Auckland SEO Success Guide
Whether you’re a large enterprise or a small business in Auckland, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can help your business grow. SEO is the process of making your website appear as close to the top as possible in the search results for search terms that matter to your business and is important because it drives traffic to your website.
SEO can also help you to appear for Auckland focused search terms that are relevant to your business such as “Auckland painting services” for painters. This means that with the help of SEO, you can bring targeted visitors to your website that result in better sales and help you achieve your business goals.
So how do you succeed at SEO in Auckland?
We’ve figured out exactly how Auckland businesses can succeed at SEO and put it all together into this one page for you to freely use. Reading through this resource will show you precisely how to get to the top of Google for your Auckland business and bring high quality traffic to your website.
In this guide we will go over:
- How to take advantage of your name, address and phone number to increase your business’s authenticity and improve your local SEO.
- How to show potential website visitors you are a reputable authority on your focus in Auckland.
- How to modify your website to cater to Auckland focused search results.
Integrate your name, address & phone on every page
The combination of your name, address and phone number (often called “NAP”) is critical to the success of your website and it’s amazing how many people don’t utilize these 3 important details. Providing your NAP is the easiest way to show visitors you are a genuine Auckland business by conveying who you are, where they can find you and how they can get in contact.
Make sure to include your NAP on every page of your website. The best approach to this is including it in your footer, “about us” page and “contact us” page. Not only does this show authenticity, but it’s also a great boost to your local SEO. Here’s a few rules on how to best include your NAP on your website:
- Make sure all of your details are unique (no P.O boxes or shared addresses).
- Ensure all of the information is correct.
- Keep it all consistent across your website.
Add local information to your social media
The integration of your name, address and phone number doesn’t stop with your website; including this information on social media helps add further creditability and improves your search result rankings through what is called “social signals”.
Being active on social media has a clear benefit for most businesses, but not all businesses have the time or resources to actively use social media. Make sure all of your details are filled out and your branding is in place at the very least.
Include your name, address and phone number on every social media profile you manage and just like your website make sure it’s all correct, unique and consistent. Your website will need to have a link through to your social media profiles and all of your social media profiles need a link through to your website.
List your business with Google My Business
Success in SEO for Auckland is critically improved by utilizing Google My Business to its fullest potential. Google My Business manages how your business appears within Google and provides information on your business as well as putting you on Google Maps.
Google My Business also shows you information about how many people have seen your business on Google, searched for your business, and engaged with your business.
It’s easy to get your business set up, simply:
- Make your account
- Verify your business
- Fill out your details
The verification process is the biggest hurdle but it’s simple to do. You’ll receive a postcard with a code in the mail from Google to your business address, enter your code online and you’ll become verified.
As long as they are correct and consistent with your website and social media profiles, your business listing’s details will improve your local SEO by solidifying your business’s authenticity and relevance to Auckland.
Get reviews for your business
So, it should be pretty clear to Google and website visitors that you are a genuine Auckland business, what next? You have proved you’re real, now prove you’re an authority on what you do. Getting reviews on your business listing in Google My Business is an effective way to build up your reputation. Reviews show authenticity, authority and more importantly social proof. Google also favors sites that are well rated in the search results, providing a further benefit to your local SEO.
How do you get reviews for your business? Ask for them at the right place and right time. Asking for reviews in an impersonal and generic way either too early or too late will lead to your request being ignored, so take a genuine approach. Ask for reviews after you have already built a relationship with your customer and do it in a personalized and sincere way; if you want them to take the time to write a review, take the time to ask for it properly.
Get links from other Auckland focused websites
Another way to build your authority and reputation is to get other Auckland based authorities to link from their website to yours. Inbound links is a massive SEO topic but the necessary thing to know is that inbound links, also known as “back links”, are a big factor in SEO. Google looks at what websites link to you to gauge how much of an authority you are on the topic of the page; the more websites that link to yours the better. Not all links are valued equally either; a link from a high quality and high authority website has a greater value than a lower quality website.
Creating quality content that people actually want to link to and engage with is the easiest way to build inbound links, but another easy method to building inbound links is to utilize Auckland business directories. What’s relevant to you is dependent on your business but a few good Auckland business directories to get you started are:
Include Auckland in your title
A page’s title indicates the topic of the page to Google; therefore, you show your Auckland focus by including it in your title. Keywords nearer to the start of the page’s title will have a better effect on how well the page performs in the search results for that keyword, so aim to structure your title so that Auckland is at the front. This will help you to rank well for search terms that include Auckland, but do not overdo it. Always make sure your titles do not sound like spam or flow unnaturally.
Tailor your meta description to Auckland
Meta descriptions don’t have a direct effect on your SEO, but it does directly affect how many people click through to your website in the search results. Compare these two meta descriptions, which one do you think an Auckland visitor would be more likely to click on?
“Are you looking for the best coffee? Visit Jerry’s Coffee for a good atmosphere and a truly authentic coffee brew.”
or
“Are you looking for Auckland’s best coffee? Visit Jerry’s Coffee on Queen Street for the best atmosphere in Auckland with a truly authentic coffee brew.”
Target Auckland users by tailoring your meta description to fit what they know and what they are looking for. You can do this by mentioning you are based in Auckland, relevant landmarks or Auckland exclusive achievements you have earned like “#1 Auckland Shoe Repair Company” or “Auckland’s Top-Rated Motorbike Reseller”. This strategy increases the authenticity of your message while also showing Auckland users you are exactly what they are looking for.
Include Auckland in your headings and page content
Your focus on Auckland should also be reflected across your page’s headings and content. Title coherence, which is the gauge of how well the topics and keywords in your page title are represented within your page’s content is an important SEO ranking factor and further helps tailor the experience to your target audience.
Aim for 2000+ words that are carefully curated with an Auckland focus, but do not write filler content to meet the target word count. The practices discussed for creating your titles and meta descriptions also apply to your headings and page content.
Don’t overdo integrating “Auckland” or any other keyword into your content, overusing the keyword will seriously hurt your search result rankings, not benefit them. This practice is called “keyword stuffing”, to avoid being flagged for keyword stuffing, aim for a maximum of 2-3% keyword density for your keywords and always make sure the language in your writing is natural.
Think beyond Auckland
Auckland isn’t the only local keyword at your disposal, think about what other regional search terms could be relevant to your business and incorporate them into your website. Focusing on more specific local keywords helps to create search result opportunities that are perfectly suited to your business and low in competition as well as communicating authenticity and a detailed knowledge of Auckland. A few examples that you could use are:
Suburbs & Areas
- Ponsonby
- Grafton
- North Shore
Popular Streets
- Queen Street
- Karangahape Road (K Road)
- Ponsonby Road
Popular Locations
- Sky Tower
- Auckland Harbour Bridge
- Auckland Domain
- Aotea Square
Include Auckland in your URL
Including Auckland in your page’s URL is a simple way to give yourself a minor improvement to your search rankings for Auckland search terms. Try to incorporate your topic in the URL as well, you should always include more than just the word “Auckland” in your URL. For example, if you have a page for selling paintings in Auckland, make the URL websitename.co.nz/auckland-paintings
Redirect your old page URL to your new page URL if you are updating an existing page’s URL. People will still be visiting the old URL through outdated links, you don’t want to miss out on that traffic.
Optimize your SEO
If you’re not following good SEO practices you’re limiting how much everything we have covered so far can help you. This is why you have to put effort into building strong SEO foundations. We’ve already covered a lot about how you can improve your SEO in other articles, including an article on how to get more traffic with SEO but the general points to focus on are:
- Create titles and meta descriptions that are good quality and fit the character limit.
- Craft good quality content and headings.
- Optimize your website’s loading times to be less than 3 seconds and images to be less than 250KB.
- Focus on creating a good user experience on your page. Ask yourself, what are the pain points?
- Link to good quality websites and get good quality websites to link to you.
Wrapping Up
We’ve covered a lot about how to succeed at SEO in Auckland and you may feel overwhelmed. Using this guide, you already have the resources to build a successful SEO strategy for your business, but you may want further help or guidance and that’s where we come in.
We know Auckland and how to achieve results with a winning strategy devised for local businesses, get in contact with us today.
