Information is always at our fingertips thanks to our phones. As a German auto repair shop, this is how new customers find you. The question is, is your website optimized to show them you exist? The only way to know for sure is to conduct a content audit of your website. Audits tell you what your site is missing so you can adopt a better strategy to be the top auto repair shop for local searches. Here we explain how to conduct a proper content audit to help you reach top ranking for local German auto repair shop searches.
Proximity, Prominence and Relevance
Successful local SEO depends on three things:
1. Proximity
Obviously your location is important to local searches. An audit will show you what a search in your location shows users for keywords related to German auto repair or your actual business name.
2. Prominence
Creating a trusted brand that appears online with links, mentions, citations, reviews and third-party articles helps establish prominence for your business. It takes a long time to build prominence, but it is a major element of local SEO success.
3. Relevance
Relevance of your business to the keywords searched is always a major concern. Relevance is established by ensuring your site sends the right signals to search engines such as the right category selected on your Google My Business profile. Other signals that help establish your relevance are reviews for your keywords, your content page titles, proper naming of images and even how your links are structured across your website.
A website audit addresses deficits in these three areas so you can make improvements.
Addressing Google Penalties
Google penalties occur when you knowingly or unknowingly fail to follow Google SEO best practices. Penalties push you down the rankings and can even block you from appearing in SERPs altogether. Your webmaster receives notice a penalty applies allowing them to remedy the issue. However, if your webmaster isn’t checking their notices, or sees them and doesn’t respond, your ranking suffers. Messages are found in your Google account on the Search Console. If you don’t know how to use this tool, you’ll need a digital marketing agency to help remedy the problems such as:
- Poor quality content
- Inappropriate mobile redirects
- User-generated spam
- Bad links
When you find issues, fixing them helps get your site back into the rankings.
Keyword Research
Revisiting your keyword strategy both on your site and to spot current trends helps improve your SEO efforts. This is the best way to keep your keywords relevant. Keyword research allows you to remove keywords that no longer perform well and add newer phrases that have become more common.
Rankings
Knowing where you rank for your keywords tells you what keywords need more attention. You need to find how to outrank your competitors for keywords while also finding new keyword opportunities. A digital marketing agency uses tools that identify local pack ranking and organic search results so you can benchmark progress and improve your ranking.
Links and Website Authority
Both internal and external links are important to your ranking. Internal links make it easier for search engines to scan your site while external links help establish authority. Your link profile helps with relevance and prominence which impact your ability to rank for organic searches. Tools that scan for links look at the number and quality of links to find issues as well as opportunities that help establish prominence and relevance. Tools also allow you to scan competing sites to see how they are using links and know where to improve your own links to “out-link” them.
Citations
Local citations are mentions of your company name, address, and phone number (NAP) for reviews, your GMB and other spots like local directories. An audit of citations ensures you know where you need to complete your NAP and keep it consistent on every listing. Updating and correcting discrepancies improve citations and make your business appear more legitimate to search engines. It also ensures customers can contact you without issue.
Brand Mentions and Implied Links
Implied links or brand mentions refer to online sources mentioning your company without providing a link. This still helps establish prominence, so including an audit to find them is important. You can search your name on Google in quotes and see where your brand appears. Brand mentions are name only, while implied links include contact information.
GMB
An audit of your GMB allows you to ensure you’ve leveraged all the free tools available to help rank your business in the local pack. With new GMB features added frequently, audits allow you to ensure every detail is correct and completed to improve your profile and local presence. Although this doesn’t directly audit your site, it does improve your ranking.
A website audit takes a lot of time and know-how. You can always make the process easier by calling the team at German Repair Shop Marketing, we’re happy to help.
