5 Steps To Building Local Landing Pages That Drive Traffic And Sales

Driving traffic to physical and virtual stores is tough — and it's only getting tougher. But you can increase foot traffic by enhancing your local SEO strategy with local landing pages.

Local landing pages are search-optimized web pages for each of your store locations, they can:

• Improve your local search rankings and visibility

• Create brand consistency across all your locations

• Drive foot traffic to your physical stores

• Generate more online sales than email marketing*

In this article, we'll show you how to research, design, and optimize your local landing pages.

Exceptional local landing pages focus on your customers. Sounds obvious, right? But think about it. People don't visit your landing page because they want to know how amazing your product is. They start their journey by searching via a search engine because they need an answer to a question or a solution to a problem.

If your local landing page is properly optimized, it should rank high on the search engine results page (SERP).

For example:

• Problem: I want to have a pristine house → Solution: Robovac showroom near me

• Problem: My faucet is broken → Solution: Buy bathroom hardware near me

• Problem: I forgot my nephew's birthday → Solution: Nearest Lego store

Your local landing page is an opportunity to step in and help customers at their highest moment of intent. Great landing pages help customers figure out what they want to buy and where to buy it — store, online, or buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS).

So before you even think about your landing page, focus on audience research to understand your customers' challenges and goals. Buyer personas are a great way to tackle this step.

If you don't know where to start, you can leverage several simple tools to research the demographics, behavior, and digital journey preferences of your target customers. (For a suggestion: Hootsuite has a great process for researching your target audience, and HubSpot has a nice buyer persona designer to pull information together.)

Landing page copy should be clear, concise, and straightforward. As you're writing, think carefully about what keywords you might add in order to capture high-intent traffic related to your business. (Note: this doesn't mean so-called "keyword stuffing" is a good strategy. It simply means that relevant keywords do indeed matter to search engines, but not at the expense of using clear, concise, and helpful language for your readers.)

That said, keywords come in two forms: branded and unbranded. Both are important to local SEO

With local landing pages, your goal is to rank for the same unbranded keywords as your main website. For example, if you're Nike, you want your homepage and local landing page to rank for running shoes and gym shorts — not just "Nike shoes."

Effective design is simple. It guides people through your landing page without fuss or distraction. (An important note: consumers are more discerning than ever post-pandemic, and 88% say they're less likely to return to a site after a poor user experience. It's important to answer their questions and help them convert confidently.)

Let's take a look at the above-the-fold section (the part viewable without scrolling) and the below-the-fold section (everything below it).

Above-the-fold

Local landing pages start with a clear headline. Your H1 should be the largest text on the page, so it draws the eye. Use it to entice the visitor to learn more.

Complement your headline with a hero banner image. Use imagery to reinforce your headline and explore your customers' challenges or goals.

One of the worst things your local landing page can do is leave visitors feeling uncertain. Use CTAs to explain what you want visitors to do after they land on your landing page. Where possible, embed a call-to-action (CTA) inside your hero banner, too.

Some CTA examples include: shop online, visit a physical store, and buy online, BOPIS. You can also feature positive local store reviews from Google, Yelp, Foursquare, and other third-party sites to help build credibility.

Finally, share up-to-date business location information like store hours, holiday schedules, and contact information. If you operate numerous locations, use geolocation to help customers find their closest store.

Below-the-fold

Further down the page, add details such as:

• Google Maps: Embed maps to show where your store's located and offer directions with a single tap.

• Hero products: Showcase your best-selling or flagship products.

• Product categories: Help customers navigate your product library by including top-level categories.

• Frequently asked questions: Most customer communication comes from a handful of common questions. Provide answers upfront to decrease calls and emails.

Local landing pages need to look great however your visitors access them — via phone or tablet, Android or iOS, Windows or Mac.

A landing page's flexibility and adaptability come from its backend optimization. Although optimization is an ongoing process, here are some important things to think about from the start.

Design for all devices

The days of desktop-first design are over. Today, most people browse on their smartphones, so your landing pages must work on smaller screens. Considering that 50% of searches come from mobile devices, many designers start with responsive designs and then expand to desktop versions.

Add schema markups

Schema (or structured data) is the language of search engines. It tells services like Google what they're looking at so they can return more detailed and informative results. Schema's incredibly detailed. For example, product schema covers everything from widths, weights, and lengths to model numbers and materials used in a product's construction. Learn more at Schema.org.

Keep your pages fast

Search engines love speed. It makes sense because Google doesn't want to deliver websites that take five, 10, or 20 seconds to load. Their users would get frustrated and search elsewhere.

Cut unnecessary elements (images, add-ons, integrations) that'll slow load times and optimize everything that's left.

If your pages don't load within a few seconds, it'll hurt your bounce rate, which means lower conversion rates. Although the numbers vary, most studies agree that pages that take longer than three seconds to load lose around 53% of mobile users.

Expand landing pages with intent pages

The best-performing companies "hang" intent pages off their main local landing page. For example, a local landing page for a pet store might include subpages for dog grooming, dog training, or pet sitting. Expanding your local landing pages increases the number of keywords you're ranking for and pushes people down the funnel.

As new technologies emerge and consumer behavior changes, marketers adapt, evolve, and refine their strategies. Local landing pages are no exception.

A great backend system like Yext will show you how visitors are behaving on your landing pages. Although landing page goals will vary depending on your strategy, some core business metrics to track are:

• Google ranking score

• Traffic

• Bounce rate

• Click-through rate (CTR)

• Conversion rate

Once you've established a performance baseline, you can start experimenting and iterating. Better yet, some platforms like Yext will allow you to compare your performance to industry averages.

Use A/B tests to refine elements like your headline, CTAs, imagery, and reviews. You could even use local landing pages as small-scale tests for your main website. Trial new messaging, experiment with fresh promos, soft launch products, and so on.

Avoid testing too many elements at once — unless you have experience with multivariate testing. Instead, focus on one element, refine it, and then move on to the next one.

The difference between a great local landing page and a mediocre one is razor-thin. Here are three of the most common pitfalls and mistakes:

• Inconsistent branding: Local landing pages are part of your website — so they should feel like it. Keep the design consistent between your homepage and landing pages.

• Outdated deals: Local landing pages aren't a "set it and forget it" strategy. Keep them updated so that deals, products, and information all match the rest of your site.

• Sole focus on footfall: Local landing pages generate a ton of foot traffic for brick-and-mortar stores… but they can do so much more. Use landing pages to push all sales — online, in-store, and BOPIS.

Economic headwinds, rising competition, and unreliable marketing continue to challenge organizations of all sizes. While many marketing strategies focus on creating new demand, local SEO is different.

An advantage of local SEO? The demand's already there: dozens, hundreds, thousands of people are already searching for your products and services. Local landing pages can put your business in front of those people.

Better yet, local SEO sidesteps online giants like Amazon. When someone searches for dog toys near me, they don't see the 3,000 Amazon listings because Amazon isn't "near me."

Being local is one of the biggest unique differentiators. So what are you waiting for? Local landing pages connect with your local audience and help you land new business.

Learn more about our customers and their success today.

*Internal Yext data, 2022