Local Business Marketing - How To Do On Page SEO

Google is a machine, which can read only words not pictures but, because there are so many words spread out across the world wide web, it likes to have the most important ones put into particular places on a website so it can work out the subject matter easily. 

So how can you do this On Page SEO to be successful at local business marketing?

It doesn't matter whether it's SEO or Local SEO, keywords are at the heart of your websites.  These are the words that you want Google and the other search engines to associate with your website.  You need to identify the words and phrases that are most often typed into Google by people looking to buy your product or service.  To make it work locally, you then need to add a geo modifier to the keyword.  So, for example, martial arts classes in Birmingham.  

There may be fewer searches when you break the term down to this very specific niche but the majority of your customers will be located within a five mile radius of your location.  Why try to get people from other countries - especially when those keywords may be super competitive and harder to rank on the front page for - when you can focus on the clients who are most likely to call you or pay a visit?  There may well be only 100 searches per month for that location based keyword, but if your website shows up in position one on the SERPs for it, then you are likely to get around 40% of those clicks coming through to your web page.

Once you've identified your keywords you need to make sure that you write a page about each one and make it part of the slug or url for that page.  So http://www.YourDomain.com/Your-Keyword-or-Phrase

Always ensure that your keywords are incorporated into the 65 characters of your site's Title and the 150 characters of the description.

Google wants to maintain its position as the provider of the most relevant and up to date content, that's its raison d'etre.  Research has shown that users do not appreciate a SERPs (search engine results page) which has ten entries in gobbledegook or containing out of date information from several years ago.  So the search engines are looking for fresh, valuable articles and posts that have been well written.  As mentioned earlier, it's hard for a machine to make such a choice so they rely on the keywords, the frequency of your posts and the interaction of humans through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus to help them to provide the best quality information.  Your articles should cover the whole spectrum of your niche to ensure that you have covered all the questions that could be typed into the search engines.

There is some disagreement over the best ratio of keywords to words within your content but around 3% is considered best.  The one thing you should bear in mind is that stuffing the keywords into sentences to please the bots and spiders will not make it a pleasant read for the human user, who can spot these things a mile off.   If you want people to share your posts and articles, you have to provide them with an entertaining and informative experience on your site.

Because Google cannot 'see' pictures, each image needs to be given a special label called an 'alt tag' which contains your keywords and explains what the picture is about.

To gain more trust from Google, it's a good idea to hyperlink some of your on page keywords to other authority sites.  This is a bit like referencing sources in a study.  It would be wise to avoid links to competing sites as you don't want to give them a lift but it is good to share your traffic with recognised industry leaders - especially those which provide industry standard awards.