Most small and medium-sized businesses establish an online presence to reach a target audience beyond their geographical location. However, local search engine optimization (SEO) is a powerful SEO strategy designed to increase a business’ get within its geographical location.
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How Does An SEO Specialist Malaysia Help?
Although digital marketing Malaysia offers a local SEO service, most businesses that could benefit from the service focus on general SEO strategies and miss out on a ready local market.
Nonetheless, SEO strategies are flexible, and a free website SEO audit should identify typical local SEO mistakes. Below are top SEO mistakes to avoid when optimizing your business for local search.
What Is Local SEO?
Local SEO is an authority-building marketing strategy that helps brick-and-mortar and online businesses to gain traction within a specified geographical location rather than on a national or global scale. It increases a local business or brand’s visibility and ranking on local Search Engine Results Pages (local SERPs).
Consequently, target consumers within the local business’s radius can view its website and other resources when they type keywords relating to its services into their search engines.
Therefore, local SEO takes the guesswork out of content marketing strategies and marketing strategies for other small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It leverages consumers’ need for convenience and familiarity.
Although the best SEO company Malaysia and a national SEO agency target SMEs for local SEO, large corporations with multiple branches also benefit from local SEO.
Agency for local SEO services can help popularize a new business branch at a specified location, leading to increased foot and online traffic, lead generation, and conversion rates.
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9 Local SEO Mistakes To Avoid in content marketing strategy
Avoiding the following oversights will help you make the best of local SERPs and excel in local SEO. You can use a paid or free SEO website tool to rectify the errors below.
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An Unlocalized Keyword Strategy for content marketing efforts
A keyword strategy is a vital SEO pillar, impacting page ranking on SERPs by elevating relevance scores. Keywords are descriptive words or phrases that give an idea of what a block of content entails, and search engine crawlers match search keywords to search queries typed into the search engine to generate a relevance index.
According to one industry report, 53% of website traffic comes from organic search. Therefore, optimizing your website to feature the keywords used in the search helps to generate high-quality traffic.
However, bidding for broad or generic keywords is one common mistake local businesses in Malaysia and beyond make when developing a local SEO strategy.
Broad keywords are non-specific; although ideal when crafting a national or global scale keyword strategy; they do nothing for local SEO due to their saturation levels.
For instance, a generic keyword like “best digital marketing company” can apply worldwide to any real estate company in a content marketing strategy.
Therefore, such a keyword does not appear relevant to search engine crawlers generating a search results index for someone searching for a real estate company in Malaysia.
To target a local audience, a local SEO Malaysia entails using geo-specific or location-based keywords alongside service specificity. Therefore, rather than “best digital marketing company,” a localized keyword like “best SEO specialist Malaysia,” Google Adwords Kuala Lumpur,” or Google Ads agency Malaysia” narrows the target audience scope to those within the specified location.
Additionally, localized keywords are less competitive and improve a business’s chances of appearing on local SERPS without necessarily utilizing paid search marketing efforts like PPC Malaysia and Google Adwords Malaysia.
However, keyword research in a content marketing strategy is as vital for a local keyword strategy as for any other.
Second, avoid keyword stuffing because it attempts search manipulation and attracts various penalties, including a Google search ranking demotion.
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Lacking A Business Listings Profile for content marketing
Besides localized keywords, having a business listing profile in online search engine directories and other geotagging interfaces helps improve a business’s local SERPs ranking.
Geotagging entails placing a location’s geographical coordinates on pieces of digital content so that the coordinates attach the geotagged content to the specified geographical area.
Therefore, online directories are a digital version of the traditional Yellow Pages and help potential consumers identify business locations from a simple internet search.
Besides a physical business location, search engine directories like Google Business Profile listings allow you to add opening and closing hours, add audio-visual media, and respond to questions.
Additionally, business profile listings appear on local SERPs results independent of your website, hence double a business’s chances of ranking on the SERPs page. Second, such directories are free and require no technical know-how to register a company.
Although Google’s Business Profile listing is the most popular online business directory, other directories and geotagging platforms like Yahoo!, Yelp, Apple Maps, Google Maps, iOS Spotlight Search, and Trip Advisor exist.
Therefore, you can create a profile for each platform to increase your business’s chances of appearing on local SERPs.
However, do not duplicate a single online directory within a content marketing approach, as search engine bots will interpret this as an attempt to mislead. Additionally, potential consumers will avoid interacting with the listing due to a lack of clarity.
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Lack of/ Inconsistent Business Listings Profile Data (NAPW)
Another local SEO mistake SMEs and even established brands make is registering their business on online business listings yet failing to update basic business information. As stated above, online directories have multiple features allowing you to add various content formats and data to drive organic traffic to your website.
However, while the amount of information you put on an online business directory is your prerogative, your profile must never lack a business name (N), Physical address (A), phone number (P), and website link (W).
An online business profile lacking the basics (NAPW) is a useless resource because it fails to answer basic consumer questions. Rather than typing a query on your profile listing hoping for an answer, potential consumers using local SERPS will move on to the following search result.
Therefore, ensure updated NAPW information appears on your online business listing profile. Also, the NAPW should be consistent across all your profiles, inspiring confidence in potential consumers that they are dealing with the same business, regardless of the platform or device operating system they use.
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No Customer Reviews and Unresolved Negative Reviews
Customer reviews are invaluable in local SEO because search engine bots interpret their presence to mean that you are offering valuable products or services to consumers within your locality. Second, customer reviews facilitate social proof, and social proof informs consumer decisions.
The social proof theory builds on the premise that people tend to look to peers for answers in situations whereby they feel uncertain about how to behave or the ideal course of action to take.
Procuring goods or services online is one such situation whereby consumers look to fellow consumers by reading reviews to make an informed purchase.
According to one digital and content marketing industry report, 97% of consumers check online reviews to get additional insight before purchasing a product or procuring services.
The report also showed that 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as friends’ word-of-mouth product and service recommendations.
Therefore, overlooking a lack of reviews on your business’s website or online directory profiles is a crucial mistake likely to cost you high-quality organic leads.
Businesses looking to improve their local SEO rankings can target and request satisfied consumers to post reviews across various digital platforms, especially on the business’s website and online directory profile.
Alternatively, they can incentivize consumers to post positive reviews through incentives like loyalty program points, free samples, or percentage discounts.
However, business reviews are not always positive, but how a business reacts to negative reviews matters. Positive and negative reviews voice consumer sentiments and are invaluable decision-making tools.
Therefore, local SEO efforts benefit when the business owner resolves negative reviews rather than ignoring them as a resolution portrays the brand as customer-centric and inspires consumer trust.
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Poor User Interface Optimization
User experience is the second critical SEO pillar crucial to a successful and sustainable local SEO strategy. Consumers prioritize an effortless online shopping experience, so optimizing your business’s website to meet this need is paramount.
Basic user interface optimization begins with a simple website design; complicated designs where consumers struggle to find information or complete an order are off-putting.
The inference should also facilitate navigability. Ensure your business’s website has a prominently placed navigation featuring comprehensive product or service categories that answer all consumer questions.
Besides product categories, other helpful resources or interactive content improve the consumer experience.
Website interactive content examples include quizzes, games, infographics, image slides, tools and calculators, and polls and surveys. However, only settle on two or three tools appropriate for your line of business.
Third, website aesthetics, including theme colors, fonts, overall layout, and action button placements, contribute to the overall user experience. Ensure consistency in aesthetics so that your business is easily identifiable.
Fourth, although user data is essential, minimize personal data collection forms to necessary information because consumers value their privacy. Lastly, one statistical report showed that mobile devices account for 58.99% of global internet traffic.
Therefore, optimize your business’s website and online resources for the mobile view because failing to do so will cost you invaluable organic leads.
Best local SEO companies can take practical steps to optimize mobile websites, including increasing website responsiveness and speed on mobile devices and minimizing pop-ups.
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Poor Content marketing examples
Content is king, and poor content optimization hampers local SEO efforts. Therefore, ensure a robust content marketing strategy to improve your business’s local SERPs ranking.
Begin by creating compelling content, like a blog post, infographics, and video content, with a value proposition for your audience. However, the content should feature local citations and keywords to help your website rank better on local SERPs.
Long Tail keywords are better for a clearly defined audience because they are easy to localize; however, the keywords should appear naturally, and appointed copywriters should avoid keyword stuffing.
Second, website content on all landing pages should feature on-page SEO best practices. SEO experts addressing SEO FAQ posit that on-page SEO best practices features for local SEO include geotags, localized meta tags, meta descriptions, title tags, local URL optimization, and H1 and H2 headings.
The content marketing strategy should have a clear focus aligning with the local SEO goal. Also, post relevant, localized content regularly because search engines prioritize updated content.
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Poor Link Optimization
Besides keywords and content, SEO link building strategies are a pivotal part of any SEO pillar. Internal website links allow search engine web crawlers to understand your business website’s structure and hierarchy, improving your user experience ranking.
Moreover, internal website link structure optimization enables you to prioritize pages by assigning more internal links to the most relevant pages.
On the other hand, external website links or backlinks are links from an external source leading to an anchor text or other linkable assets, like tools, and calculators, on your website.
Backlinks establish your business as an authority within the targeted market niche, such as a geographical radius, improving your SERP results ranking.
Understanding link building in SEO for local helps you generate an internal and external link building strategy to raise your ranking on local SERPs.
While internal linking is straightforward, backlinking is more complex, and some spammy link building techniques like outreach, broken link building, and broken link reclamation require negotiations with third parties.
Therefore, you may want to consult an expert who understands what is SEO link building and is familiar with local SEO link building for agencies. As a result, adhering to a successful content marketing strategies and link building campaign can work wonders in any SEO services.
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Poor Technical SEO
Technical SEO encompasses the best practices to make your website crawlable for search engine bots. Search engine bots crawl or move from webpage to webpage, looking for relevant content from authoritative sources to include in search engine rankings for specific search queries.
Off-page technical aspects that hamper a website’s crawlability include a poor information structure hierarchy, server errors, redirects, unsupported scripts, outdated site maps, duplicate pages, and slow page load time.
However, you can use technical crawlability and indexability tools to conduct a technical SEO audit and fix the above errors. A digital solutions provider can help determine robust content channels and guest posts to eliminate poor technical methods.
This promotes link earning, building links, creating content that ranks, acquiring links, and generating more organic traffic.
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Inactive Social Media Pages
Social media pages do not directly affect SEO or SERPs ranking. However, social media activity inadvertently contributes to your business’s organic searches and increased website traffic.
Moreover, posting on social media improves your content strategy and reach, and shareable content can lead to backlink generation. Consequently, such a social media strategy can dominate marketing tactics, generate links, and build links on target web pages.
Conclusion
Although local SEO plays an invaluable role in marketing, a successful local SEO strategy requires informed decision-making.
Therefore, consult a local SEO expert or content marketing institute or use available online local SEO tool for auditing your local SEO strategy and eliminating the above local SEO mistakes.
