How to Improve Both SEO and Customer Experience Without the Extra Work

As multi-location marketers, we often hear about the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), but how much time do we need to spend improving it? A strong general and local SEO strategy can help you improve your customer’s experience and ultimately result in more sales, making it worth the investment. In this blog, we’ll examine how you can simultaneously improve your general SEO, local SEO, and customer experience.

General SEO, Local SEO, and CX Explained

General SEO is the practice of improving your website to increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your domain on search engines. The more visibility you have on the search engine results page (SERP), the more likely online consumers will visit your website and use your multi-location business.

Local SEO focuses specifically on optimizing your online presence to attract more business from relevant local searches.Our blog on local SEO ranking factors provides a complete breakdown of what impacts local SEO the most. For more useful tips, download our guide on the Top 10 Things You Should be Doing in Local SEO Now.

2. Update Your Local Listings 

Approximately 46 percent of all Google searches are linked to something local. If your multi-location business doesn’t appear in local search results, that’s a huge missed opportunity.

There are several ways to make your business visible online, starting with updated local listings. Data from our 2022 Localized Marketing Benchmark Report  found that Facebook, Yelp, and Google My Business are the top three platforms where multi-location businesses are claiming their local listings.

Your multi-location business should have individual listings for each business location on each of these platforms. If there are any other industry-relevant platforms, ensure that you claim local listings there as well. 

If all of the information is updated and correct on your local listings, this will help boost your local SEO efforts while assisting consumers at the same time. For instance, if a consumer is searching for information about your business and runs across a local listing with details they want to know about your business, it will improve their online search experience and influence their opinion of your multi-location business. 

While local listings for each of your business’s locations are ideal, we know that it’s challenging to manage 100s or 1,000s of business locations across multiple platforms. That’s where SOCi comes in. 

SOCi Listings can help take your local search authority to the next level. SOCi Listings will help increase the accuracy of your listings data and improve your local search rankings, resulting in stronger brand awareness and recognition. Once you have your local listings claimed and up-to-date, it’s time to focus on your local pages.

3. Optimize Your Local Landing Pages

Local landing pages, also known as local pages, are individual web pages that contain information specific to one business location. A well-optimized local landing page will improve local SEO and bring more online and in-person traffic to a local business. They also improve your CX by having all the necessary information about a location in one easy-to-access place. Below, you’ll find an example of a local page.

Each of your local landing pages should include detailed information about your business including but not limited to:

• Name, address, and phone number (NAP)
• Hours of operation
• Services and products
• Local promotions
• Interactive map
• Keyword-rich content
• Calls to action (CTAs)

You also want to ensure that all of your local pages follow the same brand guidelines by having a consistent layout and brand voice. In addition, your local pages need to be mobile-friendly since the majority of online traffic comes from mobile devices or tablets. 

If you need assistance managing all of your business’s local pages, consider using SOCi Local Pages and Locator. SOCi Local Pages and Locator enables multi-location businesses to deploy branded, search-optimized landing pages, at scale, which improves local search visibility. SOCi Local Pages and Locator will allow your multi-location business to create landing pages that are SEO-optimized, increasing lead generation and foot traffic to your local businesses. 

4. Increase Online Mentions 

Growing your online mentions is another way to boost your local SEO, making your business appear more frequently in search results. While online mentions can help increase your SEO, they are also helpful for the consumer. 

Consumers like to know if a business they are going to purchase at is reputable and worth their money, and online mentions help with this. For instance, if you’re in the health & fitness industry and your gym franchise is being mentioned in various articles or publications about being a top gym locally, this will help your local SEO. While many online mentions can also take place on social, there are additional opportunities for your multi-location business to gain online mentions through blog posts, website mentions, and other digital promotions.

It’s worth noting that it’s best if brand mentions are positive and have a backlink included. High-quality backlinks are an extremely important part of SEO since they help to increase the confidence search engines have in your business. 

If your multi-location business is just getting started with its SEO strategy, it can be challenging to start building your online mentions from scratch. In the beginning, try to build co-marketing partnerships with businesses with similar interests without being your competitor. You can swap blog content with these businesses or even start by mentioning them in your own content. Once your multi-location business begins to get some online mentions and brand awareness improves, you’ll get more organic backlinks. 

5. Boost Your Ratings and Reviews

You can also improve your local SEO efforts by focusing on your ratings and reviews. Ratings and reviews are the number one factor consumers consider when making a purchasing decision. Reviews are a significant part of your off-page SEO strategy, and their importance has steadily increased since 2015. 

In 2021, reviews accounted for 17 percent of your business’s ability to rank in local searches. They were the second-largest SEO factor behind optimizing your Google profile(s).

If your multi-location business doesn’t have a solid ratings and reviews strategy, it will negatively impact your local SEO. Many multi-location businesses are nervous about increasing the number of reviews their business receives because they want to avoid negative reviews. 

In reality, a few negative reviews combined with positive reviews are better than no reviews at all. Also, 87 percent of consumers have expressed a willingness to change their negative reviews depending on how the business responds. 

If your company responds to negative reviews both promptly and in a personalized manner, consumers are more likely to change their negative reviews or remove them altogether. Read our blog post on the ROI for ratings and reviews for more tips on how to improve your ratings and reviews strategy. 

Managing ratings and reviews across all of your business locations can also be tedious and time-consuming without SOCi’s streamlined reputation management software. SOCi pulls every review for all your business locations into one centralized platform — accessible by both corporate and local teams. SOCi’s reputation management software gives local marketing teams the power to efficiently respond to reviews and provides your corporate team the ability to maintain oversight through the creation of approval workflows.

6. Engage With Customers on Social Media 

If you’re looking for another way to connect with customers through local SEO, consider local social media. Social media profiles rank in search engines and are often amongst the top results in search listings for brand names.  Social media doesn’t directly impact SEO. However, people sharing and interacting with your social media content does help to build customer trust and increase customer loyalty — both of which affect your CX.

Moreover, each social profile makes your brand and content more visible, which in turn drives more traffic. It pays to have up-to-date profiles and engaging social content, across all locations.  

As multi-location marketers, you’re constantly pressed for time to manage localized marketing efforts. It is essential for multi-location businesses to have a scalable way to manage social media profiles across all locations, at both the corporate and local level. 

SOCi’s social media management solution can help. It empowers enterprise and local teams to publish localized content, manage content libraries, respond to social engagements, and analyze performance — all within one powerful platform.

How SEO and CX Satisfies Customers and Improves Your ROI 

If your multi-location business has a robust local SEO and keyword strategy, your consumers will be more satisfied with your business. From ratings and reviews to online mentions, consumers will be able to determine if your company is trustworthy and worth their time and money. Updated listings and local pages will also help them find accurate information about your business quickly, providing them with a positive experience. 

In addition, if consumers have a positive experience with your multi-location business, they will be more likely to make a purchase and become a returning customer, further improving your ROI. Similarly, if you’re able to organically build a strong local SEO presence, you won’t have to spend as much money on local advertising, again increasing your ROI. 

General and local SEO can both improve the customer experience in today’s world while also helping your multi-location business. For more information on how you can boost your business’s local SEO efforts, along with your localized marketing strategy in general, request a demo from SOCi!