Your prospective clients are likely to search online for other IT service providers before finally choosing one. If you want to be front and center in their search results, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the only reliable way to do so. Rather than paying an arm and a leg for paid search ads, choosing local SEO will optimize your website for your local audience organically.
Reports suggest that 46% of the searches on Google represent searches for local businesses and services.
Local SEO is all about optimizing your business to rank higher for the specific geographical location where your business is located.
Studies show that people who search for local businesses have high purchase intent, ensuring that almost 28% of the searches result in a purchase. With a well-crafted regional SEO strategy, you’re enhancing your online profile and attracting highly converting leads.
Now that you know what local SEO is and why it should be a part of your marketing campaign, let’s look into some strategies to make it work for your MSP.
Local SEO Tactics To Strengthen Your Business’s Online Presence
There isn’t any easy-fix to get local traffic for your website. Your website will have to provide real value, accurate information, and timely services to your audiences.
Let’s look at the leading factors that can boost your chances of ranking higher in local search results.
Setting Up Google My Business
If you haven’t yet claimed the Google My Business listing for your MSP, you’ll miss out on local search visibility and lead generation opportunities. 56% of local businesses have not yet set up their Google My Business account, which is hurting their local SEO efforts.
We suggest you fill in all the necessary information, including name, address, and phone number. Along with this, you need to fill upload photos or mark your location on Google Maps. All of this will only take one hour, but enhances your MSP’s exposure in the local market.
Create Profiles On Other Digital Directories
Other than Google My Business, you can leverage the power of other digital directories, including other search engines such as Bing or social media sites like Facebook, Yelp, and even the Yellow pages.
This is important because Google is not the only search engine visited by your prospects to search for the right MSP.
Display Your Testimonials
Research shows that 93.4% of people said that they read customer reviews before making a purchase. This is why you need to display your customer reviews by asking for them through your business profiles.
Google places significant importance on the number of positive reviews and your replies to those reviews while ranking your business on local searches.
Optimize Your MSP Website For Local SEO
Your local SEO strategies only work if you have a business website where all the search engine traffic is to be redirected. Make sure your site displays correct contact information, high-quality images, and case studies or customer reviews.
Also, make sure to incorporate high-quality, relevant content that is integrated with highly-researched keywords.
Your next steps should be as follows:
Search For High-Ranking Keywords
In terms of local SEO, you need to search for keywords relevant to your products or services and used by your target audience. To find relevant keywords, you can use a keyword research tool that offers information on the number of people searching for that keyword.
Conduct On-Site Optimization
It’s important to create a keyword strategy using appropriate words and phrases found during the last step. Next, create different content types, i.e., web copies, blogs, white papers, landing pages, and infographics that incorporate those keywords.
Moreover, optimize your title tags as they are crucial for maximizing your local SEO efforts. These title tags need to be appealing and integrated with relevant keywords.
Enhance Your Business’s Visibility On Google
According to SEO Expert, 92% of respondents select businesses on the first page of local search results. So, if you expect to achieve more click rates, you need to increase your business’s prominence in front of Google.
One way to do that is to ask your customers for positive reviews and mentions. You can even reach out to other businesses in your niche and ask them to share your website or link back to your website. But for that, you need to ensure that your products or services are compelling enough.
Leverage Analytics And Measure Your Local SEO Efforts
Creating an effective local SEO strategy is one thing, but keeping a close eye on the results allows you to gain insights into what works for your business.
To keep track of your local SEO efforts, you need to set up an analytics tool to monitor your MSP’s ROI consistently.
Even Google My Business offers insights on how many people are searching for your business or how many of them visit your business’s website. For a more robust solution, you can try Google Analytics, which is entirely free.
This allows you to stop investing time, money, and efforts on strategies that are not working for your MSP or improve the tactics that maximize your local SEO efforts.
Stay In Tune With The Latest Local SEO Trends
The world of search engine optimization is continually changing, which is why you need to remain updated on the latest local SEO trends for organic lead generation.
Some of the top local SEO trends of this year include:
Voice Search
Voice search continues to grow even in 2021 due to smart speakers’ launch, including Google Home, Amazon Echo, and much more. The retail voice industry is projected to grow to $40 billion in the U.S. by 2022.
Therefore, this is the right time to optimize your MSP’s site content for voice search. To target voice search optimization, you can incorporate high-ranking long-tail keyword phrases in the content.
Google’s Local Pack
For a local business to rank higher on Google, it is essential to show up in the Google Local 3-Pack. It even ranks you higher than large companies that do not have a local presence.
Google’s Local Pack for MSP ensures that when a person types “Managed Services Provider” into the search bar, they get a list of MSPs, with the ones nearest to them at the very top.
This offers a massive advantage to businesses that are working hard to rank locally.
In Conclusion
Apart from working on the overall SEO strategy to increase your MSP’s visibility, it is crucial to invest in local SEO efforts. It is a long-term investment that requires time, effort, and energy before it starts to reap the desired results.
This is where LeftLeads MSP Marketing comes in. We’re MSP SEO specialists that craft effective inbound marketing strategies to increase your MSP’s exposure by ranking it high on all the top search engines, and generate quality leads for your business.
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Jen
Really solid tips here, thank you. I hadn’t thought about optimizing for engines beyond Google, but you’re right, not everybody uses Google. Great point about reviews – I didn’t realize such a high percentage of potential customers read them, but I’m not surprised – we all want a good deal!