How to Boost Local SEO (Without Writing New Content)

Why's it so important to boost local SEO for your business? Well, when you look at how 86% of consumers rely on the web to find local businesses, it becomes easier to see.

And the fact nearly 30% of users search for local services at least once weekly should paint an even clearer picture.

Maybe you have a presence on the web, but need to boost local SEO to enhance your results. If so, we're going to show you how (without writing a single piece of new content).

Use the Right Keywords to Boost Local SEO

Not all keywords are created equal.

On Bing, you need exact-match keywords to rank higher, but on Google, you don't.

If you're a national business, then your keywords can focus on broader terms, like "car insurance for seniors." However, when you're trying to boost local SEO, then you need to hone in on city-based terms, like "car insurance for seniors in Ft. Lauderdale."

It's common for local keywords to be long-tail, which is a great thing. It makes it easier to rank for since fewer people use them.

How many businesses are there like yours in your town? Those are your only competitors, compared to hundreds (or even thousands) when you're using broad niche keywords.

As you're searching for keywords, keep the following in mind:

• Relevancy to your business and customers
• Competition for the keyword (lower the better)
• Multiple keywords (one keyword isn't enough)

You can use tools like Google's Keyword Planner tool to come up with your list.

Boost Local SEO by Optimizing Your Website

The next step is to optimize your website using the list of keywords you found. If you already have content on your site, then all you have to do is optimize them.

Find ways to change around the titles, subheadings, and subsections, so they contain local keywords. Be sure to write and optimize the meta tags and meta descriptions for each page.

Do this for your blog, as well as your home page and service or product pages. Just be sure that your keywords are relevant to the content, or this will have the opposite effect. Rather than boost local SEO, you'll have your site pushed down in the ranks.

Optimize Your Page Load Speed for a Boost in Local SEO

Consumers today are impatient. They're looking for convenience and speed. If your site doesn't accept online payments and offer two-day delivery, then you risk losing to competitors that do.

And it's the same for your website load speed. Just look at the stats:

When sites load within five seconds, they see 70% longer average sessions. This is awesome, but if your site load time has even a 100-millisecond delay, it can lead to a 7% drop in conversion rates.

People are pickier than ever because they can afford to be. As long as you have competitors, they have room to explore other options. Whoever comes out on top earns their dollar.

So to ensure that's you, make sure to optimize your page load speed by:

• Reducing image sizes
• Enabling browser caching
• Getting rid of flash elements (it's being phased out by Google Chrome anyway)

You can use a tool like PageSpeed Insights tool (for free) to check the load speeds of each page.

To further show the urgency of this -- Google states that page speed is a ranking factor. So if your site is slow, your journey to page one will be as well. This one top could potentially boost local SEO exponentially for businesses. 

Fix or Remove Broken Links On Your Website

Let's say you've been writing content for your blog for months or even years. If you're not going back to check to see if the links in the content still work, then you put yourself at risk of losing traffic.

Broken links are those that lead to an error page, such as the infamous 404 page.

Thankfully, you don't have to manually go through hundreds of blog posts to find them. You can use Ahrefs Site Explorer to locate them.

These will find internet and external links that no longer function. By removing or replacing them with the correct URL, it can boost local SEO for your business. 

Claim Your Business Citations for an Ultimate Boost in Local SEO

Did you know that 72% of consumers that do local searches visit a business within five miles? How many more customers would you land each day if your local company showed up in their search results?

Likely a lot.

The only question now is:

"How do I boost local SEO to get more prospects calling and visiting my store?"

The quickest and easiest method to boost your local SEO is to claim or create business citations. These are listings in directories, such as Google My Business, Yelp, Angie's List, and Yahoo Local.

But you don't have to do this manually. There are tools like GoSite's placement tool, which enables you to claim or create business listings across 70+ directories. It's fast, simple, and it's all done from one platform.

Boost Local SEO with this Free Guide

It's alright if you're new to local SEO and how to use it to its max potential. In fact, this is the common issue business owners have and why they fail in ranking in local search.

Fortunately, you don't have to deal with this problem. You have tools at your disposal to help you earn your place in the local ranks.

And you have our free guide on the fundamentals of local SEO -- download it today!