Imagine setting up the most beautiful website but getting no traffic or leads for your music business. If you aren’t using Local SEO, these results aren’t actually that surprising.
Fortunately, you can easily implement a few strategies to help. Read on to learn about local SEO and get some tips.
Overview of Local SEO
Local SEO is a type of search engine optimization that targets a specific geographical area. Instead of publishing website and blog content to attract readers from all over the world, you want viewers from one city.
You may the be able to show up in search results when someone types in “music lessons near me.” While local SEO and regular SEO are similar, they aren’t exactly alike.
Why Local SEO Matters
Of people who search for something local on their smartphone, 28% of those people will eventually buy something based on their search. That kind of conversion rate is massive in the digital marketing world.
If you want to increase the size of your studio or music academy, you need to use local SEO to attract your ideal students and families. Then, you won’t have to work so hard at promoting your studio in other ways, like social media.
Local SEO Tips for Music Businesses
While my own business is online, I’ve written articles for local clients in all industries. The tactics I’ve used can easily apply to local music businesses, from private teachers to gigging musicians.
Here are some things you can try to improve your search engine rankings.
Set Up Google My Business
Google My Business (GMB) is a special profile for local businesses. It includes your address, contact information, and a review section. You can also post to it whenever you have updates or need to change your store hours.
Without a GMB profile, you’ll have a tough time showing up in the map pack on Google. This is the set of three listings or so that appear at the top of a local search.
The map pack shows up before even the first regular organic search result. So even if you’re doing all of your other SEO right, you could lose out on customers to your competitors with GMB pages.
Update Your Contact Info
On both your website and GMP page, you need to update your contact info whenever something changes. Add your physical address, email address, and phone number.
If you have set operating hours, include those as well. And make sure they’re the same across your website, GMB, and any other directory profiles you have for local businesses.
That way, you can avoid confusing potential students or clients. And you may have a better time showing up in the map pack.
Add Location Pages
If you run a music academy, consider if you offer lessons in multiple locations. Then, create a page on your website for each studio. You can add the address and phone numbers for the different locations.
Even if you’re a sole private music teacher, you can also do this. That way, you can direct people to a different page whether they want to study online, in your studio, or in their own home.
Adding location pages gives you more chances to rank in Google. However, it also allows you to choose hyper-focused keywords. Instead of having one page for the bigger city, you could cover a few neighborhoods where you teach.
Publish Local Content
I believe that all small businesses need a blog to use for marketing. But the way you’ll use your blog depends on if you have a local or online business. With a local business, you should create more local content.
For example, maybe you know of summer music camps near your city. If you want to write an article about summer camps, stick to those in the area. That will help you attract more students who live nearby.
On the other hand, if you share camps from all over, you could get more website traffic. However, unless you also teach online, a lot of those visitors will never become paying clients.
Review Your Website UX
Another excellent way to improve your local SEO is to make your website run better. Make sure your website loads quickly and efficiently. You can compress images and other media to help with this.
Delete any old pages that no longer apply to your business. And update any plugins that you’re using to keep them from slowing down your website.
If the user experience of your website is poor, people will be more likely to leave without exploring. And if that happens a lot, it tells Google that your site is of low quality, so your website may not rank as highly in search results.
Use Internal Links
Once you get people to your site, your next job is to keep them there. A great way to do this is to include links to other pages and blog posts on your website, which are called internal links.
These direct people to other parts of your site for more information. And it’s one of the things I love about having a blog. My blog has hundreds of posts that I can link to so that I can get more website traffic.
But even if your blog is new, you can link to pages. For example, you could link to your lessons page if you’re a private teacher. Or if you play music for weddings, you could link to a gig page from each blog post you publish.
Make It Mobile Friendly
Since 2017, at least half of all internet usage has come from a mobile device. If your website is tough to use on a small screen, you can lose out on a ton of traffic and potential students or clients.
Most website platforms allow you to design the mobile version separately from the desktop. I’d recommend slimming down your navigation menu and collapsing it so that it doesn’t take up a ton of space on the screen.
You can also get rid of excessive media, like photos or videos. Or if you want to keep them, you can make them smaller. That way, you’ll be able to retain more website traffic from mobile searches.
Uplevel Your Website Today
If you want to start implementing local SEO, the best way to do that is with the help of an SEO blog writer. I’ve helped businesses in and out of the music industry, and I’d love to help you as well.
Learn more about my content creation services today!
Leave a Reply