Whether you’re running your own business or helping clients to reach the right audience, you must know how to drive the right traffic when it's needed. One of many benefits to running a local business is the clear sense of a community that your marketing can leverage. And while many local business owners don’t see the value of SEO on a local scale, Local SEO can significantly boost your exposure.
Think how much time people use their phones and computers on a daily basis. When the average user makes several searches per day, shouldn’t your business appear at the top of search results?
In this guide, we will compile some of the best SEO tools for tracking local Google rankings. There’s a lot to juggle with SEO today: it’s not just about keywords. You have to worry about building links, creating an optimized website, using the right images, and even tracking your competition. These 6 tools can help you to find your way around.
1. WhiteSpark
WhiteSpark is likely the best-known SEO tracker for local businesses. This tool does it all: from tracking Google and Bing listings to monitoring local maps, it will also keep you ahead of your competition by showing you what other businesses are doing in the same area.
Whitespark also helps you to learn what customers are searching for when they find your business, and helps users to include city and location names in their local keywords. Basically, WhiteSpark does the heavy lifting for you so you can focus on the parts of your business that matter most.
2. Rank Tracker by SERPS.com
For keyword tracking, Rank Tracker by SERPS.com is a big asset. This tool helps you easily discover your rankings for any keyword phrase in your local or even national market. A free version allows you to explore the software before deciding whether to pay for the full version, which has added benefits.
Full Rank Tracker allows the user to compare the same keyword across multiple locations, and view extended analytics. As icing on the cake, it will even help optimize blog posts for the best local keywords. This makes Rank Tracker a great supplement to any local content marketing initiatives.
3. BrightLocal
Another popular SEO tool is BrightLocal. This is known for its wide range of useful features that are perfect not only for business owners but also for SEO specialists. Using the software, you can track your search rankings, examine their status over time, review your citations and links, audit Google My business, build citations, and even monitor online reviews.
In short, BrightLocal gives you all you could possibly need to start growing your local business online in one simple platform. As the vendor creatively suggests, using it is akin to having a full-time SEO expert without the salary.
4. UpCity
UpCity has a lot of great features that make it a solid choice for many business owners. Not only does it let you define your own key metrics, but it allows you to review and monitor competitor information in addition to local search terms. UpCity also stresses the importance of website health, and it will crawl every page of your site for problems like broken links and duplicate content.
While UpCity is perfect for entrepreneurs, it’s also great for SEO specialists helping clients in the early stages of their web platforms. Because the tool enables you to customize your reports, it’s easy to configure regular updates on SEO progress over time and get recommended improvements.
5. FanDigital AdWords Grading Tools
A lot of local businesses rely on Google AdWords to create traffic for their websites and pages. AdWords grading tools sometimes try to scare people, which can lead to a lot of confusion if you aren’t careful. While AdWords can be an effective way to increase traffic, it can result in lost funds if you don’t have the right strategy.
FangDigital AdWords Grading Tool differentiates itself as a simpler way to see how effectively your AdWords budget is being used without inducing paranoia through a complex interface. The money you pour into AdWords is one of the most important parts of a Local SEO strategy, making this an excellent addition to the local marketer's toolkit.
6. Google Analytics
Last but definitely not least is Google Analytics. Google Analytics might not seem like the most obvious choice for Local SEO assessment, but it’s actually such a powerful tool it deserves a place on this list. By providing key information like real-time traffic data, demographic insights and long-term metrics, Google Analytics enables you to generate extremely comprehensive reports custom-tailored to your individual needs. In the majority of cases, Analytics is also completely free, making it a robust choice if you’re willing to learn the ins and outs.
The Importance of Local SEO
Local SEO is about more than just knowing what keywords your users are searching for or watching your competition. It’s about effectively spending money and effort. If you’re spending money or energy on content marketing, Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, or anything else but you don’t have a way to effectively measure those streams of traffic, you should take a step back. Without a solid tracking plan, you won’t know what works and what is a waste of money.
The guide above highlights just a few of the best ways to stay on top of your SEO efforts. Tracking might just be the most important part of an local business marketing strategy. With the right strategy, you’ll not only learn more about your customers, but you’ll learn more about your own business. SEO in 2018 is about more than adding a few different keywords to your homepage. It’s a constant process that isn’t completed in just a few clicks. With hard work and a constant eye for development, your efforts can go a much longer way.
To learn more about using Local SEO tools and boosting the search rankings for your local business, check out our classes on the following topics:
Campaign Tracking in Google Analytics
Visit the Online Marketing Institute to browse over 400 classes in the digital and social media marketing space.
