Are you thinking of running a local SEO campaign? Local SEO can have a significant impact on your brick-and-mortar business. But how do you know if it’s working? The answer is all about KPIs – Key Performance Indicators! Yes, these numbers tell us exactly what we need to measure for our local SEO efforts to be successful and beneficial for local businesses and customers as well.
KPIs provide clear visibility into areas where there may have been some confusion or uncertainty before due diligence had been completed. They provide stakeholders involved with such projects peace of mind knowing information has been collected correctly.
What are Local SEO Ranking Factors?
Ranking local businesses can be tricky; however, it is possible. The landscape of local search engine results has changed a lot over the years. There are a number of local search ranking factors, and you need to nail all of them if you want to dominate local search engines. In this blog post, we walk you through the most important local SEO factors today.
Google My Business (GMB)
Google My Business is a free tool via Google Maps that aims to help local businesses. That’s why it’s essential to set up your GMB listing to get your business noticed by search engines and your customers.
GMB is the first thing that users will see when they search for your business. Therefore, it only makes sense that your GMB is listed, verified, and managed.
What makes this an important local SEO ranking factor is that today’s search algorithms use Google My Business signals such as contact information, proximity, categories, and updated content to analyse where your local business is shown in your area.
This is also why every strong local SEO campaign includes the optimisation of GMB listing to increase visibility.
Online Reviews
Customers will usually read reviews about a business before they make a purchase. Therefore, when your business has positive reviews, customers may view your business as trustworthy and legitimate.
The local SEO ranking signals consider the frequency, diversity, total number, and quality of reviews that your business generated.
So, when your business often receives positive reviews, Google and other search engines take this as a sign that users are pleased with your services. And since Google is more user-focused, companies with good reviews will be served higher on local rankings.
Online Citations
Gone are the days when users relied only on the Yellow Pages. Today, we now have online citations, the equivalent of Yellow Pages and other directories, but this time around, they can be found online.
Citations enable customers to get consistent information about a business, while businesses can benefit from this by getting quality backlinks from legitimate websites. When working on your online citations, make sure there’s NAP consistency.
SEO KPIs
Let’s start with the obvious question: what is an SEO KPI?
An SEO KPI is a metric that can help you measure how your business performs with an action that you are taking to grow or improve your business.
It allows accurate measurement of local SEO success. Your KPIs should map your objectives, so you can clearly demonstrate how your activities as part of your local search campaign can help you as a local business owner move toward success.
To put it simply, KPIs are the link between your business and the search engine optimization strategy that you are using to rank on local search results.
Furthermore, as a local business owner, your search engine optimization strategy must be designed in a way that can generate more visitors to your brick-and-mortar business.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this because all local businesses are unique.
So, when setting your objectives as a local business with a website already up and running, one of your goals is to increase brand awareness. Therefore, a local SEO metric that is also a KPI is the traffic. This is the traffic that leads to the main page. Setting this as your KPI will show you which pages were accessed more often than others.
Moreover, this will show your brand equity development that will significantly impact your SEO.
Here is a list of KPIs that will help measure how well your local SEO efforts are doing.
Local Search Rankings
As most of us know, rankings are important in a local SEO campaign because they drive traffic to your website. You must keep track of your local SEO rankings with tools like Moz Local or Brightlocal.
You also need to track your rankings on search engines for the right keywords for your local SEO. So, if you see a local SEO keyword that you’re using ranks first for a specific query on search engines, your website traffic will improve significantly.
Some people who are doing local SEO tend to forget about keyword rankings, while others don’t see it as important. However, they have their use, and it’s strongly recommended that you track your main keywords on how they’re ranking on search engines, specifically local searches.
Monitoring how your website ranks on different search engine rankings is a task that requires attention and time.
You need to do this for both organic and paid results and monitor changes over specific periods to make sure you’re getting accurate data for your local SEO campaign. This gives you insights into where visitors find themselves when they click through from Google or another source site such as Facebook pages, etc.
Local Search Queries
Another important local SEO KPI is local search queries.
What are local search queries? Local search queries are searches that are specifically related to a particular geographic location. For instance, if someone is searching for “pizza delivery in Canberra,” that would be considered a local search query. Local search queries are often used by people looking for businesses or services in their area.
Furthermore, local search queries can be an excellent way for businesses to get found by potential customers searching for what they offer in their area. If you’re a business that relies on local customers, optimising your website and online presence for local search queries can be a great way to increase your visibility and attract new business.
There are a few things you can do to optimise your website for local search queries:
● Make sure your business Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) are listed on your website in a prominent location. This can be in the header or footer of your website.
● Add local keywords to your website’s title tags and meta descriptions.
● Create pages for each of your service areas or locations.
● Register your business with local directories and review sites.
● Make sure your business is listed in relevant online directories, such as Google My Business, Yelp, etc.
● Ensure that your website includes your business’s correct NAP on every page.
● Use local schemas to markup your website’s content.
● Optimise your website’s images with local keywords.
● Encourage customers to leave reviews of your business on popular review sites like Google Reviews.
Also, keep in mind that there are a few ways to track local search queries. The most popular method is to use a tool like Google Analytics. You can also use other tools like Moz Local and BrightLocal.
Citations and Local Listings
Citations and local listings are significant factors in your local SEO campaign and play a vital role to your local SEO ranking well.
What are citations and local listings?
Citations are any mention of your business, including online listings, directories, or reviews. They can help your business rank in local search results and contribute to your overall online authority.
On the other hand, local listings are where potential customers can find information about your business on various directories like Google My Business, Yelp, Foursquare, or physical directories like the Yellow Pages.
Ensure that you monitor new citations because they can significantly impact your local SEO rankings. You can use tools like Moz’s Local Citation Finder or Brightlocal to check for new citations.
Brand Mentions
Mentions of your brand (i.e., mentions on blogs, forums, etc.) are significant indicators of how visible your business is online when it comes to local SEO. Keep track of these mentions because they can impact your local SEO rankings.
How can you get brand mentions? How can you get people talking about you? How can you get your brand out there and noticed?
An effective way for consumers to mention your brand is to give them a reason to do so. Incentivise your customers with rewards for mentioning your brand on social media or in real-life conversations. This could be anything from discounts and free products to exclusive access to content or special events.
Another way to get people talking about you is by creating exciting and engaging content. This could be blog posts, videos, infographics, or even exciting tweets and Facebook posts. If your content is good, people will share it with their friends and followers, which will help get your brand in front of the right people and improve your overall local SEO.
Website Traffic
Website traffic is the number of visitors your website receives in a given time. Your site will appear high in search engine results if you have high traffic numbers. That means people can find you without you advertising or investing in online ads.
Why is website traffic so important?
Website traffic is substantial because it allows businesses to gauge the effectiveness of their local SEO marketing campaigns and website design. It also indicates the level of interest that people have in their products or services.
By tracking website traffic, local businesses can change their marketing strategies and website design to attract more visitors. Additionally, website traffic can measure the success of a local business’ online presence.
Tools like Google Analytics can help you track how much traffic your website receives. The insights gained from Google Analytics can help you make necessary changes to your local SEO strategy to improve your website traffic and, in turn, your local business.
There are some ways to increase website traffic. Local SEO standard methods include optimising your website for search engines, creating compelling content, and promoting your site through social media and other channels.
Leads and Conversions
Leads are one of the significant local SEO KPIs you need to focus on. Without leads, your local business will not be able to grow.
As part of your local SEO strategy, it is essential to ensure you get accurate data on all of your marketing efforts, including phone calls. Most people know their website analytics like the back of their hand, but not everyone checks their phone calls.
Having a call tracking number is helpful for your local business as you can use this to attribute leads and sales back to your marketing campaigns.
One standard phone tracking solution is CallRail. It integrates with Google Analytics and provides you with data on the number of calls coming from each marketing campaign, the duration of those calls, and the caller.
Boost Your Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who complete the desired action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. It’s important to track conversion rates to see how well your website is performing and to identify areas where you can improve.
Your conversion rate is a good indicator of how well your website performs and can say a lot about your local SEO strategy. You can use Google Analytics to track how many people are converting after visiting your website.
Here are some ways how you can improve your conversion rate:
- Analyse your website traffic to identify where visitors are coming from and what they are doing on your site.
- Use effective calls to action throughout your website to encourage visitors to take the next step.
- Your local business website is designed for conversions, with a clear value proposition and easy-to-use forms and functionality.
- Test different versions of your local business website to see which one performs better in conversion rate.
- Analyse your conversion data regularly to identify any areas for improvement.
- Always be prepared to adjust your website and local SEO strategy based on the latest data and insights.
Customer Satisfaction
Finally, customer satisfaction is a critical KPI for local businesses. You can use surveys or customer interviews to measure customer satisfaction. Google Reviews is also an excellent way to measure this.
Google Reviews are a way for customers to leave feedback about their experiences with a business. This feedback can be positive or negative, and it can help other potential customers decide whether to use a particular business. It is also a valuable source of information for businesses, as it can help owners identify areas where they need to improve their services.
Factors to Consider For a Successful Local SEO Campaign
There are also several factors you need to know to ensure your local SEO campaign is successful. What are they?
Your Goals
First, you have to set a clear-cut goal for your local SEO campaign. There are two ways to go about it—you can set a target for how much traffic you want to be driving to your site, or you can set a target for how many conversions you want to be getting for your local SEO. Either way, you need to define what constitutes success for your campaign.
For example, if your local search engine optimization goal is to drive more traffic to your site, you can specify how many visits per month you want to get from organic search results. Ten visits per month will send traffic but will not bring you much revenue. On the other hand, 15-20 visits per month will deliver traffic and revenue.
You can also specify per keyword and per page if this is the basis of your goal. A large increase in traffic will be easier to see than a large increase in revenue, but the latter is the one that you should set.
On the other hand, if your goal is to increase the conversion rate of your site, you can set your target as a percentage increase. For instance, if your conversion rate is 2 per cent and you want to raise this rate to 5 per cent, your target is a 30 per cent increase. This strategy works best for conversions like phone calls and leads because it is easier to look for a quantitative increase than for a rise in revenue.
Competitors
Once your goals are set, the next thing you need to do is analyse your competitors. Doing so will let you see how they’re ranking in the search engines and what keywords they are using to get there. You will also get to see what they are doing right or wrong. Therefore, this is a valuable piece of information to help you identify your weaknesses and strengths to create a better local SEO campaign. As mentioned, there are local SEO tools you can use for local search engine optimization.
Keywords
One of the most important aspects of local SEO is targeting the right keywords for local searches. You can use the keywords that your competitors are using to boost your rankings and get more search traffic. Additionally, you can also create new keyword variations based on what you learned from your competitors and target them as well to improve search engine visibility.
Although it’s better to target fewer keywords, you never want to stick to just a few ones. If your competitors are using about five to ten keywords, and you are only using two, you are missing out on a huge chunk of the targeted search traffic. Adding more keywords will result in giving you more search traffic than your competitors. Therefore, you need to do more keyword research that your local audience uses as part of your SEO strategy to help you rank better on the search results page.
One thing to keep in mind when doing keyword research is to ensure there’s local intent to help it rank better on the search results and be seen by your local audience. With local intent in mind, you get higher chances of improving your local business marketing.
Content
Content is an important part of your local SEO campaign as search engines use it to gauge the relevancy of your website and decide whether to rank it or not. Creating content that is specifically designed for your audience is what will make your content rank high in the SERPs.
This will help you rank your organic search visibility and, ultimately, your revenue. The better content of your site is, the higher it will rank in the SERPs and the more organic search traffic you will get. The key here is to ensure that the content you create is relevant to your niche and will also deliver value.
In local SEO, you need to create content location pages, and using your keywords based on your keyword research in the content will help you rank better in the SERPs. You can also create content for the people in your target location and help them with the information they need.
You can also provide information about your products and services and try to get more people in your target location to visit your site. Also, take into consideration local queries as you create local content.
Links
To boost your local SEO, you need to consider the backlinks to your website. You can use the same strategies that you used to build links to your main site to build links to your local site. However, you need to get to know who your target audience is and create backlinks that will be relevant to your website and will get you more search traffic.
Today, social media is one of the best platforms to use to build links to your local site. You can try to get some of your followers to link to your local site, or you can build social shares for your site with relevant information. Tap into your local community for your search engine optimisation and you’ll be able to ensure effective link building that will make your local SEO strategies successful. Having strong link building will boost your location pages in no time.
Citations
Local citations can help you gain a competitive advantage over your competitors. There are many citation sites from local directors and blogs. However, make sure to prioritise the ones that are credible. Your business listing in these local citations will have a positive impact on your local search visibility.
Final Thoughts
These 8 local SEO KPIs are an excellent foundation for measuring your local SEO performance. Of course, every business is different, so you’ll need to tailor your KPIs to fit your specific needs. But if you’re not sure where to start, these 8 KPIs are a great place. Do you need help with your local SEO? Evolving Digital can help. We will help optimise your website for local SEO so you can start generating more leads and sales from your local audience.
