Ongoing monitoring and reporting local SEO means continuously tracking the performance of your local SEO campaign and creating a detailed report on it for your own use or for your team or clients.
If properly done, this vital SEO activity can help your local SEO drive keep on improving its performance in local search results.
In this Innocams blog post, I’ll give you an overview of this vital local SEO activity.
What is Ongoing Monitoring and reporting Local SEO?
An effective local SEO strategy can help a business persuade local customers to buy its product or service, which is what a business is all about.
But the SEO executive must monitor the performance of his campaign continuously so it can keep on improving its SERP ranking and user experience for better local search visibility.
This is called ongoing monitoring and reporting of local SEO and it involves a detailed analysis of the local SEO performance.
There are two parts in this process: analysing the performance of the SEO campaign and second is preparing a detailed report on this analysis for updating or changing the ongoing local SEO strategies.
Before I start on this monitoring and reporting process, a little discussion on the importance of local SEO will help you put this process in perspective.
Importance of Local SEO
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must target their local customers for business growth.
They neither have the network nor the resources to operate on a global scale and must tap the potential of their local markets.
Here lies the importance of local SEO that, if effective, may enable them to attract local traffic to their pages for a greater brand awareness and SERP visibility.
This greater brand awareness among an SME’s local target market may translate into more sales and more profits.
The benefits of a robust local SEO campaign for an SME are many. Here are some most important of them:
Increased Online Visibility
A successful local SEO drive can improve the visibility of a local business which will help its target audience find it easily through online searches.
This increased visibility may translate into more sales and better customer engagement.
Ongoing monitoring and reporting local SEO is important as it helps the SEO keep on improving, resulting in continuous increase in this visibility.
Better Resource Allocation
A local SEO campaign is sharply focused on an SMEs local market. This focus may help the SME to optimally utilise its available resources.
Due to their limited resources, SMEs cannot usually undertake any resource-intensive marketing activity and a well-focused local SEO campaign will help it allocate its resources efficiently.
Ongoing Monitoring of Local SEO
SEO is not a one-off affair. You need to continuously monitor the KPIs of your SEO campaign so it keeps on going up in the SERPs not coming down.
Ongoing Monitoring process of a local SEO campaign has several parts. An SEO executive must carry out these activities meticulously.
The major parts in a local SEO monitoring are listed below.
The Keyword Intent Analysis
The keyword intent analysis (also known as search intent analysis) is the process of understanding what information or product or service the target audience of a local SEO look for while doing an online search.
This understanding helps an SME to create content that aligns well with the search intent of its local customers. This alignment can increase traffic to its sites which may result in an improved visibility.
The keyword intent analysis will also help you identify keywords your target local customers are using.
You can incorporate those keywords in your content to make it more effective and engaging. This, again, can improve your SERP visibility.
In Ongoing monitoring and reporting local SEO, this keyword intent analysis is a crucial part. You can use a tool like Google Search Console to analyse keywords for a better keyword intent analysis.
Competitor Analysis
You’ve launched a local SEO campaign for your business because you want to beat your competitors to bag a higher rank than them on the SERPs.
You need to know what your competitors are doing to understand their strengths and weaknesses so you can use this insight to improve your local SEO performance.
A competitor analysis will tell you the SEO strategies your top competitors are adopting for better visibility. You can then consider using those strategies to improve your local SEO performance.
For example, you can identify keywords that your competitors are using in their content and getting high positions on the SERPs.
You can then incorporate those keywords in your content cleverly for better visibility of your pages.
The Backlinks Analysis
A backlinks analysis involves a scanning of backlinks a page gets from other domains to determine their quality and quantity.
Backlinks from authoritative sites are a key ranking metric for search engines. A backlinks analysis will tell you how your pages’ backlink profile fares with search engines.
It will also tell you what kind of and how much backlinks your competitors are getting.
These insights will help you formulate a better backlink strategy for your local SEO. Thus the backlinks analysis is a key step in Ongoing monitoring and reporting local SEO.
The Mobile Optimisation
Search engines favours sites that are compatible with mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
A mobile friendly site improves user experience considerably and search engines like Google prefer these sites to mobile incompatible sites.
So an analysis of your site’s mobile compatibility should be a focus area for your local SEO monitoring efforts.
Tools for Ongoing Monitoring of Local SEO
The following tools are widely used by top SEO executives for the purpose of ongoing monitoring of local SEO.
- Google Analytics: This tool from Google provides deep insights into user activities and traffic to the pages of an SME website.
- Google Business Profile Dashboard: This tool provides information on user activities, search terms and how people are finding your site through Google Search and Google Maps.
- Google Search Console: This tool reveals your standing with Google search ranking and also provides insights into areas that require further improvement.
Ongoing Reporting Local SEO
The reporting part of Ongoing monitoring and reporting local SEO involves preparing a visual representation of the insights gathered from the monitoring activities.
In this part, an SEO executive actually prepares an analytical report on the findings of his monitoring activities for his own use or for his team or clients.
One of his key responsibilities is to keep his clients in the loop about the performances of their local SEO and this report, using charts, maps and tables, helps him do it.
Tools like Looker Studio can prepare these local SEO reports in a jiffy.
The SEO executive usually mentions the following in his local SEO report.
Local Search Ranking
This section deals with how an SME site is ranking in the SERPs for local keywords.
A higher ranking for a relevant keyword will mean its SEO campaign is doing fine and following a correct keyword strategy.
Organic Traffic to Sites
In this part, the SEO executive mentions in the local SEO report how much local organic traffic is coming to a local business’s pages from search engines.
A high traffic from organic searches means the ongoing SEO strategies are bearing fruit and improving the site’s visibility.
Citations from Local Sources
A major area in monitoring and reporting local SEO is an analysis of local citations SMEs are getting.
Local citations are the mention of a business’s key info like name, phone number etc on various platforms. These platforms may include local business directories, social media platforms etc.
Consistency in these local citations helps search engines understand the authenticity of a company and rank its pages confidently.
Report on Local Backlinks
Another key metric highlighted in the local SEO reporting is the backlink status of a business website.
High-quality backlinks from relevant local sites provide a local business site link juice that helps it stand out on the SERPs.
The SEO executive provides details of both the quality and quantity of backlinks a site he is working on is getting from other domains.
Report on Conversion Rate
The rate at which visitors to your site from organic sources are responding to your calls for action, like contacting you or subscribing to a newsletter, is called the conversion rate.
A high conversion rate means your ongoing local SEO efforts are yielding positive results. A low conversion rate will indicate that there are some issues that need your immediate attention.
Reviews and Ratings
Ongoing monitoring and reporting local SEO takes into consideration the ratings and reviews an SME site is getting from local customers on platforms like Google and Facebook.
More positive reviews and ratings from local customers than your competitors may push your pages above the rival pages on the SERPs.
Besides, consistent positive reviews also generate trust in your brand among your target audience.
Google Business Profile
Reporting local SEO also involves an analysis of data gleaned from an SME’s Google Business Profile.
This analysis may yield valuable insight into how your target customers are responding to your SEO efforts like giving you a call or asking for direction.
A greater customer engagement will mean your local SEO efforts are yielding good results and improving your visibility in local searches.
Tools for Reporting Local SEO
Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) is probably the best free tool to satisfy almost all your local SEO reporting needs.
It can create visual representation of your local SEO performance and share it easily with your team or clients.
There are many other tools you can use for this local SEO reporting, but I personally think Looker Studio is the best.
With seamless integration of useful tools like Google Analytics and Sheets, Looker Studio offers excellent local SEO reporting.
Conclusion
Ongoing monitoring and reporting local SEO is a key activity in the optimisation of local businesses web pages for their better rankings in local search results.
SMEs must tap their local market and sell their products and services to local customers for survival. A strong local SEO campaign may help them achieve this crucial objective.
Continuous monitoring and reporting on local SEO performances helps an SME’s web pages keep on improving its SERP ranking and user experience over time.
FAQs.
Q. What is ongoing monitoring of local SEO?
A. It is a continuous process of analysing the performances of a local SEO campaign.
Q. What is reporting on local SEO?
A. It is the process of preparing reports on local SEO effectiveness based on the insights gained from the analysis of their performances.
Q. What tools are used in ongoing monitoring of local SEO?
A. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console are extensively used for this purpose.
Q. What is the best tool to report on local SEO?
A. Google’s Looker Studio is the best free tool to prepare reports on local SEO performance.
