WordPress is one of the most flexible open source Content Management Systems (CMS) in the world.
Its rich functionality, low barrier to entry, and unbeatable price tag (it doesn't get better than free, does it?) have all led to its meteoric rise as the web's most popular CMS.
So it's no surprise that WordPress has been downloaded more than 47 million times or that it powers 28.8 percent of all websites.
WordPress is also SEO-friendly, to the point where even non-techies can easily implement some simple optimization techniques. This is great news for small local businesses which may not have the budget for sweeping SEO improvements, but still want to rank better in local search.
In this article, I'll show you seven simple SEO improvements you can make to boost the local search ranking of your WordPress site.


1. Optimize Your Content
Your content offerings are the most important assets on your website. Having a great site structure, lightning-fast load times, and tons of security measures won't help you if your content isn't up to par.
So, before you can think about optimizing your content, you need to start with something your audience finds valuable.
To do this, you'll need to understand your audience's pain points and know how your products solve their problems. Once you understand this, you can turn your solutions into all sorts of compelling content, from videos to blog posts to infographics, which keep them coming back for more.
Once you have great content, the next step can seem a little daunting: on-page optimization. Fortunately, we can enlist the help of some basic tools like the Yoast SEO plugin.
While normally you'd need to consider up to 20 different SEO factors for each landing page, Yoast SEO simplifies your job by giving each page a color-coded score that will help you track your on-page optimization and pointing out areas for improvement.
Yoast SEO also points out some important on-page factors such as word count and keyword occurrences.
2. Review Your Link Profile
We know from recent studies that links are still the #1 most important ranking signal when it comes to localized organic rankings.
The number of domains linking to your site, the quality of your backlinks, and the optimization of your link anchor text are all strongly correlated to your local ranking.
Good organic link building takes time to cultivate, but here are a few simple steps you can start with:
Focus on Quality over Quantity
The number of domains, IPs, and C-blocks linking to your site are important, but one high-quality backlink from an industry leader in your niche is worth far more than dozens of irrelevant, low-quality links. Use link tracking software to find and eliminate low-quality links.
Find & Fix Broken Links
Use a plugin such as Broken Link Checker to identify and correct broken links. This plugin checks posts, pages, and even comments for broken links.
Optimize Anchor Text
Optimize some of your anchor text for local search by including your city's name. Just be careful not to over-optimize (e.g., changing all of your anchor text, too many exact matches, etc.). There's no ideal percentage for location-optimized anchors, so conduct some competitor analysis to figure out what's generally accepted in your niche.
Identify Potential Link Building Opportunities
Use a competitive analysis tool to find potential link building opportunities, such as relevant sites in your industry that link to your competitors but not you.
3. Speed up Your Website
The tortoise may beat the hare in children's tales, but you can't say the same in the SEO world.
Site speed remains one of Google's most important "technical" ranking factors, and if you want to beat out your competitors in local search, then you'll need to make sure that your site is as fast as possible.
Possible techniques include:
Compressing Large Images
Large image files are the biggest offender when it comes to slow websites. Use a plugin like WP Smush to compress and optimize your images.
Clean up Your WordPress Theme
Get rid of outdated page elements (e.g., unnecessary data base calls, functions, JavaScript, etc.). And make sure you delete old themes — hackers may use these to infiltrate your site.
Reduce Server Load with a Caching Plugin
Caching plugins create state HTML versions of dynamic pages which significantly reduce server load times. There are a number of options for you to consider, including free options such as WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache, and paid options such as WP Rocket.
Don't Go Too Plugin Crazy
You can find a plugin for practically any function, but try to stick to essential plugins that provide real value to your site. Too many plugins will slow your site down.
Alternatively, you could make your life easier by investing in website auditing software. Quality products will analyze your on-page speed factors for you and suggest ways to speed your site up.
4. Optimize for Mobile
A lot of your potential customers are looking for local businesses via mobile. This, coupled with the fact that Google will soon index mobile sites preferentially to their desktop counterparts, means that mobile optimization is more important than ever.
The best thing you can do to improve your mobile site is focus on page speed and image compression, but here are a few other tips and tricks:
Use a Responsive Theme
At the very least, you should make sure your WordPress theme is responsive and fits your content to all mobile devices.
Design Specifically for Mobile Visitors
Use the built-in wp_is_mobile() function to detect different devices on the server level and create custom experiences for your mobile visitors.
Launch a Mobile App
According to a Smart Insights study, 89 percent of mobile media time is spent on apps. Mobile users like apps that give them a comprehensive way to engage with their favorite brands.
Create Accelerated Mobile Pages
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are incredibly fast pages designed specifically for mobile. WordPress comes with a default AMP plugin you can use to create AMP pages that are listed at the top of SERPs when users search from mobile devices.
5. Integrate Google My Business into Your WordPress Site
Google My Business bundles together a number of key factors related to local rankings. Signals such as physical proximity, user reviews, and business descriptions and categories will all impact your position in SERPs.
Once you've claimed your GMB page, make sure you add your WordPress site to your profile, plus other key information, such as hours of operation and a description of your business. Then look for plugins and widgets that will let you transfer key ranking signals such as photos, a business map, and customer reviews from your GMB page to your website.
You should also install a plugin that lets you add your GMB review to your WordPress site, such as the Google Places Reviews plugin. These will help increase consumer trust in your business!
You may also want to consider putting an intractable business map on your website via a plugin or widget. Google Maps Builder is one example that will help your customers find you.
6. Add Structured Data to Your Pages
Ever wonder why some local business listings seem so rich — including reviews, star ratings, and robust descriptions — while others fall flat?
The difference is structured data.
Using plugins like Schema, you can feed Google additional information about your business. This will give your customers more detail when they find you in SERPs, including useful tidbits such as hours of operation, price range, and physical location.
Note that while descriptions don't inherently improve your web ranking, including more information does encourage higher click-through rates – and CTR can impact ranking on Google and other search engines.
7. Include Location Keywords in Your URLs
Generally speaking, URL structure plays a minor role in your page's ability to rank.
When it comes to local search, however, including location keywords in your URL can help improve the user experience. This is especially true if you have multiple landing pages targeting different locations and you want to assure your customers that they're in the right place.
Previous versions of WordPress didn't give you a lot of flexibility when it came to your URLs. They were all "ugly permalinks," which looked something like this: http://mydomain.com/?p=1354.
However, the latest versions of WordPress default to "pretty permalinks," which include the date and name of your posts. They might look like this: http://mydomain.com/2016/02/28/sample-post/.
You can adjust your URL settings in your WordPress Admin panel by going to Settings > Permalinks. From there, you can click Custom Structure to add a location to your landing page URLs.
Conclusion
Want to take your SEO game even further? You can make even more improvements to your WordPress site beyond what I've suggested here by manually creating robots.txt files, generating XML sitemaps, optimizing your site structure, and more.
More Local SEO Resources Here:
Image Credits
Featured Image: Worawee Meepian/Shutterstock.comIn-post Photo: IB Photography/Shutterstock.com

search engine optimization (search engine marketing) is simple for company as it creates great chances for boom and success. a superb website positioning ensures that your company continues to be seen in search engine rankings and raises the satisfactory of your website by way of making it user-friendly and simple to navigate. in consequence, consumer traction to your website raises which may lead to monstrous salary era.


in keeping with a record, sixty six% of marketers declare that enhancing SEO and lengthening organic presence are two of their correct priorities. An search engine optimization audit can support entrepreneurs obtain these two fundamental features of their advertising and marketing approach. An web optimization audit evaluates tremendous web site features central to go looking engine rankings, identifies the frustrating areas of your web page, and offers you with actionable insight on how you can resolve the issues to acquire better search rankings.
Accessibility and Indexation
First, you need to ensure that the engines like google can crawl all the pages on your web page as a result of if any of the pages are blocked for entry, Google aren't able to index and return the web page right through searches:
#01. TXT File
robotic.txt file is found on your web page's source code, which can avoid search engine bots, like Googlebot, from crawling an element or all of your website through mistake.
constantly, search engine bots index all of the URLs they come across; apart from when a URL contains a disallow tag which the site owners can also have forgotten to eradicate after a redecorate. hence, to make certain accessibility to your entire net pages, you should configure the robotic.txt information accurately.
#02. Noindex Meta Tags
A noindex meta tag associated with the meta name "robots" suggests that a selected web page is blocked for indexing. here's a typical situation which regularly arises when the meta tag is used to dam a newly created web web page for reviewing and checking out and the tag is left behind inadvertently. An web optimization auditor will verify the presence of these undesirable meta tags.
#03. Crawl errors
The "Crawl error" record, which may also be generated using the Google Webmaster tool, identifies the entire web site blunders that are encountered by the Googlebot together with inaccessibility to an internet web page or HTTP error messages such as the most normal 404 mistakes (URL couldn't be discovered).you can repair these considerations with 301 redirects or suitable structuring.
Optimization of Onsite Authority factors
Many components are taken into consideration earlier than the engines like google decide the authoritativeness and ranking of your web site:
#04. web site velocity
web page pace can have a big have an effect on to your site's person traffic as a result of:

websites which load sooner are ranked better as in comparison to slower sites

Majority of consumers will abandon a page which hundreds slowly

slow page load velocity limit the variety of pages Googlebot will crawl

hence, that you may enrich your website's loading pace by using reducing the file dimension of your photographs, removing useless WordPress plugins, rushing up your Javascript and fixing any internet hosting considerations which are increasing your page load time.
#05. web page safety
An unsecure web page can also be hacked and trick clients into downloading malicious utility or giving away their very own assistance like usernames and passwords.
hence, in 2014, Google announced that it might enhance the rankings of sites encrypted with HTTPS. firstly, the boost became "lightweight", as cited of their legitimate announcement, however has intensified with the passage of time making it obligatory for web sites to improve to SSL encryption.
#06. interior hyperlink constitution
The interior hyperlink constitution of your website is a critical element of web optimization:

For flawless navigation, your internet pages should still be vertically linked with homepage linked to wide classes, extensive classes linked to subcategories and subcategories linked to individual product pages

The variety of clicks it takes to attain any web page on your web page should still be as little as feasible

evaluation all of the interior links to determine and fix damaged links that do not direct to any page

Use descriptive anchor textual content prosperous with the equal key terms discovered on the linked web page

#07. mobile Compatibility
Optimizing your web site for cellular is standard to make sure that your content is easily obtainable on cell gadgets and appropriate with distinctive browsers.
improving content material components
developing satisfactory content material is extremely essential to cozy a high-quality rank on the quest Engine effect Pages (engines like google). youngsters, different elements that should still be evaluated for relevant execution of onsite content encompass:
#08. key phrases
acceptable key words that completely describe the contents of the landing page are the basic blocks of a domain that has been search engine optimized.
key terms are used with the aid of the readers to go looking in your website. for this reason, make sure to use the appropriate keywords in your content material which are pertinent to your web site and are long-tailed with a selected intent to direct vital traffic to your web web page.
#09. Title Tags and Meta Tags
A content audit will investigate each web page and assist you check that:

The titles are unique with vital key phrases which most desirable defines the page's content material and are regarding your company

The meta descriptions are enticing ample to increase click-through quotes

#10. page price
Low-cost pages have a drastic have an effect on on your position in the serps because it impacts person experience. moreover, Google's algorithm Panda is particularly designed to get rid of low-price pages from its index.
for this reason, every web page for your site should comprise normal content material, wealthy with critical key terms, it's attractive ample to seize users' consideration.
identify any low-cost pages and check consumer habits in opposition t a specific web page in Google Analytics. that you would be able to both improve the contents of the web page or get rid of the web page and use a 301 redirect to hyperlink to a content-prosperous web page.
Bonus Tip: domain Authority and hyperlink Profile
Google ranking algorithm offers outstanding significance to the quantity and the exceptional of the back links to your web page. Your link profile may still comprise of hyperlinks from connected sources (sites which are on the same theme) and relied on domains which can be procured continuously over a detailed length. Aggressive link building and hyperlink scheme are malpractices that are not tolerated by way of Google.
site auditing is only valuable if performed periodically as an everyday cleanup of onsite errors and makes it possible for your web page to scale the hunt engine rankings and keep you on right of your search engine optimization game.

Most local businesses want more leads for their businesses, more customers and more overall revenue. And one of the best ways to drive new leads to a local business is from search engines. Local customers tend to turn to Google to look for services in their area, and that's when you want your listing to pop up so the customers can call you and visit your business.
Although ranking a local business website uses similar techniques to ranking a website nationally, the results often come much faster. Many local businesses quickly get close to ranking highly in Google for those local and profitable keywords, and what they need in order to get an extra boost to the top is some high quality backlinks.
I know the topic of link building can be overwhelming. To be honest, finding high quality backlinks does take time and effort — but the payoff is worth every moment. You may have seen others getting links quickly, and wonder why it takes you so long. Don't ever forget that quality is more important than quantity, so always take the time to earn one really good link versus gaining several easy, low quality links. As a general rule of thumb, if the link is really easy to get, it's probably not worth it. Remember, this is how you are going to set yourself apart from the competition because you're willing to put in the effort that they're not.
So let's talk about what a high quality link looks like, and then I'm going to share 8 link building strategies you can use to earn more links to your local business website.
What Does a High Quality Link Look Like?
When it comes to link building for local businesses, there are a few factors you want to keep in mind when evaluating a link opportunity. The more of these factors you can get from one link, the better.

Links from a site in the local area you are targeting.

Links that are relevant to the business industry.

Links that will drive relevant traffic to your website (put you in front of your target audience...aka potential customers).

Links that build your brand's reputation (industry associations, well-known magazines, sites, or other resources in the industry, etc).

Now that you know what a high quality link looks like...are you ready to build some links? Let's get started!
Strategy #1 Harvest Link Opportunities Regularly
When it comes to earning links, you can't do that unless you've created a list of opportunities. So how do you do this?
This can be done manually by opening up your dear friend Google and looking for websites in the industry and area you are serving. Here are a few example search queries you can pop into Google to find such opportunities:

IndustryName + "magazine"

IndustryName + "write for us"

IndustryName + "forum"

IndustryName + intitle:interview -job

site:.gov "staff discounts"

site:.gov "your city + services"

site:school.edu "your city + services"

"City Name"+"Nominate a business"

site:meetup.com city+keyword

IndustryName + intitle:tradeshow

If you would like to do a more extensive search or get it done faster, open up LinkAssistant from SEO Powersuite, open your project (or create a new one), and click on the Look for Prospects button.

Here you'll be able to select from a variety of backlink types and instantly gather tons of potential link opportunities. Remember, while it's important to have high quality backlinks, it's also important to have a diverse backlink profile, which is where this tool helps out.
Strategy #2 Steal Your Competitors' Local Backlinks
Why is your competitor ranking ahead of you? A little research into what your competitor is doing is going to give you insight into some new backlink opportunities that will help you pass them in search results.
Luckily, it's easier than ever to spy on the competition. One of the best tools for this is SEO SpyGlass. After entering the URL of a competitor's website, you'll see an instant overview of their link profile and its strength.
Open up SEO SpyGlass and you'll be prompted to enter a URL. Go on and enter the website of one of your top local SEO competitors.

After you enter the URL, SEO SpyGlass will get to work pulling together a list of your competitor's backlinks along with the basic statistics. Here you'll learn the total number of backlinks, the percentage of dofollow backlinks, the number of linking domains, the IP diversity of the backlinks and more.

PRO TIP The IP of a backlink is important because it tells you if your competitor is operating a private blog network. A private blog network is a set of interlinking blogs that came from the same owner. It is created for the goal of artificially increasing the backlinks of the main website. If you find that your competitor is doing something shady, you should avoid this and go for legitimate ways of backlinking instead.
With the list of backlinks, in the Backlinks dashboard you'll find new opportunities for you to pursue and also see the variety of anchor text, title, pages linked to, and dofollow vs nofollow links. Here, you can also pull out the quality backlinks by their InLink Rank (SEO Powersuite's version of Google PageRank), and skip over any low quality or spammy ones.

Strategy #3 Be the First to Reach Out
Looking for backlink opportunities without acting on it is useless. Now that you have a list of potential prospects from LinkAssistant, and a list of your competitors' links from SEO SpyGlass, it's time to reach out to the website owners directly. Before you do though, make sure you have a good reason to request a link so more people will be willing to do so. This typically comes down to the quality of your content.
What makes good content?
Website owners are more likely to link to content that:

Is relevant to their specific area (resources, events, scholarship offer for local students or universities).

Is actionable (landscapers can create a seasonal planting guide specific for their location, pest control companies can create a checklist for things to do around the house to reduce pests, etc).

Provides discounts or coupons (deals specifically for their viewers).

Is informative (local guides: places to visit, eat, etc., local events).

Offers contests (run contests for people or businesses in the local area and promote it to local bloggers and newspapers).

How you do this depends on where you would like a link on their website, what you have to offer, and the relationship you have with the website owner. For example, if the website you are targeting has a 'write for us' or 'contribute' page, you can simply follow their instructions for submitting your work and receiving a backlink (although reaching out beforehand so they know who you are certainly doesn't hurt).
On the other hand, if you have content that will benefit their readers and would make them look good (offering a discount, promoting upcoming events, etc.), that will help you get the backlink.
Remember when I said this process takes time and effort. This is where a good bit of that comes in. Before asking for a link, reach out to them so they know who you are before you ask for anything. Thank them for work they've done, follow up to start a conversation about something they've done that you noticed, reach out via social media, comment on their blog, offer your help, and so on.
Too many people reach out using a standard template and beg for the link. Don't be that person. Take the extra couple of minutes to write a personalized message to them. It makes a huge difference. Trust me on that.
So here's what I do.
Going back to my link prospect list in LinkAssistant, I want to start emailing the prospects directly. Just hover your mouse over the link prospect you'd like to contact and click on the email button.

In the Email module, I can also track how many emails I've sent and to whom, as well as the status of each of those contacts so I stay on top of each opportunity.
Strategy #4 Create a Case Study or Review
If you want to get on the radar of a bigger local blogger, website, or other publication, one strategy that works well is to create a case study or in-depth review of their product or service.
It goes like this: you visit your prospect's website to see if they are selling anything (product or service). You will then purchase their product or service and use it in your business. Once you have some results, you will report back with an in-depth case study.
Why does this work? First, it is an instant ego boost. Business owners love to see other people using their products with success. Second, it will not look like you are asking for a link at all, rather you are just authentically thanking them for the product. This often results in a backlink and social media sharing as well.
Strategy #5 Visit Your Prospect's Location
Local SEO has the advantage of, well… being local. This presents so many additional opportunities. Earning high quality backlinks comes down to relationships. The more relationships you have and the better they are, the more (and better) backlinks you will have.
Which presents the following opportunity (get ready for this one because it's scary). Go out and actually talk to people in person. Yikes! I know, practically everything we do is online these days and we even hesitate to reach out to new people via email, let alone in person.
Meeting someone in person is the fast and most effective way to begin a relationship and start you on your way to earning a backlink.
Here are some examples of places you can visit / people you can talk to:

Suppliers

Manufacturers

Associations

Chamber of commerce / Rotary clubs

Local meetups (check out meetup.com for that)

Similar non-competing businesses (for instance realtors often partner with lenders, home inspectors, termite & pest control companies, painters, home stagers, photographers, etc)

Networking events

Conferences and tradeshows

Talk to them about your business and show an interest in theirs.
Strategy #6 Always Be Guest Posting
Over the years, Google's algorithm has changed tremendously. In the old days, it was rather easy to rank a website just by resorting to using spammy techniques. These days, Google has cleaned up their algorithm to deliver a better experience to their users.
In an effort to get rid of spammy websites in their search results, Google took the route of undervaluing some types of backlinks. However, the link type that has continued to retain its value despite the changes is guest posting. As with anything else, it is most effective when it's done right.
Using your prospect list from above, you can expand it by searching for guest posting opportunities manually using search queries such as:

IndustryName + "write for us"

IndustryName + "guest post"

IndustryName + "contribute"

Location + "write for us"

Location + "guest post"

Location + "contribute"

To speed up the process, open up LinkAssistant once more and click the Look for Prospects button. This time choose the Guest Posting option to find websites relevant to your industry.

Each website has their own specific requirements so you'll need to review their criteria. Don't assume an opportunity doesn't exist if you can't find a page specifically about contributing. Again, get in contact with the site owner. It's often a win-win scenario because they want to continually provide valuable content to their readers, but don't always have the time to write.
Strategy #7 Find Local Business Directories
An important part of local SEO is also citation building. A citation is anytime your business Name, Address and Phone Number (referred to as NAP) are listed together. The easiest way to do this is by using local business directories such as Yellow Pages and Yelp. These are the major ones; and then there are also location and industry specific directories worth submitting your business information to.
This can be done manually as well by doing searches such as:

Location "recommended links"

Location "add your site"

Location "add your business"

Location * directory

To save you the time though… You guessed it: these opportunities can also be found by looking for new directories inside of LinkAssistant.

Strategy #8 Track Your Efforts & Reward Your Linkers
It takes time to build up a relationship, which is why you shouldn't stop connecting after you've earned a link. Continuing the relationship can help you earn an additional backlink down the road, as well as more traffic, more subscribers, and even connections with other influencers. That's a lot to miss out on.
When you've earned backlinks you should also continue to monitor those which you can also do inside of SEO SpyGlass. To check that your links are still live and haven't been switched to nofollow, select the links in your project and click Update Backlinks. Choose Backlink Page Info to be updated, and hang on while SEO SpyGlass is looking up your links. When this is complete, just look at the Links Back and Backlink Status columns.

As an extra good measure, reward those who have linked back to you. Even a simple thank you email goes a long way. This shows you took notice, appreciate their efforts and will encourage them to link to you again. If you want to go the extra mile, send a handwritten note in the mail. While it can appear over the top for a backlink, these small efforts can make a big difference in your rankings, and it is a gesture that hardly anyone else takes advantage of, which will make you stand out and be remembered.
Conclusion
Link building is a crucial piece of local SEO, and it often makes the difference of getting your local business site to the top positions, where you will get more leads and customers for your business. Following this simple yet effective process will help you get there faster, so long as you're willing to take action to make it happen.
By: Christine Maisel
Christine Maisel has been a web designer and SEO for over 15 years. She is the founder of the Portable Entrepreneur where she helps web design and SEO entrepreneurs start and grow their business. She also runs the SEO Tips, Tricks & Tools Facebook Group with daily discussions and assistance on everything SEO.