Some people might think SEO is easy – you find what works and wash, rinse and repeat it on every website you work on. But only if it were that easy – SEO based on the motto “standard” does not work. We see time and time again that some strategies work very well in certain industries and markets, but terrible in others. Here are just a few examples of some local SEO strategies.

Optimization of the service area pages

Service area pages work very well for some industries. For example, electricians get a lot of activity from the “Electrician” keywords. With service area pages you can increase your reach. They are also the keywords with the highest conversion rate.

shot distance

For some websites, it works well to examine which keywords are in the “sensation range” (positions 2-9) and optimize for those keywords. This works when clients have a lot of great content but bad SEO work. We often find that this can produce better and faster results than adding new content. Here is an example:

Optimization for featured snippets

We see that optimizing for feature snippets works very well for criminal defense attorneys, as many keywords don’t have local packages but feature snippets instead. So the optimization to get this featured snippet works well. The downside of this strategy is that the conversion rate is low, so you need a lot of volume to get conversions.

Adding new content

Sometimes adding new content works really well, sometimes it doesn’t. The great thing about SEO is that the longer you have been involved with an industry and the more companies you have in that industry, the better you can track and know what types of content are doing well. We’ve been working very hard over the past year creating playbooks for each industry. So when we land a new client in this industry, we can immediately start implementing strategies that we know work well and aren’t overused by other SEOs.

TL;DR

• There are many strategies in the local SEO world. What works for one industry may not work for another. What works for one site may not work for another.
• When optimizing a new website, try one strategy – see how it works, then switch and try another. Determine what works best. Create a playbook for long-term use.
• Always measure the impact of your work.