Five "Local Search" Items to Fix NOW on Your Body Shop Website for 2015
We are days away from saying goodbye to another year and ushering in 2015. One internet marketing factor that has drastically shifted in the favor of auto body shops is Goggle's Local Search Results algorithm change, called Pigeon. As shops begin eagerly setting up their 2015 marketing plans, and focusing on how to improve their presence online, some business may not know where to start.
To lend a helping hand, here are some well-established strategies for increased search engine ranking for 2015. These strategies will help give local marketers, like you and your body shop, more insight into which ranking factors matter the most.The best thing you can do for Local Search success in 2015 is to take all the energy you put into trying to fool Google, and instead use that energy to make your site better.
Take a long, hard look at your site and compare it to your competitors’ sites. What can you do to be better? You know that your potential customers will be looking at multiple sites, so make your site the best in your line of business. When doing this, make sure you’re avoiding these common pitfalls – they’re all basic, but we still see far too many sites tripping up on these:
1. No Home Page Content.
Your customers (and search engines) need to know what you’re all about. Even though body shop websites have matured to the digital age, and more shop owners are becoming aware of how much door traffic is related to website traffic, most auto body shop websites are really thin on web copy.
If your home page has a slider/banner and just a few sentences, you need to add more useful content there immediately. If you are at a loss for what to write, farm out this task to a local ad agency who often have copywriters on staff. This is a one time, minimal investment that will pay off every single day for your body shop.
2. Only A Few Sentences On A Page.
Your customers (and search engines) are checking your website for useful, relevant information. If you offer a product or service, don’t just say, “We sell XYZ; call us for more information!” Today’s shoppers want immediate information, so you need to pack every page with useful content.
3. Spamming Keywords.
Far too many websites rely on this outdated tactic. You’re not going to rank well everywhere in your state simply because you listed out 100 cities, separated by commas on your home page. Does that huge list of cities provide useful information for customers? No. Do you actually get customers from 200, 300, or 500 miles away? Of course not. Does it help you rank in Google? Definitely not. Get rid of the junk and populate your site with relevant, informative content instead.
4. Awful Title Tags.
You’ve got about 500 pixels of width for your title tags; anything longer will be condensed when it’s displayed in search results. The title tag should summarize the page – it shouldn’t be a huge chunk of keywords you’re trying to rank for. Instead, put your primary keyword phrase at the beginning and your business name at the end. If you’ve got 100 keywords stuffed into your title tag, you just look desperate.
5. Forgetting Your Local Optimization
With on-site signals now carrying so much weight, it’s more important than ever to have your local optimization ducks in a row. It won’t do you any good to bang out a ton of citations if your site doesn’t include the local signals that Google expects it to have.
CONCLUSION
If your business isn’t showing up in local searches, you’re missing out on potential customers every single day, while your competitors who are optimized for local search have a much higher competitive advantage. Optimizing for local search isn’t rocket science, but it takes time and effort to make sure you’re following best practices in each of the key areas we discussed.
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