Every brick-and-mortar local business can benefit from localizing their online presence. It can be far easier to be found in local search, allowing potential new customers to easily find you. Localizing your online presence can also add to your overall online reputation and help you build your brand online. Combine all that together and you have every chance of getting and staying ahead of your local competition and being the optometrist everyone in your local area thinks about first.
We all know how important high-quality, relevant content is in attracting, nurturing, and converting leads into paying clients. Fully optimized written content that directly answers customers’ questions can add greatly to your visibility in search and increase your customer engagement, too. You’ll be far more easily found locally online with the right, well-optimized content, which naturally means you’ll attract more leads. You’ll also be providing customers with the information they need to make a buying decision and choose your practice over your competitors. When you do that, and when you also respond to customers’ questions and comments online, you also increase customer engagement and satisfaction, and continue to ensure they are more likely to come to you when they need an optometrist.
Follow our search-optimized content strategy for optometrists below, and you’ll be in a great position with quality, optimized local content to attract and keep your ideal clients.
Understanding Local SEO
When it comes to understanding local SEO, it’s really not rocket science. MailChimp has a straightforward explanation of it: “Local SEO is a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that helps your business be more visible in local search results on Google.”
We think that explains not only what it is, but why it matters. Every local business wants consistent, regular, local leads, and you get those – you guessed it – from being more visible in the local search results. Obviously, if people can find you online in a local search, and they then find that quality, relevant content we talked about above, you are far more likely to be the optometrist they choose.
Below, we take you through the key elements that factor into your placement in the local search rankings and show you what you need to do to optimize and localize your online presence:
1) Website content optimization
You won’t come up in local search if you don’t use localized keywords and phrases in your content. It’s that simple. That means everywhere you have content online, you need to include those local keywords, not just on your website.
When writing your content, think about what questions people are asking in the local area, how they speak, any local words or phrases they use, and how else you can appeal to people who live and work in the local area your practice serves.
Plan to add localized keywords and language in your content when you are structuring it right at the very beginning. If you already have a lot of content without local keywords, you will have to go back and add them, but it is better if you plan for them to be there when you are first writing your content. Bear that in mind for any future content you create.
You’ll need to include local keywords in the URL of your pages, the top heading, at least one sub-heading, as early as you can in the first paragraph, in your image descriptions and alt text, and you should also use location-based meta tags and descriptions.
Having said that, you should always write for people first and the search engines second, so don’t try to shoehorn in your local keywords where they don’t naturally fit. Write naturally and as much like a local as you can, including any local descriptions and phrases. You want to sound like you belong and that you understand your potential customers.
2) Blog localization strategies
Your blog is a great place for localized keywords. You can plan and create content with a local focus to show that you are a local business, aware of the surrounding area and what’s going on. Using local events, news, and trends in your content can also help to endear your business to the local residents, and it can give you some great content ideas too.
You may be able to link up with other similar local businesses and cross-promote each other or even run joint competitions and giveaways to build your local reputation, your newsletter, and your social following.
3) Directory listings optimization
There are thousands of directories online and it’s important to gain listings in as many reputable directories as possible to build your online reputation and add to your search engine optimization efforts. You can also find local business directories in your area, such as your chamber of commerce, and it’s equally important to add your business to these directories too as listings on those sites add legitimacy to your business, and help with local SEO too.
However, when you add your details to any directory, ensure you are consistent when writing your NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) information. You must write these details the same way every time. Even something small as including the area code on some sites but not on others can make a difference. What can happen is that potential customers can become confused about which business listing is the right one or even whether these different listings are for completely different businesses. A confused customer doesn’t buy! Not only that, but it won’t aid your online reputation if people aren’t sure who you are. Furthermore, Google doesn’t like inconsistencies either. With an inconsistent NAP, Google may feel it can’t mark you as a genuine, trustworthy business, and may reduce your ranking in the search engines.
Finally, when you have your directory listings set up and fully filled in with good local keywords, it’s important to encourage your happy customers to leave great reviews on your directory listings and on review platforms. This provides important social proof that your business offers a great service and quality glasses, contact lenses, and other products. You need to consistently get new reviews on these sites as most people don’t take notice of reviews over a few weeks old.
4) Google Business Profile optimization
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) can help a great deal with local SEO, but not if it’s not fully optimized. You must choose the appropriate categories for your business and ensure you complete all sections of your profile. Again, don’t forget to use local keywords in your copy and keep your NAP consistent.
You must include accurate business information and opening hours to keep potential customers informed. This is also helpful for local search and voice search, as people can search for “optometrist near me open now,” and you will show up in the search results.
However, it’s not just a case of one-and-done with your GBP. You do have to keep your profile active and engaged by utilizing photos, adding news and special offers, answering customer questions, and responding to customer reviews. People want to see an up-to-date, active, vibrant page with a lot going on, and they want to be able to see what sort of business you are, so put plenty of personality into your content and your images.
5) Social media localization
Go back to your local audience and think about what kind of content they want and the local lingo they might use. Tailor your social media posts to your local audience and give them what they want. Answer their questions – great for research as well as local SEO, and make sure you respond to comments and engage with your community, both your followers and other local businesses. Again, this can be another opportunity for cross-promotion and partnerships.
You’ll also want to talk about local news and events and promote what’s going on in the local area. You want people to feel that you are a part of the local community and that you care for where you are based as much as they do.
6) Online Advertising localization
Ads only work if they appeal to your local audience, so write ad copy that speaks to your local community. Again, think about any dialect or language people use locally and use that in your advertising too. It doesn’t matter if people outside your local area have no idea what you’re talking about. You aren’t aiming for them.
In the same way, it’s important to display a local phone number so that people don’t feel they’re going to end up speaking to some corporate head office nowhere near where they live. Think local with every bit of advertising you do.
With some types of ads, you can use ad extensions. These make your ads look bigger and more attractive and allow you to provide more local information to enhance your local credibility. You can display your phone number and address, opening hours, and sometimes your star rating and some reviews will appear to add further credibility.
7) Measuring success
To know what’s working, you have to know where you started before you introduced these strategies. Before you start with any enhancements to your local marketing, look at your current rankings and your website and social media analytics. Note where you are, so you can see how far you’ve come in your first quarter, half a year, and a full year after you introduced these strategies.
You can analyze your customer engagement on social platforms, directories, and your GBP, and look at your conversion rates. With all that effort to show what a great local business you are, you should be able to see a marked difference.
You can also look at your performance metrics both as a deep dive into detail to see what’s working and what isn’t, and as a whole, to see how well your marketing is performing in general. You can then adjust any strategies and make improvements to continue increasing your online reputation, your customer engagement and satisfaction, and your conversion rates.
So, to localize your online presence through written content, there’s a lot of work to do. You need to look at everything, including your website and blog, social platforms, directories including your GBP, and your online advertising. Most importantly, you need to measure where you were and where you’ve managed to get to with these new strategies so you can adjust and tweak your marketing for better and better results.
Perhaps you’re thinking that this is too much work, but there is help available to take some of the load off you.
Localize Your Online Presence with Surefire Local
Surefire Local is all about helping small businesses with localized online marketing and establishing their online presence by creating local signals across platforms and profiles that make it easier for new customers to find them. We offer the all-in-one marketing platform for local businesses:
Features:
- Website / Local SEO optimizations – Creating geo-tagged content that is published on your website, blog, and social media profiles.
- Online review management – Send review requests, write responses to reviews, and analyze your brand sentiment to learn what customers think about your business.
- Directories management – Claim, edit, and publish new content like photos or a special offer for your business across 80+ online directory listings platforms. You don’t have to update each directory individually, just log into our specialist platform and update everything at once.
- Content marketing – We provide tools to create locally targeted and relevant content on your blog, Google Business Profile, business directories, and social media profiles.
- Social media management – We also have tools for scheduling posts, tracking engagement metrics, and responding to comments.
- Local online advertising – Create ads designed to attract only the attention of customers within your service area.
- Analytics and reporting – Transparency into campaign performance and how much revenue your marketing dollars are generating, with AI-generated recommendations on specific actions you can take to see improvements.
- Educational resources – webinars and blogs designed to help small businesses learn all things local online marketing.
Let our online platform do a lot of the work for you, with automation, easy updates and scheduling, and clear analytics that show exactly where your marketing is up to and how to improve it.
Why not attend a Surefire Local demo and see how we can help your optometry business?