niches like plumbers, dentists, or doctors. Improving local rankings in Google Maps for a single location business can be even more challenging in a densely populated area. Trying to rank for neighboring cities with populations of over 50k can feel like climbing a mountain. Luckily, there are several proven strategies to help local businesses tackle the task of improving local rankings for multiple cities.
Research The Area
The first step is to make sure that the cities you’re targeting trigger local results for your targeted keywords. Find local businesses in your niche that are successfully ranking for multiple nearby cities and contact them about the services they used to increase their rankings.
Craft Locally Grown Content
Your website’s content should make it clear which cities you provide services to. Write about the work you do in these locations and make sure they appear in your blog, service page, and elsewhere throughout your website. Do not, however, target full keyword phrases for surrounding cities on your home page. For example, it’s fine to list on your home page the cities where you provide service, i.e. Las Vegas or Henderson, but don’t use the full keyword phrase “Las Vegas SEO services.” Instead, for your home page, target only the names of the cities, e.g. “Las Vegas.” Doing so will prevent Google’s algorithms from getting confused and cannibalizing the rest of your website’s SEO rankings.
Next, you’ll need to create unique pages for each city you’re trying to rank for and link these pages to your site’s navigation menu. Consider making a new link in your main navigation menu such as “Cities We Serve.” Build white-hat links and earn social mentions for these pages. Today Google’s rankings are increasingly based on social shares, likes, tweets, and such. Confirm with keyword analysis software that your home page, or whichever page your Google listing points to, is ranking organically for the names of the cities you’re targeting.
The Ingredients Of Local SEO-Friendly Content
If you want to build a local business, you should consider the following tips when creating your landing page. Focus on using location specific content:
- Discuss local projects
- Specify the communities you service within target cities
- Use photos of your target areas
- Display a zoomable map of your business
- Embed, link, or write out driving directions to the location of your business
- Write about local regulations specific to your niche
Optimize “Google Local” Account Settings
Go to the address options in your Google My Business (Google Local) account. Instead of defining your service area by distance, specify the individual cities where you provide service. Your address will be hidden from Google when you do this. It’s debated that this could potentially hurt a site’s rankings, but as of now, no data exists to support this theory, and the benefits outweigh the risks. Also, go ahead and edit the description in your Google Local Dashboard to include the names of the cities for which you’d like to rank.
Competing for local search results is never a short process, so be better prepared for the fight to get on the front page of search queries with user-friendly location specific content.
1 Source Media Group has the experience needed to successfully rank your business for multiple cities. Call us today at (702) 840-5000 for more information.
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