When it comes to ranking, you want to rank for the highly relevant keywords that are used in your niche. The problem is that when you do that your competition surely includes some major brands that have huge SEO budgets.

SEO is highly competitive and the truth is that you will not be able to compete with the big brands. However, you can take advantage of how important Local SEO is for Google right now. This is exactly where geo targeting steps in to give you a huge helping hand.

Targeting Location-Specific Keywords

The point here is that you want to get around the really tough keyword competition. You can to this in search engines by taking the approach of targeting the location-specific keywords.

What does this actually mean?

To put it as simple as possible, instead of targeting a keyword like “buy shoes”, you target a more specific, longer, location-specific keyword like “buy shoes in New York City”. Instead of “car repairs New York”, you go deeper, like “car repairs Brooklyn”.

The main idea here is to narrow it down as much as possible. You can even go as targeted as narrowing down some of the keywords you use to street level. However, you should try to cover as much of your area of service as possible.

Why Target Such Specific Keywords?

Using geo targeting SEO offers some benefits that simply cannot be ignored for SEO specialists and business owners. Some of those that have to be mentioned are:

• Lower Competition – While it is practically impossible for smaller businesses to rank for the highly competitive search terms like “protein supplements” or “bakery”, it is much easier to rank for the location-specific keywords since the competition is naturally much smaller.
• Lower Price – You have to spend money on your SEO campaigns so when you go for the very competitive terms, the campaign quickly becomes really pricey. With geo targeting, you pay a lot less.
• Less Time – In order to rank on the first page of Google for competitive keywords, you can even have to wait a year, or more. With geo targeting campaigns, the time needed is a lot less.

How To Use Geo Targeting In SEO

First thing first. Geo targeting in SEO is both simple and complicated. There are some strategies that you can use and that are pretty obvious. This includes:

• Creating Suitable Landing Pages

Geo targeting keywords can be used for both paid advertisements and organic searches. However, in order to take full advantage of this opportunity, you need location-specific landing pages.

Try to build one for every single location where you offer services. Then, when you use local SEO ranking strategies, you can point your links towards the appropriate resource.

• Using Targeted Top Level Domains

This is a tactic that you can definitely use if you plan to launch a website to service local markets. However, it is also something that you can consider if arranging proper redirects is not a problem for you.

TLDs (top level domains) are those domains with extensions that are location-specific, like.co.UK, or.com.au. This has much more weight than what many expect when referring to the country-specific Google search engines used by the user.

When referring to the less obvious SEO strategies you can use for a geo-targeting campaign, we could mention a couple of examples:

• Registering In Local-Based Business Directories

For local SEO in general, the business directories that target a specific region are much more valuable than the larger ones that have a global coverage. This is especially the case when you can focus on the location-specific landing pages that we mentioned below.

• Bartering With Local Businesses

The link that you get from a business that services the same area as yours is very valuable with location-specific campaigns. This is especially the case in the event that they already have a good local coverage on search engines. Aim for different barters that you can set up and always opt for something that is beneficial for both parties.

Conclusions

Nowadays, you have to use geo targeting SEO. It is as simple as that. When you hire an SEO agency to do work on your site, you have to avoid all those that do not talk about the importance of local SEO and that do not mention geo targeting to help you rank exactly where you service customers.

Article written by Adrian Cruce, marketer by day, gamer by night, human always. Get in touch with him on Twitter or read similar articles on AdrianCruce.com.