Today's SEO question comes from Mark.
“If a small business only ranks in its local market, how can it rank in other markets? What would you do to help this small business rank in new areas? ”
Great question, Mark! The good news is that the answer is very simple and can be applied locally, nationally, and internationally with basic strategies.
You may need foreign language versions for all three, but that's a topic in another article. However, this article provides some tips for that situation.
Here, with locality and new products in mind, we'll cover the basics of getting SEO traffic in new markets, then share some regional, national, and international-specific tips.
Google Business Profile (GBP)
If you live locally or have national locations, be sure to update the areas served or serviced by location as you expand your business. This link will take you to Google's guide on how to use your service area.
Keep your website, landing page, and GBP updated with the hours.
This helps search engines understand where you currently offer your services, what your footprint is, and when your customers can access your services.
You can also launch a new profile for a new location. Please be sure to check each ownership and keep it up to date. This includes holiday business hours and closed days.
schema
Does your site or page have a service area or organizational schema? Be sure to fill out and update the Service Area field by referencing Wikipedia or the Wikipedia entry.
Wikidata includes nearly every city, county, state, country, and region to help define where products, services, stores, and more are located.
The more you can help search engines understand where and when you offer your services, the better they can represent you as a provider to people in that market.
Do you offer services throughout North America (US, Mexico, Canada)? There's a page for that too. That way you don't have to refer to all three.
But what's really strange here is that Wikidata includes “Greenland” as North America.
Although technically (geographically) it's part of the continent, this is by no means accurate in terms of your location. Greenland is currently a territory of Denmark, so politically it is part of the EU.
This is a screenshot of the page with the date stamp. This likely won't affect your ranking ability, so don't second-guess yourself here.
We are using this as an example as you may be confused as to why you are referring to this page if we do not offer services in Greenland.
Wikidata screenshot, January 2023Localize or regionalize titles and descriptions
Meta descriptions are not ranking signals, nor are they used for rankings (at least in my opinion). However, your meta description influences the number of people who click through to your site. But only if search engines use the meta description you create.
However, based on my experience, title tags make a big difference when combined with other elements on the page.
If your description highlights the region or market where your title will appear, you'll be creating a compelling ad that consumers will want to click on.
And meta description is very important.
If you're optimizing for tourists and tell them you're right next to a particular landmark, they'll know you're closer to that location and will be more likely to do it than another business up top that shares a generic title or description. may also click on your listing.
This works in retail stores, pharmacies, restaurants, homes, rental cars, and more. Here's a guide I created for writing localized meta descriptions and title tags.
Build citations and perform PR activities
This is my second win in a row! Research local blogs, newspapers, and magazines and focus on getting noticed and mentioned.
Being featured can help you gain referral traffic and customers to your business and alert search engines to your new local location or expansion. In some cases, you may be able to earn backlinks.
Whether a backlink is natural or good depends on the site you're linking to and the type of link.
As an added bonus, if the new market you've entered recognizes and trusts your media company's brand, feature your logo on the page.
This can help build trust to increase conversions both online and in-store when users are deciding between two businesses to engage with.
If you're expanding into my city (Washington, DC), keep an eye on Washingtonian Magazine, Popville, or ARLnow. These may be recognizable to locals in our area.
Other notes
One thing to keep in mind when expanding your footprint is that demographics can change from location to location.
In new locations, we see different biases based on race, religion, single/married status, income level, or age group. This means you need to change your marketing methods as well.
- If you offer a new language, be sure to check your hreflang tags to refer to the correct language version of your product, service, or content. Here's Google's guide on this:
- Update your images to match the demographics of customers who contact you for service or visit your location.
- Make sure the wording is one that understands their needs. If your original location was in a DINK-heavy area (working parents and no kids) and your new location has multiple elementary schools, mention that your new location is kid-friendly or have a related promotion (e.g., “Kids get half price!”). (e.g. “You can eat it”). ” You might do this in a child-friendly place, but in a DINK place, try to keep your wording focused on a relaxed, calm, quiet, and romantic atmosphere.
Expanding your business or service is exciting, and it's easy to start getting traffic, customers, and sales from it.
All you need to do is make an effort to ensure that you meet the needs of new audiences and that your content and code are updated regularly. I hope this helps.
Other resources:
Featured image: Toy Andante/Shutterstock
