Ronak Kothari is the founder of RONKOT, a full-service digital marketing agency.
Were you aware that about 97% of people rely on the internet when looking for a local enterprise that could serve their needs? Yes, search engines like Google are indeed one of your biggest sources of potential customers.
But how do you ensure that you’re visible not just to the engine’s algorithm but also to your target audience? After all, the listings available on the web in regards to a certain query can span over hundreds of pages. While you can hope that your clients come down to at least the second page, most people don’t go past the first page of search results.
Thus, the only way to get the aforementioned visibility is to gain a higher rank on search engines through strategic efforts — all clubbed under the umbrella of Search Engine Optimization or SEO.
Now although SEO has an array of tactics to boost your business to the top of Google, local SEO is what you need to focus on when it comes to establishing your company’s search presence in your local vicinity.
Here are some of the key benefits of local SEO:
- Enhanced Visibility: Optimizing your webpages for local searches is an easy way of ensuring that a query for your service in your area brings up your name and contact information in front of potential clients.
- More Qualified Leads: About 76% of people who look up a business in their locale end up visiting them within a day. As you already know, walk-ins like these are an important source of leads for any enterprise.
- Higher Organic Traffic: Local web traffic receives a significant push through local SEO efforts. Acting as free-of-cost advertising, it also helps in a higher offline conversion rate as people often tend to check reviews online before making a purchase.
These are just a few of the many advantages that you can reap from the Local SEO crop as a rubber surfacing business. Let us now take a look at strategies to nail your Local SEO game.
Local SEO Strategies for Rubber Surfacing Business
There are numerous strategies out there that can guide any business towards local SEO. However, we have curated here a list of ideas, specifically for the rubber flooring domain, that you can implement to achieve your desired results.
Create and Optimize Google My Business Listing
Google My Business (GMB) is a free-of-cost tool provided by Google that allows you to promote your business through Google’s search engine and Maps application. All you have to do is create a profile under your enterprise’s name and input important information like contact details and address. You can also share particulars regarding your working hours, your area of work, your website link, and even the reviews your existing or past customers have left.
Further, to optimize your listing, you can undertake several different methods: from posting relevant content to choosing a specific area or industry of working. These help Google decide where your firm’s placement is most valuable and what ranking should it be awarded. Some other great ways of getting yourself noticed by the search engine’s algorithm are:
- Use of high-resolution pictures
- Up-to-date contact information
- Timely replies to customer questions
- Gathering positive feedback
- Responding to reviews
Ask and Respond to Reviews
Customer feedback, be it positive or negative, is always essential as it marks the authenticity of your firm. Notably, these reviews can be left on various different business listings (like Yelp and Trustpilot) and the consumer looking to use your services could be going through any of those to find a suitable provider. Therefore, it becomes vital that you respond to the comments left on these multiple platforms.
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Where positive feedback can be replied to with a simple thank you and appreciation, negative reviews can be responded to with an apology, a promise to work on the pain point, and gratitude for bringing the issue to your notice. This makes the new and potential clientele feel respected and cared for and they will trust you more as compared to an organization that does not interact with its buyers or simply answers to the positive feedback received while ignoring the problem ones.
At the same time, answer any questions that have been directed towards you on any of these pages. Leaving those queries unanswered can make you seem ignorant while resolving them appropriately can show the clients that you’re committed to a good and helpful experience.
List Your Business on Online Directories
Fun fact: there are several local business directories online that serve to present the searchers with a comprehensive list of service providers in a given area. Some popular names in that list are:
- Google My Business
- LinkedIn Company Directory
- Tripadvisor
- Yelp
- YellowBook.com
However, those specific to B2B and manufacturing include:
Making sure that your enterprise has a page dedicated to it on these can be a huge step forward to enhancing local visibility.
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Simultaneously, a crucial detail to remember is that you should always maintain a NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) consistency throughout all listings, your website, social media channels, and other forms of communication. This shows a uniformity that could very well play to your strength by removing any confusion about your business details.
Optimize your Website
Webpage optimization is something that you are already aware of. This plays well not just with local SEO efforts but also with global SEO as your website remains the go-to place for information and answers about your company. The direct advantage of this is noted in the form of a higher ranking and visibility.
There are a number of ways to optimize your website, including but not limited to:
- Selection and Use of the Right Keywords: Targeting the correct keywords and phrases with high search volumes is important as they convey to the crawlers the kind of content you’re putting up on your website. If the right keywords are used appropriately, the search with the same words can easily yield your page as one of the top contenders for the requested results. For instance, local keywords that relate to your location can be used, like ‘rubber surfacing company in California’ or ‘rubber surfacing company near me’.
- Customized URLs and Metadata: The URL and metadata of a site hold a vital role in a page’s success. While a unique, short, and memorable URL can aid your brand recall, meta tags and meta description that is not just compelling but also includes relevant keywords can support the SEO efforts being made.
- Proper Alt Text for Images: Alternate text is often placed with the images on a website to ensure that the textual message appears in case the picture fails to load or during the time it takes to do so. While it enables the viewers to understand what the image wanted to depict there, it also helps the crawlers comprehend what exactly the picture shows for it to analyze the content on your page more effectively. This text should be short and to the point.
- Clear and Simple to Navigate Site Structure: Hidden pathways, broken links, and complicated navigational structures are a big no when it comes to creating a website. Since the aim of the site is to draw visibility and traffic to the pages, it is important that a search engine crawler understands them first. If said crawler deems the site as hard to use or confusing, it automatically lowers the ranking of your website regardless of the multiple techniques you used. Thus a clear and easy-to-browse website is preferable.
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- Schema: Using a schema markup tag has been found to be extremely effective when it came to helping a page rank. Its basic function here though is to enhance the way a search engine can read or represent the information displayed on your site, on the SERPs. Local businesses can use it to show important details as part of the search results.
- Internal Link Structure: The linking structure of any website is of optimal importance as it directly affects the user experience. This task therefore should be carried out with care to ensure there are no complicated paths being created and that all broken links are removed while all redirects are working properly.
- Mobile-friendliness: Ever since smartphones have found a way in the life of the masses, an on-the-go search has been a recurrence, regardless of the nature of the query or the field it pertains to. Thus ensuring that your webpage is responsive on cellular devices is an extremely essential task that needs to be monitored on a regular basis.
- Site Speed: The speed at which a website loads and/ or navigates from one page to another is a decisive factor for viewers when they come online in search of their answers. If the site’s speed is slow, you will notice a higher bounce rate as people would instead prefer looking up the information on some other webpage. Thus making sure that your website maintains a high load speed despite any regular additions or updates being made to the same is crucial.
Create Local Content
Any site is only as good for the local masses as the content they publish keeping said locals in mind. After all, for a business based in California, material related to an event in London would hold no relevance. They would have to ensure that the information they post or the ideas they share relate to the Californian residents, else it would be next to useless in giving the company that much-needed push.
Thus, creating local content related to the geographical area, its happenings, and its impact on the surfacing industry, in a compelling and attractive manner can help you grab much more attention than the globally sourced content could.
Build Quality Links from Authoritative Websites
Link building is considered to be one of the most important aspects of optimizing a website. But exchanging links with random websites like in the old days does not work now. Earlier, it was all about quantity and the total number of links a site had. In today’s times, quality takes precedence over quantity. The webpage that your site is linking to should be authoritative as well as relevant to rubber surfacing businesses.
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Moreover, there is a balance of incoming and outgoing links that should be maintained at all times to avoid being mistakenly marked as spam by the search engines. A site with a high spam score does not find a place in the top ranks of any search engine result pages (SERPs).
Monitor Results
Keeping an eye on the results generated through the various SEO efforts you put in is crucial. This is because unless you monitor the analysis and the insights it presents you with, it becomes difficult to plot a future plan of action.
Not only does monitoring tell you whether your SEO techniques are working as you envisioned, but it also helps you figure out the problem areas where there is still scope for improvement.
Local SEO Case Study
The tips shared above have proven to be very effective when it comes to increasing the number of qualified leads and web traffic a business receives. Here is a case study where these tactics came in handy in achieving some brilliant results.
How we Helped Rubcorp
Rubcorp Distribution LLC is a rubber surfacing company based in North America, that deals with training, support, and distribution of the same. They had approached us with the aim of standing out in their niche and highly competitive industry. Simultaneously, although they were relatively new to the field, their aim was to turn their brand into a mark of superior quality.
To help them turn their vision into reality, we went through the following steps.
- Website Revamp: The first thing we did for Rubcorp was redesigning its entire website from scratch. With the optimized designs used by our team, we could observe close to a 30% increase in the traffic encountered by their pages.
- Digital Marketing: We did not just rebuild for them a new site, but also helped them create a social media identity that got them higher engagement and a slew of high-quality backlinks.
- Search Engine Optimization: SEO efforts are important, be it as a part of the website or in the digital marketing campaigns carried out by the company. And within 8 months, we saw them ranking for 1800 keywords on Google, taking a steep hike from the zero where they initially began.
- Content Marketing: This may be one of the newer trends in the marketing world, but it is no less effective. We extensively used this form of promotion to reach audiences far and wide and the post-analysis displayed our success story to the world.
Our efforts ultimately bore fruit in the form of 900%+ growth in the organic traffic they received.
Wrapping Up
Flooring is a specialized industry in itself, and when it comes to rubber surfacing — the market shrinks further. For continuous traffic, leads, and sales, it is vital for a rubber surfacing business to stand out on search results, and Local SEO is the best way to do it.
So, why wait? Let the optimization begin!
Further Reading
A Definitive Guide on Local SEO for Plumbing Companies to Rank Higher for Local Searches
A Complete Guide on Local SEO for Hair & Beauty Salons
A Beginner’s Guide to Optimize Local SEO for HVAC Companies
A Complete Local SEO Guide for Real Estate Agents to Rank Higher on Google
An Essential Local SEO Guide for Contractors to Boost Rankings
SEO For Non-Profit Organizations: 8 Ways To Increase Online Visibility
An Ultimate Guide for Roofing Companies to Boost Local SEO & Leads