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How to Create Killer Local Landing Pages That Rank Well

 

Consumers can easily search for nearby businesses using their phones or desktop, making it crucial for local and multi-location businesses to invest in local landing pages. Today, companies that rank number one in local search earn 612 percent more search traffic and 397 percent more actions than businesses that rank 10th. 

 

If you’re a multi-location business that doesn’t have local landing pages for your stores or offices, you’re missing out on potential customers. If you leverage local pages, are you using them to their full local and SEO potential?

 

Local landing pages, or local pages for short, are web pages for service-based businesses with multiple locations. Local landing pages help consumers find information pertinent to that location. They are essential for brick-and-mortar stores with multiple locations or for service-based businesses that want to inform their consumers about the geographical areas they serve.

 

Creating effective local landing pages may seem daunting — especially if you have many locations, but we can help! 

 

In this blog, we’ll dive into why your multi-location business should create local landing pages and the best practices when doing so.

 

A Look Into Local Landing Pages

 

As mentioned, a local landing page is an individual web page for a specific business location or franchise. A well-optimized landing page will improve local SEO and digital traffic to a store location, which results in more in-person visits.

 

Below is an example of a Nékter Juice Bar’s local landing page in Vancouver, Washington. The local page features its name, address, phone number (NAP),  hours of operation, and a map of its location, which helps prospective customers find and purchase from this local store.

 

 

The Top 5 Benefits of Local Landing Pages

 

Did you know that 46 percent of all Google searches are linked to something local? Consumers today want to find local businesses. Local landing pages help these digital searchers quickly find your business listing and become in-person customers.

 

Now that you understand why local landing pages are important, let’s dive into how they benefit your business.

 

1. Local SEO 

 

Improving your business’s local search engine optimization (SEO) is the main reason to create local landing pages. Well-designed local landing pages will surface on search engine result pages (SERPs) for local searches that contain terms and keywords relevant to your business.

 

Organic search results carry more authority with consumers and are more likely to lead to conversions compared to online ads or sponsored listings. Furthermore, a top-performing local page linked to your Google Business Profile (GBP) helps you rank even higher in Google Search and Maps.

 

For more tips on improving your local SEO, download our Top 10 Things You Should Be Doing in Local SEO NOW Guide!

 

 

 

2. Location-Specific Content

 

Each business location or franchise  is different. Local landing pages provide an excellent opportunity to showcase the differentiating features between each of your locations. 

Here are a few ways your local landing pages can highlight their individual location:

 

Service-based businesses:

If you have a service-based business such as a law firm or plumbing company, you can introduce your staff members, reviews, and services and specify the service area you cover.

 

Franchises:

For franchise businesses such as multi-location restaurant brands, unique content on local pages helps those pages stand out in search. Consider staff profiles, local links, and other differentiating content.

 

3. Lead Generation

 

Local pages can also help with lead generation, which is generating a consumer’s interest and turning that attentiveness into a sale. Integrate contact request forms, appointment scheduling, quote requests, a click-to-call button, and other features to turn your local pages into conversion opportunities for your business.

 

4. Reputation Building

Consumers place a high value on reviews. Reviews are a source of information that help them decide who to do business with. You can repurpose your review content right on your local pages. These reviews give consumers honest feedback about your business and, even better, provide Google with additional content that can make your pages stand out in search.

 

5. Customer Experience Improvement

 

Adding a list of the services you provide and CTAs on your local pages can boost conversions and make it far easier for customers to do business with you. If you’re a restaurant brand, your services might include food ordering and delivery platforms like Uber Eats or GrubHub on your local pages. Similarly, a gym could include class schedules or individual training appointments.

 

Now that you’ve learned some of the benefits of local landing pages, let’s dive into some tips and tricks for creating effective pages from an SEO perspective.

 

 

12 Ways to Optimize Your Local Landing Pages

 

While it might feel overwhelming to create local landing pages for each of your business locations, you can use the recommendations in this section as a checklist. Once you create one optimized local landing page, creating others will be easy.

 

1. Incorporate Keywords in Title Tags

 

Title tags are critical if you want search engines to understand what is on your local pages. A title tag is an HTML element that identifies the title of a webpage. Space is limited, however. Google indexes the first 50 to 60 characters of a title tag. For local landing page title tags, include your business name, location, and a targeted keyword.

 

• If the keyword is already in your business name, you don’t need to repeat it: “Build-Your-Own-Pizza in Anaheim, CA.”
• If it isn’t, you’ll want to add the keyword separately: “Giuseppe’s — Pizza in Anaheim, CA.”

 

Below is an image of what title tags look like on Google’s SERP. As you can see, the keyword used in the search is found in both top title tags.

 

 

Action item: Think about what your customers are searching for to find your business, whether it’s “In-home caregiving services in LA county” or “Healthy vegan and vegetarian cafe in Orange, CA.” Compose your landing page title tag to reflect that intent.

 

 

2. Include Images

 

Images aid search engines and users in better understanding what your content is about. Images inherently help users visualize the products or services your local business offers. Images can also help your local pages’ SERP ranking if optimized for search engines. 

 

Below you’ll find an example of one of Jersey Mike’s Subs local landing pages, which includes high-quality imagery. We’ll discuss how to optimize your images for SEO in the next section.

 

 

Action item: Ensure that all images uploaded by local staff or corporate are high quality, branded, and location-specific.

 

 

3. Optimize Images for SEO via Alt Text or Tags

 

Alternative or “alt” tags should be applied to all images on your local landing pages. Alt tags provide text descriptions that help search engines understand the content of your images. 

 

When you use an open-source content management system like WordPress to add an image to a web page, the tool will typically auto-generate a title tag based on the image’s filename. However, alt text is often left blank, making it essential to enter it manually.

 

Ideally, the text in each alt tag should be different from the other tags on that page. Optimized tags should describe the image accurately and, if relevant, should include keywords you are trying to rank for.

 

 

 

Action item: Add relevant alt tags or text for all images on your local pages.

 

 

4. Fix URL Structure

 

Landing page URLs with a UTM code like www.yourbusiness.com/pasadena%20 can lower your local landing page’s ranking. Having a clean URL — meaning a URL that uses natural language and is relatively easy for humans to read — is vital for search ranking because it:

• Ensures that all of your URLs meet Google’s usability standards.
• Provides a better user experience (UX) for your customers by giving them an idea of what content they can expect from your page.

 

 SEO-optimized URLs for local landing pages should not contain:

• The text “index.html,” once standard on home pages
•  %20 and other “special character” codes
• Uppercase letters
• Numbers like “404” or any numerical sequence that would be meaningless to your page visitors

 

Action item: 

1. Check through your location pages to confirm that all URLs are clean.
2. Note the ones that need to be changed or edited.
3. If necessary, modify your URL templates to ensure all URLs are human-readable.

 

 

5. Standardize Your Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP)

 

Local pages are the calling cards for your local stores, making it easy for consumers to get the information they seek. The information found on your local landing page has to mirror that of your Google Business Profile and other local listings. If the information differs, you risk confusing Google’s search index and your page visitors. 

 

Sport Clips does a great job of including helpful business information on its local landing pages.

 

 

While including your name, address, phone number, and business hours is essential, having the appropriate schema markup is also necessary. Schema markup helps search engines understand the content on your pages and helps your content get indexed for voice search. 

 

For instance, a telephone number would need the schema markup “telephone” to signify to search engines the business’ phone number. Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper tool is a great entry point if you’re new to schema markup.

 

Action item: Double-check to ensure all locations’ addresses, phone numbers, and store hours are current. You don’t want to give your consumers or search engines the wrong information!

 

 

6. Review Meta Description

 

Similar to title tags, meta descriptions can help your SEO efforts. Meta descriptions appear below title tags on search engines. Think of it as a 50-160 character hook to entice the reader to visit your local landing page. 

 

In your local landing pages’ meta descriptions, you can address your location, services and offerings, and how you differ from competitors near you.

 

 

 

Action item: Ensure your meta description contains the primary keyword your local landing page targets.

 

 

7. Be Mobile Friendly

 

Fifty-seven percent of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site. Google’s “mobile-first” index may already be treating the mobile version of your site as the primary version for search indexing purposes. 

 

For these reasons, your local landing pages should be optimized for mobile devices. Responsive and fast-loading sites are best from a mobile perspective but don’t rely on responsiveness. Test your pages on iOS and Android phones, and make any necessary changes to improve the UX. 

 

These are a few UX improvements you can check for:

• The text should be large enough to be readable
• Page content should format itself neatly within the confines of the phone screen
• Navigation tools should conform to the needs of mobile users

 

 

 

Action item: Check if your website is mobile-friendly with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test page.

 

 

8. Ensure a Fast Loading Time

 

As mentioned in the previous section, fast load times are essential. Think about it: consumers are used to having everything they want instantly and will go elsewhere if your website takes too long to load on mobile or desktop.

 

Your local landing pages must load quickly. You can improve page speed by compressing images, caching your web pages, and reducing redirects.

 

Action Item: Google’s mobile speed testing tool, powered by WebPageTest.org, provides a good indicator of the overall speed of your site. Check your speed and review the recommendations for improvement.

 

 

9. List Product and Service Features

 

When users come across your local landing page, they’re likely considering a product or service you offer. Make it easy on users and turn them into customers by clearly describing your products and/or services. 

 

You also want to differentiate your local business from nearby competitors. You can do this by inserting keywords that make your product stand out in your product descriptions. 

 

For instance, if you’re a furniture store, you might title a product “Blue Upholstered Sectional Sofa.” The more detailed you are, the easier a consumer finds what they’re looking for.

 

Action item: Track which products or services are most popular at individual locations and begin to A/B test which ones your showcase most on different landing pages.

 

 

10. CTAs

 

In addition to listing your product and service offerings, you should include clear calls to action (CTAs). Make it easy to convert a potential customer by having one primary CTA like an “order now” button or “call today.” Smashburger does this well, including a CTA to “order now” on one of its local landing pages twice.

 

 

You can have smaller secondary CTAs on the side or bottom of the local landing page to help move users through the sales pipeline. 

 

Note that it’s crucial to track your local pages’ CTAs to know which products or services sell best. This information also provides insight into which types of CTAs work better than others — for instance, a green versus a red button or varying text.

 

Action item: Set up ways to analyze and track your local pages’ CTAs, and try to A/B testing different CTAs.

 

 

11. Include User-Generated Content + Reviews

 

User-generated content (UGC), such as reviews or customer testimonials, can help your local pages stick out. Ratings and reviews have become the top factor for consumers when determining which company to do business with.

 

The data speaks for itself. Local landing pages should embed positive customer reviews from sites like Google or Yelp and social media platforms like Facebook. As seen in the example below, posting reviews and other UGC will establish social proof and help build consumer trust.

 

 

Action item: 

1. Create a system where customers can easily leave reviews after visiting one of your brand’s local listings.
2. Update your local pages with the most positive reviews from the previous month or quarter.

 

12. Incorporate Internal and Jump Links

 

Internal links are links from your local landing pages to other pages on your company’s site. These might be links to products, blog posts, or other areas of your marketing team’s online demand-generation strategy. 

 

Users and search engines find internal links helpful; if done correctly, they will help increase your local page’s visibility.

 

Another link type to incorporate is “jump links,” which occur when text or images take you somewhere further down on the same page. These are a nice UX touch for longer-form content and landing pages.

 

Action item: Create an internal link strategy based on the information new and current customers are asking for and your most popular articles or posts about your products and services.

 

 

Recapping Local Landing Pages and Optimization

 

Now that you have a firm grasp of local SEO basics, it’s time to optimize your local landing pages! Before you begin, consider what information you want your local landing pages to display and how to measure success. 

 

Also, don’t forget that you should always be writing for your target audience. Think about what would appeal to your ideal customer and what information they would find exciting and valuable. Depending on your industry, there may be different products, services, features, and other content you’ll want to showcase on your landing pages.

 

How SOCi Can Help You Create Local Landing Pages

 

While managing local landing pages across all of your business locations might seem challenging, SOCi is here to help! SOCi Local Pages allows your multi-location business to control 100s or 1,000s of customized, responsive local pages or sites that deliver a consistent brand presence and improve local search visibility.

 

 

Branded local pages are fully responsive on any device and are built to meet your unique business needs. Select multiple template options that can be customized with banners, image galleries, products, social feeds, and more.

 

Best of all, SOCi can help deploy branded local pages in less than two weeks. You can also make real-time updates to local pages and website data in just a few minutes. Elevate your local landing pages, increase conversions, and win local customers with SOCi Local Pages. 

 

For more information on SOCi Local Pages and how SOCi can help your multi-location business dominate the rest of its localized marketing efforts, request a demo today!