So, I was walking down the street the other day…
I saw a local business the other day and looked them up online. Clarification: I’m literally standing in front of the business and could NOT find them online. Once I got home I did some deeper digging and found out that they do have a website but it had zero ranking locally. It made me sad! 🙁
This week, we continue our ongoing series on building better “Local SEO” and focus on your Footer.
Remember, my site does not want Local SEO so… some of what I mention, I don’t do here. Conversely, your site probably does want better Local SEO, right?
Assuming your site is built on WordPress you probably have a common section that is called “The Footer“. That’s a good thing. What you put in the footer generally shows up in each one of your pages and posts (except when it doesn’t). So put your N.A.P. in the footer section, format the number so it’s clickable and your done! (almost)
CHECK YOUR LANDING PAGES!
Landing Pages are incredibly effective, which is why I wholeheartedly recommend you have a few properly constructed (targeted) landing pages on your site!
If you have “Landing Pages” or “Squeeze Pages” they are probably doing what they are supposed to do and that’s to remove distractions. Those distractions are things like the Header section, the Menu Bar, the SideBar section and probably the Footer section. See the problem?
You’ve probably built your landing pages by what is called a custom template file. That’s a purpose built piece of .php that removes those sections. Not to get too technical but it usually looks like this:
You don’t need coding experience to see that the .php in this template file is removing the footer and with it, there goes your N.A.P.
SQUEEZE PAGES CAN HAVE LOCAL SEO?
Most of the Squeeze Pages I see or build are built as targeted landing pages for ad campaigns. Would you be opposed to new leads coming in from organic SEO? Of course not.
Just because they are “Landing Pages” doesn’t mean that they can’t rank well for Local SEO. You’ll still want to use all the Local SEO techniques that you would normally use but take the small extra step on your landing pages and include the information that you would have had in the footer and just put it at the bottom of your post or page. That’s all you have to do.
Hey! What about the BONUS content?
Bonus Content? (click here to expand)
I’m so glad you asked! I really like to reward those of you who read the post (and listen too).
WHAT TO DO WITH MULTIPLE LOCATIONS:
While I know this doesn’t apply to everyone but what if you have one website and yet you want to rank well for multiple locations?
Depending on how many locations you have you can construct your footer to include the N.A.P. for each. If you have just a few locations, that’s easy to do in some sort of column format – just remember to make any columns you create to be “Mobile Responsive” or Google will penalize your site as being non mobile friendly.
NOTE: I was working on a site a while back that had many many multiple locations. They did want to rank for Local SEO at each so while I couldn’t physically show them all in the footer at one time, I created a script that hid those that were not part of the portion that was dropped down. Think like a drop down menu with parent and child items. Google could see them all but to the human eye they made much more visual sense.
TL:DR;
I know. Your footer doesn’t seem sexy and you’re two seconds away from unsubscribing. I get it. Your footer certainly doesn’t get the attention the header and other parts of your site do, but it’s still incredibly important.
- Your Footer is important to humans as that’s another place we look for “Contact” information if it’s not in the top right of your site.
- Your Footer might also be important legal wise. It’s usually where copyright, equal housing, privacy policy and other legal disclaimers can be found.
- And now you also know, your Footer is also important for Local SEO.
So, spend a few minutes getting your Footer into proper shape. Your viewers will appreciate it, your lawyer will appreciate it, and Google will appreciate it too!
Follow the entire Local SEO Series:
This series has the potential of being huge! (like 50 posts huge) You can follow along in two different ways. The first would be by clicking or bookmarking this tag: 2MTLOCALSEO That will load an archive page with all the posts as we go. A better, or additional way would be to subscribe to the newsletter. This way, each of the posts will be delivered straight to your inbox each week.
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Photos by Rist Art, Emma Van Sant, Jakob Owens, & Oziel Gómez on Unsplash
Mike Mueller
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, bought a cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and wants a really small one). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
Latest posts by Mike Mueller (see all)
- Local SEO Ep4: Consistency - November 12, 2019
- Local SEO Ep3: Your Footer - November 5, 2019
- Local SEO Ep2: Your Phone Number - October 29, 2019