Local SEO heat map is a colour-coded visual representation of the search visibility of your local business.
Among other things, a heat map can show you the impact of your local SEO campaign at different places in your target areas.
In this Innocams blog post, let’s explore this useful technology to understand how heatmapping can supercharge the SEO efforts of local businesses.
What is a Heat Map?
A heat map is a mapping tool (like Google Map) that shows the levels of some activity, like the traffic to a website, at certain areas in a specific geographic location.
These levels of activities are represented by the density of colours. A darker colour represents a place where the activity is high whereas lighter colours pinpoint areas where it is low.
A heat map can show where a local SEO drive is more successful and where it is not doing well through darker and lighter colours respectively.
What is Local SEO Heat Map
Local SEO heat map is a mapping tool used to identify areas where a local SEO drive registering a high-level of success and where it is failing to be as effective as it should be.
If carefully analysed, this tool can yield a lot of insights into the effectiveness of a local SEO endeavour.
Businesses and SEO executives use this tool to understand their target audience’s behaviour at different areas with a view to modifying or changing their optimisation strategies for those areas.
Before we go deeper into the relationship between local SEO and heat map, allow me to jog your memory about the importance of SEO for local businesses.
What is Local SEO
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of helping a website’s pages rank high, preferably the 1st, 2nd or 3rd ranks, in the result pages (SERPs) a search engine shows when an online search is made.
Studies have shown over and over again that a guy, searching online for a product or service, usually does business with companies who occupy the first three positions on the first SERP when he googles for what he wants to buy.
Businesses Can’t Do Without SEO
That’s why an effective and continuous SEO campaign has become a staple for businesses all over the world.
This campaign is costly, time-consuming and unpredictable. Still businesses swallow this bitter pill as ranking higher in online search results means more visibility, more traffic and of course, more profits.
And an SEO drive, if successful, can actualise this high rank for a local business web pages.
A local SEO heat map will help them monitor their SEO efficacy and take immediate steps if there are any issues.
Local SEO can Make or Break SMEs
When it comes to local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this SEO assumes an added significance.
SMEs must tap the potential of their local markets as they don’t have the resources to compete with multinational companies.
That means, they must spread the awareness of their brands among their local target customers.
They also must highlight the superiority of their products or services to their competitors’.
And to achieve these tough objectives, they must launch a tougher SEO campaign to improve their SERP visibility.
In short, for local businesses an effective SEO campaign is a bitter but life-saving pill.
Local SEO Heat Map: Key Functionalities
Local SEO heat maps have four key functionalities. Here are they with brief explanations:
- It provides ranking data of an SMEs website pages in different areas of the geographic location the SME targets.
- It shows a heat map interpretation of performance of the target keywords of the local businesses SEO in those areas.
- Local SEO heat map reveals the search intent of his target audiences across the location an SME has marked as its target market area.
- It also shows how its competitors are faring with its target market and target market area.
Local SEO Heat Map: How It Works
This tool uses data of the search volume of your keywords in your target market area. It also uses data of what keywords your target market is using in the areas you want a heat map report on.
Then this data is plotted on a map of the area to show where and how your target market is using your target keywords and keywords relevant to the product or service you sell.
A chromatic representation of this heat map report is shown on the map, with a darker and lighter colour to identify places where your keywords are ranking high and where they are ranking low respectively.
How to Use Local SEO Heat Map?
Follow these steps to get your local business’s SEO heat map report:
First Step to Your Heat Map Report
Select keywords that are relevant to your business. Do a keyword research to find out what keywords your target area is using while looking for info on the product or service you offer.
Second Step to Your Heat Map Report
Select the areas you want to get a heat map report on. Select the colours you want the tool to use while showing you the report.
Third Step to Your Heat Map Report
Feed the heat map tool with all this data and your business details as per Google Business Profile like name, location etc. Then run an audit.
The tool will show you a chromatic representation of the report of your keyword search volume in the selected areas in a colour code.
The colour of the high-density search volume areas will be in a darker colour and low-density areas will be in a lighter colour.
Meaning of a Local SEO Heat Map Report
A local SEO heat map report on your business will reveal several aspects of your pages’ optimisation campaign in your targeted areas.
Some key interpretations of this report are given below.
- Where more people are using your target keywords and visiting your site. It means your SEO drive is effective in these areas.
- Where fewer people using your target keywords and visiting your site less.
- How your competitors are faring in those areas.
- What keywords, apart from your target ones, your competitors are using in places they are ranking higher than you.
Pros of Local SEO Heat Map Report
A heat map report on your local business will provide several benefits for your local SEO campaign.
Shows You Where You are Right
This report will tell you where you are going right and your local SEO is effectively improving your visibility.
This will tell you the right strategies to improve your SEO campaign. This insight will help you when…
It Shows You Where You are Wrong
The heat map report will tell you where your Local SEO is not working well.
Then you can formulate proper strategy to plug your SEO loopholes in the low-density areas.
You can select proper keywords and apply the effective strategies you used in the success areas to improve your SEO.
It Gives Insights into Your Competition
This heat map report also yields an insight into how your competitors are beating you in your target market areas where you are going wrong.
You can use this knowledge to formulate a better local SEO strategy for those weak areas.
Using Heat Map Report to Boost Local SEO
So far so good. We’ve used the heat mapping tool, we now know the report, we’ve interpreted it and known what the report means.
Now we’ll use the essence of this report to improve our local SEO. Here’s how to go about it:
Focus on Weak Areas
Concentrate on your target market areas where your visibility is low. Using the insight gained from the heat map report, formulate strategies to improve your visibility in those areas.
You can use ads or relevant keywords etc to improve your local SEO.
Optimise Google My Business
Google My Business plays a crucial ranking factor in local SEO. Optimise yours so it can give your SEO campaign a leg-up.
Do a Competitor Analysis
Use the insight gained from your local SEO heat map report, do an analysis of your competitors and change or update your keyword strategies for better results.
Cons of Local SEO Heat Map
These tools may help you improve your local SEO campaign, but they have their share of disadvantages. Here are a few of them.
- You will have to interpret the heat map report to get the useful insights. The tool will not do it for you and this task may be challenging for some.
- Expert and experienced SEO executives may find this tool too simple and may not need it.
- SMEs without a brick-and-mortar presence may not be able to use Google My Business, which is a key component in local SEO heat mapping.
- Though Google supports the use of heat map tools for better local SEO, make sure any of your heat map report interpretation doesn’t conflict with Google’s SEO best practices guidelines.
Conclusion
Local SEO heat map is a tool that shows the search visibility of local Businesses in their target market areas.
This insight may help SMEs to improve their local SEO campaigns for greater visibility and increased traffic and profits.
The report from this heat mapping tool may offer significant insights into the pros and cons of a local SEO.
And this may help local businesses to formulate better strategies for more effective optimisation campaigns to tap the target market potential.
FAQs.
Q. What is a local SEO heat map?
A. It is a tool that provides a chromatic representation of the pros and cons of a local SEO campaign.
Q. Who uses these tools?
A. SMEs, SEO executives and digital marketers are some of the people who use this tool.
Q. Is a local SEO heat map illegal?
A. No it is not.
Q. Is it a free tool?
A. There are some local SEO heat maps that offer free versions with limited functionalities.
