An inside look at when SEO goes right

The report didn’t look good. A leading regional retailer was failing to show up in local searches, and they wanted to see improvements fast. So how did we get them to consistently rank at the top? There was no SEO black magic. We simply put a plan in place that worked. Here’s how:

Defining A Keyword/Content Strategy

A common mistake in SEO is trying to rank for too many keywords at once. Bringing focus to content creation makes you more effective at moving the needle. For this client, we analyzed current traffic as well as competitor websites. We developed of a keyword list with a dozen high-volume search phrases. Then, we made targeted and consistent updates to on-page content and meta data across the client’s website.

Thinking Locally

Our keyword list included several “near me” searches as well as phrases with the local town name. We added website content to clearly identify the location of the business, updated dozens of online directories, and ensured the Google My Business profile was as strong as it could be.

Local search results are highly dependent on the specific location of the user. To gain insight into our efforts, we produced a heatmap showing search rankings from all surrounding neighborhoods.

During this process, we also identified a competitor with two Google My Business profiles. (Having duplicate profiles is against Google policy as it allowed them to claim two places in the map listing.) The duplicate listing was successfully removed, shifting the map results in favor of our client.

Improving Technical SEO

Google values good user experience. We audited the site to make sure it was running as smoothly as possible. Schema was added to help Google categorize the content. And we took steps to minimize load times, ensuring all images were converted to the smallest file format possible.

Seeing Results

While we appreciated our client’s desire for fast results, SEO requires a long-term approach. We gave our strategy time to work and avoided making adjustments too soon. Over 4 months, the keywords on our list moved from an average search position of 85 to 2. The client is dominant in local map results and rises to the top for many regional searches. We continue to track the primary keywords to protect the gains we made, while strategically adding new keywords and supporting website content.