Whose website is it anyway?

When people find your local website, what do they want to know? It’s usually quite simple and often one of the following questions:

• Where are you?
• How can I contact you?
• Can I trust you?
• What are you offering?
• How can I get what you’re offering?

Sounds obvious doesn’t it?

A local landing page should give people what they are looking for and have easy to follow links to the relevant pages on your website.  Because people want this information, Google wants it too.

Unfortunately, many local businesses seem to think their website is about them, for them. 

They forget the obvious and hide the nitty gritty  – like contact details. 

They forget, or simply don’t know that Google is looking for signals and triggers that says what the page is about – including who you are and where you are located.

Instead, businesses fill their landing pages with all sorts of fun stuff from auto-playing music to cursor effects.  I’ve nattered on here many times about local websites that drive people away rather than bring people in. 

Earlier this month, I was reading a blog post over on Success Matters about how your customers choose you based on what they see online.  The post goes through the process of trying to find an Indian restaurant close to a hotel they were staying in.    It’s eye opening and I feel their pain.

The bottom line is – are you giving people and Google what they need to see rather than what you think looks good?

Is there a perfect local landing page?

Every business is different.  We have our own styles, branding requirements and budgets.  Even the tightest of budgets and strictest of branding requirements can put basic information on their landing page to help them rank in local search and give potential clients the information they are looking for.

Nifty Marketing took a look at 100 local landing pages that were ranking well in local search (US major cities – therefore very competitive!) and this is what they found:

• 92% of local pages ranking in the A spot had the name/address/phone number phone number
• 86% of A listings have service/product information
• 85% of A listings have the business name in the URL
• 77% of A listings have the business name in the title tag
• 67% of A listings have the location in the title tag

There are more local landing page stats and Nifty Marketing kindly put them in this infographic.

 I would be really interested in how that compares for local landing pages in the UK.  On the to-do list for a sleepless spider night I think…

Of course, putting this info on your website does not guarantee a local ranking.  Other factors come into play too – like having your local listing set up correctly and citation sources.  It’s a great start though, so…

Over to you!  What information do you include on your landing page?  Do you think about local ranking or do your own thing?