The anatomy of a perfect local SEO landing page

The growth of mobile and wearable devices means we now have the ability to search for businesses and services that are near to our location, and businesses have responded, developing ways to capture this hyper-local audience with targeted SEO methods.

Landing pages are an essential part of local SEO. They can help consumers take that first step into your sales funnel, as well as boosting your local rankings to bring in more business.

As with all SEO practices, there’s no magic formula for creating the perfect local SEO landing page. However, there are certain things all local businesses can do to increase their rankings and boost their conversions.

In order to dissect the perfect local SEO landing page, we’ll first look at the local SEO side of things, before looking at landing pages in general. Then we’ll look at how you can fuse the two to create the ideal local SEO landing page.

Let’s start with local SEO

Here are a few to keep in mind:

• The location in the page title. This is straightforward enough to implement so there’s no excuse for letting this basic best practice slide! Page titles are an important ranking factor, and including the city or town where your premises are located, is a crucial first step for obtaining a relevant local listing.

• Regular keyword in your page title. You should also use one of your regular keywords in the page title, as this will help give context.

• Quick load time. Pages which take more than a couple of seconds to load don’t go down well with users or with Google. Page load speed is a confirmed ranking factor and there is a direct correlation between slow loading times and higher bounce rates. Focus on providing speedy page load times for maximum effect.

• Matching NAP (name, address, phone number). If the NAP on your local SEO page doesn’t match the NAP listed on your Google Business page or any other online directories, you run the risk of confusing the search engines (and your site visitors). Keep it consistent.

Location in H1 tags. Best practice dictates that you should also use the location in your H1 or H2 tags, to assist with relevancy.

Now let’s look at the landing page

Double check that you are including these elements in your landing pages if you want them to be both useful and effective:

• Appealing, attention-grabbing headlines. You must engage the user quickly with a great headline, or they’ll edge closer to that ‘back’ button.

• Features and benefits of your product or service. Talk explicitly about the product or service you provide – don’t be afraid to get straight to the point. Explain how a purchase will benefit your customers and the problems it will solve.

• Map of your location. Ensure that your leads know how to reach you in person with a map or directions to your bricks and mortar store.

• Reviews and testimonials. Word-of-mouth marketing dovetails effortlessly with local SEO, and being able to show that you’ve satisfied other customers will make your offering seem more appealing.

• A strong call-to-action. Decide what action you want your leads to take from your landing page (whether it’s calling the office for a consultation, signing up with an email address or even visiting in person) and then encourage them to do so clearly and concisely. The CTA is perhaps the most important part of any landing page, local or otherwise, and you should test and re-evaluate it regularly to ensure it’s as effective as can be.

Now, let’s join them up

• Create an attention-grabbing headline for your new local landing page. This should also include the location of your store and one of the main product or service keywords you’d like to rank for.

• Ensure that all of your location names, NAPs and integrated maps are totally consistent with one another.

• Make sure you include locations with your reviews and testimonials for a little extra local SEO juice.

• Mention your local team, and introduce some of them, so that users can put a face to a name when they visit or call.