Welcome back to another episode of Tactical Tuesdays with Wiki.
I’m hanging out in the back yard for today’s tip, cause this week, we’re talking about ‘owning your own backyard’.
I speak about Local SEO at conferences all over the world, and one of the most common questions I hear goes something like this: “we’re about 30 minutes outside of [insert city name here] and we want to show up in searches in that city”
There’s nothing wrong with trying to expand your radius and attract more customers – but in almost every case, the businesses asking this question don’t even show up in their own city.
And here’s why I’m hanging out and shooting a video in a black t-shirt in 105 degree heat. If you want to show up in other cities, you have to be sure that you own your own backyard first.
If your site’s not optimized well enough to dominate the city where you’re actually located, there’s no way you’re showing up in searches in a city that’s 3- minutes away. Location and proximity are huge factors in Local SEO, so if you want to show up somewhere that you don’t have a location, you’ve got to have AWESOME optimization.
You need to have SEO that’s so good, you look like a better option that the people who are actually located in the city that’s being searched… And if local competitors are beating you in your own town, you’ve got no hope if you want to expand.
You’ve got to rock a solid SEO foundation first. Handle all the basics of Local SEO – write awesome content, acquire some killer inbound links from local businesses, and optimize the heck out of your Google My Business listing.
Once you’re dominating your own backyard, you’ve got the groundwork laid to start expanding your radius. And remember – it’s not just about adding a few generic city landing pages… You need awesome localized content, links from that city, reviews from customers in that area – everything you can do to prove to Google that you’re truly a relevant result for that area.
So now you know why with Local SEO, it’s important to own your own back yard before you try to expand to nearby areas.
Now it’s time – put your hand on the screen right here…
BOOM.
We totally just high-fived cause you learned something awesome.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Tactical Tuesdays with Wiki, and don’t forget to come back next week for another awesome video.
See you next Tuesday!