It is quite impossible to overstate the importance of optimizing your organic visibility for location-specific searches. A well-orchestrated local SEO strategy allows you to reach a larger audience in a local context, thus merely driving more in-store and online traffic and sales.
Now, can your business tap into the power of local SEO if it doesn’t operate from a physical location? In this article, we’ll talk about some ways to overcome those challenges in building a great local search presence without a physical address.
Challenges in Local SEO for Businesses Without a Physical Address
The physical location of any given business plays a big role when search engines identify the most relevant listings to rank for local searches. This means, for example, that businesses located in Chicago are most likely to be considered by Google for user searches within and around the city.
This, however, poses a very real problem for businesses that do not have an address. If the search engines are factoring in the physical proximity that a business has with a search user in ranking location-based results, how is a business without a physical location supposed to compete-even if it does offer to the local area?
It’s reassuring to think that while having a physical address may make the process of maximizing your local SEO visibilities easier, it is by no means required to be successful.
Perhaps more importantly, for instance, if you operate a service-area business-meaning you still interact face-to-face with customers, just not at a dedicated business address-then Google allows you to create a Business Profile in order to manage your visibility on both Search and Maps.
Beyond simply creating a Google Business Profile, there are a few other ways that non-physical businesses can optimize their local SEO.
Effective Local SEO for Businesses Without Physical Address
Google Business Profile Setup Optimization
The first would be setting up your Google Business Profile correctly for your service-based business.
A Google Business Profile is a tool that lets you manage and verify your free business listing on Google. In other words, through your GBP, Google users get a glimpse of what your business does: when you open, how to get in touch with you, and what customers say about your business.
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Whereas, in the case of businesses having no physical address, Google’s instructions for setting up a GBP for a service-area business are somewhat different.
The key is that your service area is defined by city, zip code, or other type of area-not by your address. You can specify up to 20 service areas; the combined perimeter of those areas has to fall within a 2-hour drive from the location of your business.
Also, the field for the business location should not be filled in the Info tab of the Business Profile Manager. It will be enough to define your service area for both Google and the users to understand where you operate.
Create Location-Specific Content Tailored to Local Keywords
Creating content tailored to specific locations is another effective strategy for enhancing your website’s relevance in local searches, even in the absence of a physical presence. This approach entails creating content such as service pages, blog posts, success stories, and other materials focusing on subjects pertinent to the communities you serve.
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By integrating geo-targeted keywords into your content (such as the names of cities or neighborhoods you’re targeting), you can enhance your visibility in relevant local searches.
Pay Attention to Local Reviews and Testimonials
On the one hand, it is a good idea to collect reviews and testimonials from local customers. Such reviews provide social proof to your future customers and tell search engines that your business is relevant and authentic in that particular area.
You do this by asking your local customers to review your business on a Google Business Profile, Yelp, or Facebook page. Note: It is against the terms of these services to incentivize positive reviews with discounts, free services, and other monetary perks.
Instead, focus on real feedback from customers using your website’s thank-you pages, follow-up emails, or even social media. And responding to reviews is important in and of itself. This process of responding to customer feedback lets you show that quality matters and that further perfecting your products is not less important.
Besides, Google urges businesses to respond to their reviews to better their local search rankings. Likewise, showcasing your reviews and full testimonials on your website, especially on location-based landing pages, assists in building trust with potential customers that, yes, your company is valid.
Design Custom Landing Pages Tailored to Each Location
Creating a dedicated landing page for each of your targeted locations is another effective strategy to improve your ranking potential in local search.
These pages may also include service information for the specific area, local management contact, customer testimonials that are local to the region, and special offers or promotions specific to that area. Again, make sure to include local keywords that will help the search engines understand that your pages are about that local market segment.
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But if you do this, ensure that you don’t use the same canned page in a different location by changing only the name of the target area. This means that every landing page you create for each location should be different, and actually useful and relevant to the end user of that specific location. Thin content with minor variations can have a negative effect on your SEO strategies.
The Local Citations
Making sure that online citations of your business name, the area it serves, and the contact number are created and maintained will go a long way in helping your local SEO efforts. Citations from authoritative sites such as Yelp, Foursquare, and other local business directories send a signal to Google that your business is relevant for a particular region.
When optimizing your local citations, ensure that your business details are accurate and consistent across all the platforms on which they appear. It is this consistency that builds greater trust among the search engines and, as such, provides more likelihood of your business showing in the local search results.
Secondly, the quality of the local citations matters much more than the quantity. Give first priority to making listings in those directories that hold relevance to your industry and area of operation for effectiveness.
