This Is How You Can Find Business Success With National SEO

Search engine optimization is the process of making your website and other online content more likely to appear as a top result on Google. This is important because people are more likely to click on the first few results when they search for something.

National SEO is a type of SEO that allows businesses to target a larger audience than just one specific location. This type of SEO uses different tactics than location-based SEO, and it can be a great way to reach more customers and get more traffic to your website.

Understanding National SEO

National SEO is a type of optimization done to a website to improve its ranking in multiple locations. This is in contrast to local SEO, which is only concerned with improving a website’s ranking in one specific area. National SEO considers factors such as language, currency, and other country-specific factors that may be relevant to users in multiple countries.

Steps to Doing National SEO

If you have a business located in multiple places, you can use national SEO strategies to help customers find your business no matter where you are located. In this section, we will walk through how to develop national SEO strategies to help customers discover your business.

1. Have a national SEO plan.

Creating a plan for your national SEO strategy is vital because it will help ensure that your efforts are focused and effective. Without a plan, it will be easy to get sidetracked or to pursue tactics that may not be the most effective use of your time and resources.

When developing a plan for your national SEO, ask yourself (and your team) the following:

• What are your business goals?
• Who are your stakeholders and customers?
• Which locations are you targeting?

To properly execute a successful SEO plan, you should understand the core objectives for your campaign, as these will dictate your direction, strategy, and tactics.

2. Do your keyword research.

Before you start writing your content, do some research on potential topics and keywords. This will help you determine what people are searching for and how your website is performing. Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Google My Business are all great resources for finding keywords. Once you have a list of keywords, you can start writing your content.

Browsing your competitor’s websites is a great way to get an idea of the keywords that are being used in your industry. This will give you an idea of the topics discussed and the keywords featured on their blogs. 

Lastly, you can list your products or services and their relevant features, benefits, and other related concepts. These can be considered “high-intent” keywords as people are likely searching for them because they are interested in purchasing products or services like yours.

After you have your keywords and pages mapped out, you can begin creating and optimizing your pages. This will involve adding your keywords to your page in places such as the title, headers, and body content. You will also want to ensure your URLs are structured to include your keywords. Once your pages are created and optimized, you can begin promoting them to help improve your website’s ranking in search engine results pages.

3. Develop an apt website architecture.

The next step in SEO is to develop your website architecture by creating a sitemap and an internal linking structure. A sitemap is a file that contains a list of all the pages on your website and the hierarchy in which they are arranged. This helps search engines understand the structure of your website and index your pages accordingly. Creating a sitemap is relatively simple, and many online sitemap generators can help you create one.

Your website’s internal linking structure is just as important as your sitemap. This is what helps search engines understand the relationship between your pages. Creating an effective internal linking structure will help search engines index your pages and improve your website’s ranking. You can create an internal linking structure by adding links to your pages in the body content and using keyword-rich anchor text.

4. Complete your Google My Business profile.

Google My Business is a free platform that allows businesses to manage their online information and be found by potential customers on Google Search and Maps. 

To get started, create or claim your business profile on GMB. Then, optimize your profile by adding photos, your business description, and updating your business hours. You can also encourage customers to leave reviews. 

5. Invest in online reputation.

This means creating a plan for how you will monitor and respond to reviews and other online conversations about your business. You should also decide how to proactively manage your reputation by creating positive content and engaging with customers online.

Once you have a plan in place, you need to start monitoring online conversations about your business. This can be done using Google Alerts or other online tools. When you see a negative review or comment, you should respond quickly and professionally. Thank your customer for their feedback and try to resolve the issue. If you can’t resolve the issue, you should at least let the customer know that you are taking their concerns seriously.

6. Produce top-quality content.

Digital content can help you get discovered online, whether you are targeting a local or national audience. National content can be shared and promoted by any of your business locations, while local content may only be relevant to one or two places. Both are important for SEO.

Creating localized content requires an understanding of who your audience is in each location and what type of content will resonate with the. It’s important to have a plan for who will develop this content and how it will be distributed. 

Will you have one central team developing content for all your locations, or will you task franchise managers and owners with creating their own? Will you outsource this to an agency and have them develop unique content for each of your locations?

7. Pay attention to link building.

Link building for local SEO differs from national SEO in terms of the types of websites and outlets you target. For local SEO, you want to focus on websites and outlets that are specific to the location of each business, such as local news organizations, bloggers, influencers, partners, and associations. 

For national SEO, you want to target national publications, news outlets, and bloggers. You can also focus on industry-specific publications that span entire regions, states, and countries.

Succeed Online with SEO

SEO is significant for businesses that want to succeed online. By optimizing their website for search engines, companies can increase their visibility, draw in more traffic, and boost their bottom line. While national SEO is not always necessary, it can be a great way to reach a wider audience and expand your reach. When done correctly, national SEO can be a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes.   

Are you looking for a digital marketing agency? Choose Decisive Design, a Dallas-based SEO and online marketing company that specializes in building brilliant websites that share your business’s mission. Request a quote now.