Turning Your Keyword Research Into A Local Lead Generating Machine!
Lets face it, you most likely couldn’t care for having a website.
As a business owner what you actually want are the leads & phone calls from ready to buy customers.
In this post I’m going to walk you through how to turn your local SEO Keyword research into the perfect site structure, tuned for maximum visibility in Search.
If you haven’t yet downloaded my book “The Definitive Guide To Local SEO in 2020” please do so now…
Let’s dive straight in:-
In the keyword research spreadsheet that comes with my book there are 4 tabs:
- Industry
- Service
- Problem
- Geographical
As we create the structure for your lead generation machine we use data from three of the four tabs, Industry, Service & Geographical.
Your problem based research is what you use to create blog content based on later in your campaign..
The key principles to keep in mind throughout this process are:
- Google ranks web pages, not websites.
- Each page has a tightly themed set of keywords
- Each service & town has its own page
- Depending on the size of the area you serve you also utilize county pages
Now create a new tab in your spreadsheet titled “Site Structure” this is where you will build out your site plan like a professional SEO would – this becomes the roadmap for building your new website or optimizing your existing one to its maximum potential.
Your Site Structure tab needs the following column headings:
- URL
- Main Target
- Page Title
- Meta Description
- Meta Keywords
- H1
Those are the most important elements of your pages in terms of optimization.
Laying the spreadsheet out like this gives you a birds eye view of each page – allowing you to ensure initial optimization for the widest range of keywords on each page.
What information goes in which column?
- URL – The web address of the specific page,
- Main Target – This is where you place industry, service and geographical target keywords
- Page Title – The page title tag
- Meta Description – Your page meta description
- Meta Keywords – Your meta Keywords
- H1 – Your page title
The information you enter into these fields need to take into account information from your research.
I find the best order to complete this is by starting with the Main Target – pull those keywords into your spreadsheet from your research first.
Start with your main keyword first, followed by your individual services and then the key area names that you serve.
Add in About & Contact as you will also need these pages.
Now create the perfect keyword optimized URL for each. Use the individual words of the keywords separated with hyphens as shown in this image.
Now using your keywords complete the rest of the fields for each page.
Home Page Example
URL –
LiverpoolAccountant.co.uk
Main Target –
Accountant Liverpool
Our initial seed keyword.
Page Title –
Liverpool’s Accountancy Firm – Accountants You Can Trust!
Meta Description –
Need An Accountant In Liverpool With Your Best Interests At Heart? We are One of The Accounting Firms That You Can Rely On.
Meta Keywords –
accountants liverpool, accountancy firms liverpool, Liverpool accounting
H1 –
Finally, A Liverpool Based Accountant Who Works Hard To Save You Money!
A Service Page Example
Main Target –
Limited Company Accounting
The keyword with the highest search volume for that service.
URL –
LiverpoolAccountant.co.uk/limited-company-accounting
Main target keyword hyphen separated.
Page Title –
Limited Company Accountant – Accounting For Liverpool’s Businesses
Including variations of the keyword (accounting)
Meta Description –
Do you need the best account for your limited company accounting? Our ltd company service includes bookkeeping & filing returns. Call Today 01234 567891
Including words from the most searched phrases.
Meta Keywords –
Limited Company Accounting, limited company accounts, ltd company accounts
The top 3 keywords for this service, by search volume.
H1 –
Your Complete Limited Company Accounting Service – Let us take the stress out of your accounting!
Written to entice the user, while including the main keyword.
An Area Page Example
Main Target –
Bootle
An area targeted by this fictional firm
URL –
LiverpoolAccountant.co.uk/bootle
Target area name for page
Page Title –
Bootle Limited Company Accounting Services & Probate Accountants
Include the location along with your main services
Meta Description –
Bootle Accountants you can trust, providing limited company accounts, probate accounting and bookkeeping services to local businesses. Can we help your business?
Including words from your most searched phrases of your service along with the town name.
Meta Keywords –
Bootle Accountants, Bootle Limited Company Accounting, Bookkeeping Bootle
Include the area name along with your main services
H1 –
Business Owners In Bootle Love Our Accountancy Services, Let Us Show You Why!
Including the town and the main keyword but written to entice the reader to want to stay on your website and find out how you can help them.
An explanation behind writing the individual elements.
In Your keyword research you should have a cluster of keywords for each of your services.
Prioritize the use of the individual words from the keyphrases with the highest search volume, without being spammy or repetitive.
Each element should be written to include keywords but for user experience, there is no point ranking number one on Google, attracting lots of your target customers and then immediately losing them because your website does not entice them.
URL – Include the main keyphrase, with hyphens separating words.
Page Title – This appears in big blue text on the Google search results, include main keywords but write to entice the click from the user. Remember they have over 10 results to choose from!
Meta Description – The description appears below the page title in the search results, including keywords here but write to attract clicks. Questions work great to attract clicks!
Meta Keywords – Include your 3-5 most searched for keyphrases from your research separated with commas.
H1 – Write to sell your services to the end user, draw them into your content but include another variation of your keyword.
Optimizing Your Site Structure.
Site structure is extremely important when it comes to optimizing your website for more than a handful of services, especially if you are serving multiple locations.
The links that create the structure of your website pass authority from one page to another, the more links a page has from other pages the more authority it will collect internally from your own website.
This is the reason we optimize the site structure in SEO.
In Local SEO you will want to link your key service pages and to the top level pages of your area page hierarchy from every page of your website using your navigation, sidebar and footer navigation links wisely.
Every page that is added to your website will be building authority to all of these pages when linked in this manner.
Site structure for multiple location SEO is covered in extreme detail inside my book, download it now today for a comprehensive explanation of how your site should be structured.
The key points are:
- No page should be more than three link clicks from your home page
- Use a hierarchy of area pages if you serve more than a handful of towns.
Content Internal Linking Structure
This linking structure is separate from the sitewide linking structure as the links are created within the content of the pages as opposed to in the site structure
1. Your Home Page Links should link to your Service Pages & Top Level Area
Pages
2. Your individual Service Pages also each link to all of your Top Level Area Pages
3. Your Top Level Area Pages each link to the relevant 2nd Tier Area Pages
4. Your 2nd Tier Area Pages each link to the relevant 3rd Tier Area Pages
5. Blog Posts Link to relevant Service Pages & Location pages to support the content enforcing relevance
Hopefully this blog post has helped you to understand how to plan your website, optimize internal linking and do local SEO for multiple locations.