If you are running your own website and looking to optimise your local SEO presence, you should be considering conducting a website audit. Audits can help you to ascertain the quality of your SEO provider and identify key elements that might be wrong with your current site and its layout. They can also assist you in identifying what might need to be tackled first to improve your SEO capability; for example, quick wins such as meta-data changes would come ahead of longer-term link strategies. Here we outline some hints and tips for your own local SEO audit.
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1) Check your on-page optimisation
This is to check whether your meta data contains appropriate geo-modified keywords. If you don’t have the right information in your meta description, tag and header, it is hard to even start with ranking. Use a site such as Screaming Frog or simply manually look at the source code. Ideally you want a title with less than 55 characters and a description with less than 155 characters, and you must ensure your title tag includes relevant keywords and is geo-modified to maximise your local SEO.
You should also look at your duplicate content – many sites often simply duplicate content without thinking about the SEO consequences. Sites such as Copyscape or Siteliner can assist you. Remember that any more than 20-30% duplicate content is considered an issue.
Finally, think about contact details. It is hard to feature in local searches if these are not up to date. Make sure they are listed site-wide.
2) Consider your off-page optimisation
Firstly, are you a Google+ Verified business? If not, it will make your local efforts much harder. A quick way to check is to use allintext:examplesite.com site:plus.google.com.
Next look at your citations – the more you have, the higher you will rank locally. You can use a local citation checker – the higher the score, the higher the local visibility.
If this is a little overwhelming, consider how a company specialising in Gloucester SEO on sites such as digi-tel.co.uk/ can help you in developing your local SEO strategy.
Enhancing your local SEO presence really isn’t difficult. It takes a little time and patience, but you could be top of the local listings in no time and reaping the rewards.