Taking control of your site’s search engine presence is essential for SEO success. Optimizing content so the purpose of your site is clear to your target audience will help define your goals and increase SEO value. Understanding where your audience is located and the difference of local vs. global SEO can help define your search engine presence and get better organic rankings.
Your Presence on SERPs
Your search engine presence is how your site appears on search engine results pages (SERPs) when it shows on searches for targeted keywords. Organic search listings can be your first chance to stand out against your competition. It’s important to make sure content is optimized for important keywords and page titles/meta descriptions use a consistent format.
Using different pages/content on your site to focus on different keywords is a good way to maximize the SEO value for each url on your site in Google’s index.
What is Local SEO?
Optimizing your site for a physical location is a good way to get on page 1 for local searches. Google often prioritizes listings for businesses/services that are nearby when displaying search results so making sure your site is clearly connected to your physical location is important. SEO competition for local searches is generally limited to your physical community so it can be easier to see results for local searches when you first start an organic SEO campaign.
Most sites have a search engine presence but many don’t have content organized in a way that’s best for Local SEO. Here are a few things you can do to make sure your site is optimized for local searches.
- Connect to Google My Business
- Build location specific landing pages
- List address/local phone in footer
- Backlinks from Local Directories
Learning to optimize your site for local searches can be a big step for overall SEO success and is a good place to start when looking for ways to improve your digital presence.
Reach Larger Audience with Global SEO
Once you’ve optimized site content for local keywords and are starting to see traffic from organic search it may be a good idea to start targeting broader search terms. Targeting a global audience can significantly increase traffic to your site and increase domain authority.
Doing regular searches for targeted keywords to analyze SEO competition for a global campaign will help you see what elements are working well on other sites. This usually means using more general terms that people could be searching for anywhere. There will be much more competition for broader terms but they present an opportunity to increase site traffic that’s not possible with local searches.
Complete SEO Strategy
The strategies for optimizing site content for local vs. global SEO aren’t much different. A complete SEO plan normally takes both into account so new content that’s published is optimized for both local and global terms. Prioritizing local search results first is often a good place to find a successful SEO strategy and you can begin targeting broader search terms as you search presence grows to reach or more global audience.