What are Location Landing Pages?
As the name suggests, a location landing page is a website page focused on a specific suburb/area. For example, a national real estate agency will service a host of different suburbs, and may have local landing pages for each suburb where visitors can view properties and meet the team in that suburb. Location specific pages also help the agency to rank better within the local SERPs (Search Engine Result Page) for those relevant suburbs.
Local SEO has become increasingly popular for many small to medium brick and mortar businesses whose main target audience resides within a local vicinity. However, many larger businesses with multiple locations also understand the importance of local SEO, especially with the increased usage of mobile phones and the rise of “near me” searches. It is therefore important to make sure that landing pages are not only optimised for local SEO success, but for other factors such as ease of use and access for those using different devices (ex. mobile friendly).
Before this optimisation is undertaken, one of the first areas that needs to be looked at is how a business’s Google My Business Account is setup, including it’s NAP. NAP stands for Name, Address & Phone number. A business’s NAP is incorporated into their Google My Business Account and it allows for Google to show the location of your business within Google’s Local Business Listings (Google Local Pack). It then helps if your location landing pages list an address which mirrors the address in your Google My Business Account, as a local SEO trust signal for Google. It’s important to note that if you don’t have a physical location at the address, don’t include it. This is against Google’s guidelines.
Location Landing Page Optimisation Recommendations
Below are a few recommendations in terms of general content and design that can be implemented to enhance your business’s location specific landing page:
Content
1. Ensure Your Location is Relevant
Location specific pages can cover a range of different area options. For instance, a large national company may look to have state specific landing pages to promote their business, rather than trying to go to specific cities or suburbs. Be sure to choose a location that has a reasonable sized target market, but equally don’t target an area that will more than likely lead to you getting lost amongst competitors. For instance, a cafe in Keysborough making a Melbourne location page.
2. Unique Location Specific Content
Google loves unique content and this is no different with location landing pages. This means that copying the same content from another location page, but changing the area name is not going to cover it. Unique content is key, and this includes:
- Services offered by the business (maybe not all stores provide the exact same services ex. one automotive store offers a car cleaning service, while others don’t).
- Promoting specific brands or products on your page that customers in that area would be interested in searching for.
- Adding a meet the team section. Build up your local trust by providing faces to your local business.
3. Build Relationships with the Local Community
The building of relationships within a local community cannot only have a positive impact on the local image of your business and increase positive WOM (word of mouth), but it can also effectively help with local SEO ranking. While this tactic is more offline, it allows for organic links to different local businesses and events to be created. Also in many cases, it can also push new customers to try your product or service, which in turn may also aid your business gain positive local reviews which can also be highly positive for local SERPs rankings.
Design
While an aesthetically pleasing and functional design for a location landing page is a must. In terms of optimising the design for local SEO performance there are a few factors that can be looked at:
1. Utilise Effective Interior & Exterior Photos
For some businesses with a high level of customer face to face interaction, such as a cafe or a vet, it can be positive to show photos of both the inside and outside of your business. This allows customers to have a more intimate view of your business and in some cases help them find your shop easier. On top of this it can also further help with local SEO optimisation, as the image can use location specific alt text such as “Sophie’s Humble Cafe Malvern” showcasing the brand name “Sophie’s Humble Cafe” and the location “Malvern”.
2. Use Local Photos
If there are photos of your business serving the community, include them. Not only do they show how ingrained your business is in the local community, but they can also help to grow external links to other local businesses and grow your local SEO presence.
Building and optimising your location landing page can be a challenging project to undertake, especially while trying to run the day to day operations of a business. For more information on improving your location landing page or if you are interested in building your own location landing page, contact the friendly team at Redline Digital today.