Launchmark Guest Writer Series

Best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy for Your Local Shop

A few simple, no-cost steps to get your local business set up for online search success with our guest SEO expert, Sam Lloyd.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the ability to optimize your website to rank in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). A SERP you are likely familiar with is Google. SEO is organic or unpaid, meaning you do not invest advertising or marketing dollars into the process, aside from outsourcing the work, if needed. A proper SEO strategy centers around setting up the right on-page SEO elements with valuable content. We’ll explore how to jumpstart your local shop’s search engine optimization strategy.

The first step in any successful search engine optimization strategy is to perform your keyword research and understand your competitors’ online strategies. If you use Google as your search engine, you can check out Google’s Keyword Planner, a free tool to look up and build your list of keywords. Google Keyword Planner allows you to explore keywords of your choice or related to a domain name. Looking to explore what keywords are popular in a specific location or during a certain time span? Google Keyword Planner allows you to sort through your keyword search by geography as well as time period.. You can see the monthly search volume range of your target keywords and phrases as well as the competition for advertising on those keywords. For a successful keyword strategy, you want to pick the keywords with the highest search volume per lowest competition rating.

“For a successful keyword strategy, you want to pick the keywords with the highest search volume per lowest competition rating.”

Don’t be afraid to research your competitors or similar shops to create a proper SEO strategy! A quick Google search into your store’s product category or industry can help you understand what similar shops are doing and figure out what’s working for them. Read over the blog topics competitors or similar businesses write about, their best-selling products, and how they structure their website. While your shop will have its own strategy, plans, and business model that don’t necessarily reflect your competitors’, researching them can provide some perspective into the industry and customer trends overall.

Set your website pages up for success in on-page SEO

Some important things to consider when creating content on your website, with regards to on-page SEO, (SEO happening on your website pages) is:

• Title tag/meta title: Your webpage’s title, you’d see this in your browser tab for example.
• Meta description: Defines what the webpage is about and it’s displayed in SERPs. Keep it around 130–160 characters.
• Link name/slug: The name of your links. Keep it under 2000 characters.
• H tags: The tags for your headers on your webpages. They rank from H1-H6 with H1 being the most important title to H6 being the least important. You don’t need to use all on a page however subheadings are great for organizing content.
• Content: Quality of content is key. Make sure it answers users’ search queries.
• Image names and alt tags: Name your images according to what is happening in the image and keep it around 5 words. Alt tags are for screen readers or for when the image doesn’t load so, following the same principle, tell the user what the image is about.

On each page of your website, including blog pages, do not forget to take these items into consideration. Don’t repeat the same meta title and description on every page of your website — customize them for each page so they reflect the content and topic of each page of your website.

Besides being important for SEO, having all these items implemented the right way creates a better user experience. When your content is properly labeled in Google search results and provides a title and description that highlights what the article or webpage is about, this is helpful for the user. The user who really needs your content, and is likely to read it, will click.

How to build an SEO-driven content strategy for website and blog pages

Let’s explore how you can apply the above learnings for how to structure your website’s SEO-driven content strategy.

Target the overall theme of your local shop

When you’re creating your SEO strategy, think of the overall theme of your shop. If your store sells natural beauty products to the American market, you want to start at this point. You want to know what the United States is searching for in the past year (or recently) with regards to natural beauty. You can easily do this on Google Keyword Planner and determine the best keywords to use.

Not only will you want to target your product offerings around high search volume and low competition terms but you’ll want to target your website’s content around them too. Craft blog content and website content that properly addresses those chosen keywords.

Using Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends can help you come up with endless ideas for blog content.

Aside from having your content rank for the keywords, you want to be sure you’re actually accomplishing someone’s search goals. If your customer is interested in natural beauty and is searching for Do-It-Yourself beauty recipes, don’t write a blog that links them to products to buy. Provide recipes that help them with a solution. Be sure your blog content answers the popular search queries well and in-depth. Provide real value to your audience to become the trusted, go-to source in whichever industry you are in. This establishes your brand as a reliable place to go and builds a relationship with your customer, or potential customer, over time. Create content people will want to read, share, and link out to form their own content rather than thinking only of ranking.

Target the products your local shop offers

Your products are the main reason you have a shop and are the top source of revenue for your business. It’s important that you pay attention to which products are searched for most within your shop and your industry. More important is to discover which search terms your target audience is using to find your products. Back to our natural beauty shop example. If your customers are looking for plant-based nail polish, make sure you understand how the customer searches for that product, as they may use other terms.

To structure your product pages properly, be sure to apply the keywords your customers commonly use to find your products. Make sure to do your products justice by providing each of them an individual page and enough content about the product on the page. Aside from having a title tag and meta description that is specific to the product on the page, your products’ website pages should have a proper title, a small description about the product, and properly labeled images so that each product’s page is well-structured for SEO. Further, this will help a customer who is searching for a product find your product page off of a search engine, rather than having to look for your store or industry first.

Another great opportunity is to write a blog post about each product — especially when you launch new ones. Take this opportunity to go in-depth about your product, why you offer it, why customers will love it, and the value or benefits of the specific product. This provides an additional opportunity to rank for product-specific searches and provides more information to a customer who is doing serious research in their buying decision journey.

Target the location of your local shop

As a local business in your city or town, you know how important it is to reach local customers. Local shopping has become increasingly important to consumers in the past year, and online shopping is often the only way shoppers can discover new stores while the pandemic continues. Invest in your local search optimization to attract new customers to your business.

Even if in-store shopping has slowed or ground to a halt in your area, you should still set your brick-and-mortar (or home-based business) up on Google My Business to appear in “near me” or map searches. It’s free to be on Google My Business. Continue to update that content regularly with images and offerings. Plus, customers who shop online can still leave reviews, which is great for local business searches. Be sure to add your shop’s address on your social media pages and website, too.

Finally, create a page that describes your storefront and location. If you have a physical location, having a fun page that shows pictures or allows customers to take a virtual or video tour of your beautiful natural beauty shop in, let’s say, New York, helps boost interactivity and engagement. Plus, an explanation of why you chose New York to be your business’s headquarters, why New York is a great place for a natural beauty shop, and show what New York customers are looking for is a creative way to target your location combined with your store and product offerings. Remember to think of your link name, title tag, meta description, and other on-page SEO components to target your location for these types of pages.

Summarizing local store’s on-page SEO strategy

This jumping-off point for your local shop’s search engine optimization strategy will provide a good base to continue from. Remember to take into consideration every aspect of your website’s on-page SEO when creating any page. Take advantage of free tools offered by Google (should that be your chosen search engine), such as Keyword Planner, Trends, and Google My Business. Finally, be sure your content, whether it’s blog, product, or website pages, targets popular industry, product, and location searches by your target market. Keep publishing content regularly and engaging with your audience!

Author bio:

Samantha Lloyd is the co-founder and CEO of Metaranx. Metaranx is the local shopping platform making it easy for you to find and shop local stores with Shopify sites in Toronto. She is a digital marketer with specific expertise in SEO. Samantha aims to help local shops in her city, and around the world, to succeed online!