March 10, 2022 • 7 min read

Geo-Targeting With SEO: Everything Businesses Need to Know

Here’s a fun fact: there are approximately 1.2 billion websites in the world right now. What’s more, the majority of those websites are competing for the most prime marketing real estate there is: search engine presence.

To say the competition is high is an understatement. So, how can you beat it and ensure your website reaches — and stays at — the top?

Why does your business need geo-targeted SEO?

Every business with an online presence — which is almost all businesses, these days — needs to have their website show up in search results. And local businesses are no exception.

If you’re visiting a new city (let’s say Greenville, SC for fun) and you’re craving some pizza, you’re going to pull out your smartphone and search “pizza in Greenville, SC” or “pizza near me.” Then you’ll immediately be fed with a list of nearby restaurants serving up hot slices.

But whether you’re a pizza restaurant, healthcare organization, or financial institution, how do you ensure that your business shows up in those search results, let alone on the first one or two pages? The answer is geo-targeted search engine optimization (SEO).

What is geo-targeted SEO?

Geo-targeted SEO, also called location-based SEO, is an SEO strategy that focuses on specific geographic areas that your business wants to target. This area can be as small as a city or as large as a country.

To support this strategy, you might partner with an experienced digital marketing firm that offers SEO services in Greenville or wherever you’re located. But if you’re looking to take a few initial steps yourself to get the ball rolling, here are a few ways you can create a geo-targeting SEO strategy.

A graphic illustrating a world map with hands holding smart devices and pointing at pins

How to create a geo-targeted SEO strategy

1. Conduct keyword research

Conducting local SEO keyword research is foundational for any geographic SEO strategy. When it comes to geo-targeting for SEO, you’ll first want to begin by researching and identifying keywords that include the name of the location you are targeting. This could be your city, suburb, county or even neighborhood, but usually not as zoomed out as your state.

Other great ways to identify location-based keywords include:

Analyzing your local or regional competitors
Considering the dialect of the area you are targeting (how a user in Canada searches for something may be very different than how a user in Florida searches for it)
Discovering regional trends

2. Try Google Trends research

Speaking of trends, they can vary widely based on a user’s location. Age, income, interests, needs, and even dialect should all be considered when creating a geo-targeted SEO strategy.

Google Trends, a great free tool, will help identify top user queries and rising search topics in cities, states, and countries. These can help a business identify the relevance and popularity that their goods and services have within a set location.

3. Perform competitive research

If you want to stay ahead of the pack with location-based SEO, it’s important to do some competitive research too.

Start off by identifying similar businesses in your target area. Research these businesses by conducting competitor keyword gap research and analyzing their domain using an online tool such as Semrush. You can also visit these websites “in person” to gather ideas for terminology, trends, popular services, and more.

4. Create geo-specific pages and/or content

Creating pages on your website that are specifically geared toward each of the locations you are targeting can be a massive help in amping up your geo-targeted search presence.

Having an entire web page dedicated to a specific location allows you ample space to include geo-targeted keywords, images, external links to location-specific resources, statistics, and whatever else you may want to include to reach your audience.

When going this route, ensure that the name of the location is in the URL slug and that you include location-specific keywords in the meta and copy of the page. If you are creating multiple pages for multiple different locations, it’s best practice among web design agencies to create unique, geo-targeted content for each location using the keywords, trends, and topics you’ve identified.

5. Optimize images for the location

Let’s say you’re targeting homeowners in Florida in an effort to sell them landscaping supplies. It wouldn’t make much sense to lead them to a page that shows images of snowy mountains. Visual stimuli can play a major role in a user’s connection with a brand, and you want your users to feel that your brand “gets” them.

So, you’ll want to ensure that the images featured on location-specific SEO pages match up with the location itself. For SEO purposes and ADA compliance, it’s also a great tactic to optimize these images by adding geo-targeted alt-tags and titles.

6. Optimize your Google Business Profile

Your business needs to have a physical presence in the location you’re targeting to support this method of SEO optimization. In recent years, Google has emphasized delivering local search results to a user when applicable to their query. Having a Google Business Profile not only helps your site’s authority, but can also drive traffic to that site, plus build brand awareness.

Your Google Business Profile should include the following to be optimized for geo-targeted searches:

The location/service area should include your location and any surrounding areas in which you do business
An address and phone number
Photos of your business
A description that includes at least one or two geo-targeted keywords

An iPhone screen showing local search engine results

Additional location-based SEO tips

Experiment with visual elements

Work to understand the colors and the layouts that will work well with your users belonging to different locations. Even after you find decent matches, keep experimenting to discover the best ones for your business — they may change over time with shifting audience preferences!

Consider languages

Consider the area of the country/world you are targeting and the languages spoken in that area. Be sure to use the languages and dialects of those you are targeting so your content speaks to your audience more authentically.

Use landmarks and geographic features

State and city names aren’t the only things that play an important role in geo-targeting within content; so do regional features. For instance, including more geographic features (like mountains, rivers, street names, shopping centers, or parks) in your content will help Google and crawl bots identify exactly what location you are targeting.

Know what’s important to your regional audience

Users in different parts of the country and the world often have different goals and aspirations. Regional areas often target a specific subset of individuals based on the lifestyle in that region. Be sure to align your messaging to these wants and needs.

Partner with our local SEO services to maximize geo-targeting for your business

The above geo-targeting SEO tips should provide a great foundation for any business looking to create a location-based search strategy. The one piece of advice that we can’t stress enough is to know your audience!

That can be tough for businesses that operate in multiple locations or brands aiming to reach a user base in a region different than the one they operate in. But an experienced full-service marketing agency with an SEO team, marketing data analytics and business intelligence services, and access to custom website development can make it easy.

If you’re a business looking to grow your geo-targeted SEO strategy and location-based search engine presence, Infinity Marketing would love to chat with you about how we can support your growth.

Learn more about why we could be the right marketing agency for your local business.