Local SEO for Your Staffing or Recruiting Business: How to Get More Leads from Local Organic Searches

For the recruiting and staffing industry, local search is a critical part of the overall SEO strategy. Without it, local firms cannot be found easily by clients and potential candidates looking for work. A dedicated local SEO strategy will ensure that people find your business easily and that you’re ranking highly for local search results on the SERPs (search engine results pages). 

The trick, of course, is that Google is constantly updating and changing the algorithms and best practices for local search. Therefore, part of the success will come from staying current on local SEO trends and best practices. That usually begins by having a dedicated team or individual to handle your SEO efforts so that they can become the leading expert for your business. 

Did you know…?

• 4 of 5 people using search engines are looking for a local business

and

• 4 out of 5 local searches end with a phone call to the business

So, as you can see, if your recruiting or staffing firm is going to generate the leads that it deserves, you have to have a solid local SEO strategy in place. 

What local SEO isn’t

The best way to help you better understand local SEO is to start by ruling out all the myths and misconceptions so that you know what to avoid. Local SEO is a lot of things, but it is NOT:

• Simply adding a city or location to keywords you’re already using. Yes, this may be a part of the strategy, but it needs to come along with keyword research and proper planning. 

• Something you can succeed at by paying for it. Yes, there are paid advertising and optimization tools you can use, but you should use those sparingly. Organic results are much more reputable and effective. 

• Just about the location. Google and other search engines are looking for reputable, authoritative sites first and foremost. Yes, being local helps, but if you don’t have useful information or have a credible sense of authority, it doesn’t matter how local you are. 

• Posting as many listings of your business online as possible. Yes, you should get listed on various staffing directories and other local business directories, but you want to choose quality directories and not just anything that you can find. 

So, now that we’ve got those issues out of the way, let’s talk about how Google looks at local SEO rankings. 

How local SEO rankings are determined 

Although several factors go into calculating your local SEO ranking, three major players are the first things that Google and other search engines will look for:

• Credibility
• Relevance
• Distance 

Is your business credible? Do you have a database of user content that helps people learn about your industry and your organization? Do you offer advice and information without asking for anything in return? Are you more focused on building an authoritative presence than just spamming the Internet with your business name? These are critical factors to your local SEO ranking and overall credibility. 

Then, Google checks for relevance and distance. For example, if someone searches for “staffing agency Denver,” Google will first look for all the staffing agencies around Denver. Then, it will list the most credible and relevant options by their distance from the city center. Many mobile users are being even vaguer and asking about “recruiters near me” and similar terms that are sometimes hard to work into the content. However, you’ll have to do what you can to make sure that you get ranked for your location. 

Algorithms are smarter than ever before. They know a good business when they see it and they know a business that’s just looking for shameless self-promotion. If you want to prove that you belong to the first group, you have to have a solid local SEO strategy that embraces all of these factors and elements. 

Tips for success with local SEO 

There is no single strategy or pathway to local SEO success that works for everyone. You have to incorporate this into your greater SEO strategy in a way that fits your business needs. However, some general tips can help everyone get more out of their local SEO efforts:

• Make reputation a priority. That matters far more than what you’re selling or who you’re trying to reach. If you have 50 listings that are on mediocre websites, you’re not going to get nearly as good of a ranking as if you had 10 listings on top directories. 

• Don’t rely solely on paid efforts. Just as with your overall SEO strategy, there are some cases where you’ll want to invest in paid marketing, but it’s not the only way. You need to get organic results because those are more credible in the eyes of the search engines and the potential clients alike. 

• Optimize your social media for local SEO. This is often where many people turn when looking for local businesses so you should be easy to find on all social channels. Make sure that you have full, robust online profiles and an active presence on social media, too. Otherwise, the lack of inactivity could affect rankings and reputation alike. 

• Follow up with monitoring and metrics. Once you’ve got your local SEO efforts in place, you can’t just walk away. You have to monitor your campaigns and make sure that they’re working effectively to deliver the results that you deserve. 

Speaking of results, who’s fielding all those new leads you’ve found?

Now that you’ve got an improved local SEO strategy, it’s time to make sure you’ve got the systems in place to field all the leads that will come, including a 24/7 answering service. When you partner with the virtual receptionists at Smith.ai, you’ll also find assistance for live website chat, lead intake, appointment scheduling, and more. We can even help with the outreach campaigns and outbound sales efforts to generate the leads in the first place. 

To learn more, schedule a consultation to discuss how the virtual receptionists at Smith.ai can help your business with local SEO and more. You can also reach us at hello@smith.ai. 

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