This is how our local SEO game works

Local SEO helps companies reach audiences nearby who are searching for services or products you offer. This involves a suite of strategies, including a complete Google My Business listing and SEO-optimised web content targeted at location-specific keywords.

Google My Business (GMB) is an essential local SEO tool for helping businesses and corporations of all sizes and scales obtain better recognition across Google’s various platforms and websites. First introduced by Google in 2014, GMB allows your company to add pertinent information including physical addresses, opening hours, contact information, reviews, and pictures of your premises to a public profile. Other relevant information can also be added such as menus for restaurants, or price lists for services offered.

Your GMB profile appears when users search for your company’s name on Google or any Google platform (such as Google Chrome or Google Maps) and it might even be the first impression they have of your business. Maintaining a comprehensive and up-to-date GMB profile not only helps boost your website ranks on Google’s search engine results page, but also enhances your business credibility with Google’s algorithm. This improves your company’s online reputation in the long run, making it more likely that users will organically see and interact with your website in their search results.

If you have a physical store, an updated GMB profile is also the first step to helping users locate, identify, and visit your premises. With the ubiquity of Google Maps in our smartphones and mobile devices today, many users go straight into the application to search for a business or location rather than into their browser. An estimated 50% of users who search for a local business through their smartphone will visit the location within a day – just think about the foot traffic you could be getting!

Keywords are the building block of any good SEO or PPC marketing strategy. They tell you what products and services people are already looking for, and picking the right target keywords to focus on for your own campaigns can help ensure your website is being shown to the exact audience you’re trying to reach. When used in conjunction with other SEO strategies such as link building, they can be a powerful way to drive web traffic directly to your website.

Keywords can be general or specific depending on the needs of your business. Within a local SEO approach, location-specific keyword phrases are used to ensure that users located near your company’s outlet will be able to see it first. Phrases such as “in Singapore”, “near me”, “nearby”, or “near [place]” are common in keywords used for local SEO, and can be identified using a variety of keyword research tools.

Link building is an off-page SEO strategy, and refers to the process of acquiring high-quality hyperlinks on other websites that direct back to your own. This informs search engine algorithms of the quality and reputation of your website, enabling them to understand your website and its contents better.

Link building for local SEO entails identifying and acquiring backlinks from relevant local sources to drive local referral traffic to your website. This not only establishes your business or company as a reliable destination for specific products and services, but can also help you build a local community to help further your own strategic goals.

On-page SEO and local SEO can sometimes be 2 sides of the same coin! The fundamental best practices for both types of SEO are similar, but local SEO includes keyword phrases and other strategies that specifically target location-based audiences. To maximise your reach with a potential audience, it is recommended to combine on-page and local SEO tactics to start building a comprehensive search engine marketing (SEM) strategy.

Both local SEO and PPC are great digital marketing techniques, but they take different approaches to help you achieve your goals. Local SEO revolves around using locally relevant location-specific keywords to direct organic traffic to your website, and connect you to users in the area who are searching for products and services offered by your company.

In comparison, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns are paid traffic, such as Google Ads, that will enable your website to appear at the top and bottom of SERPs. This helps you immediately reach consumers who are already searching for products or services related to your company, ensuring you can drive massive traffic to your website and generate new sales leads.

One way to optimise your local SEO strategy is to combine PPC and SEO content marketing using the right target keywords. This lets you bring in immediate leads using PPC while also building up your website’s local reputation and domain authority in the long-term. Over a period of time, this can help boost your overall brand identity and make your website a go-to resource for users in your area.

eCommerce SEO utilises SEO best practices specifically for brands that are targeting or focusing on boosting their online sales. While SEO best practices (whether for on-site, international, or local SEO) can be applied to any company, eCommerce websites have their own unique needs and goals that may require a more specialised touch. With more and more eCommerce platforms emerging, it’s easier than ever for anyone to set up their own eCommerce business – which means the competition to grab users’ attention is tougher than ever before. As Singapore’s top full-suite digital marketing agency, our Digital Marketing Specialists are attuned to the intricacies of excelling at both local SEO and eCommerce SEO and can provide you with tailored suggestions to boost your competitive edge.

Content marketing has quickly emerged as one of the best ways to reach out to new and old audiences alike. Quality content marketing helps you cut through the noise and reach new customers, building your brand reputation and website authority over time. In Singapore, content marketing has become a key strategy to building up your local SEO reach. Our content marketing specialists are able to deliver premium content writing that takes local and cultural cues into consideration, and helps you gain customers’ attention away from other local competitors.

Patience is the key to any type of SEO strategy, be it local or global. Many factors can contribute to the time it takes for your website to rank above local competitors, including the age of your website, the keyword difficulty of localised target keywords, and on-site and off-site implementations. At First Page, we know just how competitive the local market is – for just about any business in any sector! As a leading full-suite digital marketing agency, we monitor your site’s progress once all implementations are completed, and constantly fine-tune everything from keywords to content strategy to ensure that your local SEO strategy is on the road to success.

A comprehensive SEO strategy is key to helping your business grow – but having dedicated local SEO practices in place ensures that your business is growing and reaching the right audiences here in Singapore. Improving your local SEO capabilities ensures that your company appears at the right place and right time for interested users – allowing you to corner an even greater share of a competitive market.

In terms of how to improve local SEO results, having an optimised website is essential, though it’s not merely enough when securing a place in the local pack. As soon as you enter a local search such as “bakery near me” or “sushi near me”, the outlined box that Google returns is otherwise known as a ‘local search pack’. A business that appears within this pack is in a superior position with maximum exposure, increased traffic and of course, is set to engage nearby leads just waiting to make a purchase!

As part of an effective local SEO campaign, we utilise Google My Business (GMB) as a primary tool in best displaying your business across various search engine results. At First Page, we keep you ahead of the monumental 44% of businesses who haven’t secured a GMB listing – providing you with an instant edge over the competition!

Online users today demonstrate clear intent-driven search behaviour when they need to purchase a product or use a service. Moreover, 78% of all mobile searches carried out within a local proximity convert successfully. This makes local SEO an important strategy for businesses, especially for brick-and-mortar enterprises, for whom store visits and purchases are a critical source of revenue.

Any business that wants to up their competitive edge against other local businesses should consider adding local SEO into their digital marketing strategy. Though Singapore might be a relatively small market compared to our regional neighbours, local entrepreneurs and business owners will be the first to tell you that their respective industries are highly competitive, and growing with new competitors every day!

From Youtube ads to social media marketing, Singaporean companies are constantly experimenting with new ways to stand out from the crowd. Ensure that your company has what it takes to succeed with a solid local SEO strategy that draws relevant and interested users right to your website or stores.

Our local SEO process includes several key steps:

• Perform a website audit and provide recommendations
• Check core website vitals
• Enhance your page speed
• Optimise your content using localised and/or location-specific keywords
• Build backlinks

The specifics of any SEO strategy varies from company to company, but our dedicated Digital Marketing Specialists will be able to advise you on the best practices that suit your business needs.

It does not take a penny to build up the health of your local SEO and rank on local search results as compared to paid search. However, it does help to engage a digital marketing partner to guide you with your strategy, especially if you are not well-versed with the technical aspects of the search engines. With First Page, you can rest assured that your campaign will make use of the best practices, with continued effects on search long after your project ends with us.

There are several key things to keep in mind when choosing the best agency to pursue your local SEO strategy with:

• How ethical and effective their SEO tactics are
• How they assess and respond to your business goals
• Their reviews from trusted individuals
• How regularly and robustly they track your campaign progress against timelines
• How well you can communicate and work with your assigned marketing specialist

Just reach out to us! One of our Digital Strategists will help to assess your business needs and requirements to recommend a suitable local SEO strategy to help you get ahead of the competition. As Singapore’s #1 full-suite digital marketing agency, First Page is dedicated to using sustainable SEO practices to help you build your company’s local presence in the long-term – even after your contract with us ends.

More traffic, more leads and more sales – it’s all in the works. At First Page, our local SEO specialist team provides you with a vigorous campaign tailor-made to cater to the specific placement of your individual business. We also focus on how to best optimise local SEO for ranking your business higher and higher across search engine results within a set region.

Google has fast become the first point of contact for innumerable users in need of speedy results regarding a query, product or service. With local SEO from our First Page agency in Singapore, you can keep your company eye on the prize as we strive to best showcase your business across platforms. Don’t just take our word for it, brace yourself for conversion rates and experience why local SEO is just so valuable.