If you’re a local business owner in Tucson, then you know this city could never be boiled down to just one thing. Tucson is a city with an extremely rich history, and means so many different things to so many people!
- A historic town with deep ties to the Wild West? Yep!
- A bicyclist's dream, with the 137-mile-long Loop and countless, beautiful trails? You know it!
- A college town with a small city’s heart? Most Certainly!
- A modern bastion of innovation and industry tucked under the desert sun? Tucson’s that too!
Tucson is a city with an incredible history, but it’s also one with a rapidly evolving future. Just recently, Tucson revitalized its downtown, built digital infrastructure, and invested in tech parks and innovation hubs like the U of A Tech Park and Phantom Space Corp. The city has grown, and with that comes change. But these changes are not just felt in the physical makeup of the city, but also how it is experienced online!
Being a local Tucson business is hard; there’s no other way around it. As our city has expanded and changed, there is more competition than ever. And with an ever-changing online ecosystem, it has never become more difficult than ever to stand out from the crowd! But, on the flip side, it has also never been as easy to connect with your customers, be found locally, and be seen as the pillar of our community that you are!
OK, that’s a lot of talk, but how does your business get found online, and connect with the variety of communities and people who live in the Tucson metro? Well, why not ask one of Tucson’s most trusted and experienced digital marketing teams?
Hi, we’re Anchor Wave, and we’ve been helping local Tucson businesses get found online for over two decades! We have first hand experienced the changes our city has undergone. At the same time, we were also “growing up” with the internet, constantly following the innovations, disrupters, and sea changes which have created our modern digital ecosystem. And with every zig and zag this journey has brought us on, our primary goal has always been to help our fellow Tucson businesses show up where it really matters. As Tucson SEO experts, digital marketing pros, and (most importantly) Tucsonans, no one else can give you a better beginner’s roadmap on how to get discovered online as a Tucson business than Anchor Wave!
Over the last year, we’ve been writing on all the beginner SEO techniques that Tucson businesses should be using to be found online. To simplify the process, we’ve compiled the most necessary information into one snazzy guide (you can thank us later)!
Without further ado, let’s jump in as we show you our tested, trusted, and friendly starter guide to being found online (in Tucson)!
On-Site SEO vs. Off-Site SEO: What’s the Difference?
If you’ve spent any time researching digital marketing (or have spent a minute talking to a digital marketer) you’ve probably heard many acronyms and terms which may sound like Greek to you. But the king of digital marketing — and the most common phrase you’ll hear us use — is SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. While this term is thrown around a lot, its definition is actually much more specific than you may think.
SEO is an umbrella term for techniques and best practices which help search engines (like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.) find, catalog and display your business for relevant searches. So if you’re a plumber serving the entire Tucson metro, the search engine optimization you would want to perform would be based around getting your business to show up in search results for things like “plumbers in Tucson,” “drain repair,” and “plumbers near me.”
Alright, so that’s SEO, so what is on and off-site SEO? Well, we actually wrote an entire blog about the difference between the two, but we’ll give you the essentials!
Off-Site SEO 101
Off-site SEO is the act of building search engine presence through means outside of your website. This means bringing attention to your business by being found in places that aren’t just a link to your homepage.
The most powerful tool in this regard is Google. Google is the search engine for most internet users. Although other search engines are important (and we’ll get to them in due time), focusing much of your effort into Google is an essential way of growing your business and creating a powerful online presence. And Google gives you a powerful way to directly tap into their search algorithm for free: the Google Business Profile!
The Google Business Profile (GBP) is a central place for your business to put all of its essential information — hours, phone number, address — but you probably already knew that. Did you know that your GBP has many more features, most never touched by Tucson businesses, which give you unique ways to add authentic keywords, and keep your profile updated with new information?
Whether it’s writing keyword-rich posts on a consistent basis or adding new photos to show your business’ ongoing success, there are countless ways to engage with your GBP to ensure it is helping pull in local traffic for your business.
But like we said, there is much more out there than just Google; in fact, there are ways to build off-site SEO which build your presence across all search engines. And to do that, you have to spread awareness and information on your company across the entire internet. But how is that done? Well, here are some pointers.
Directories Are Your Friend
In the most simple of terms, directories are websites which collect businesses’ information into one place. They show a business’ name, location, industry, phone number, and all other relevant information. They serve a simple purpose, but one that is essential for making the internet friendly for finding companies.
There are countless directories you already used, but maybe aren’t aware of. YellowPages, Yelp, and FourSquare are all directories which local Tucson businesses should be listed on if they aren’t already. Sometimes they are public facing and used for finding businesses in a particular area or niche. And sometimes they are private, made for industry professionals or a highly specific audience base.
But why are directories important? For search engines to find relevant businesses for local search results, they rely on directories to hold this information. So the more times a search engine is able to verify a business’ information from independent directories, and the more they know who, what, and where they are serving; the more trust they have in displaying a business in search results!
The Power of Citations
In explaining directories, we’ve only really given you half the story; the other half being citations. If a directory is a place for your business’ information to be listed, the actual information being listed is a citation. Citations are when your business’ information can be found anywhere online, and many are created on directories. However, they extend past directories as well.
Your website, Google Business Profile, and even your individual business social media accounts all act as citations, and assist your business in appearing in search results. Each citation is another search result, and another place for your business to establish its phone number, address, industry, specialties, and any other essential information to the algorithms of search engines.
But outside the context of search engine optimization, citations are also crucial for building brand reputation. A citation could be your business’ first impression, especially on social media platforms or business reputation organizations like the Better Business Bureau. Each directory and/or platform allows a variety of information and customization to be included, so it is crucial to use all the tools at your disposal to have citations feel like yet another limb of your business’ online presence!
However, getting your business added to all the relevant directories and building (and consistently updating) citations takes a lot of knowledge, time, and expertise. If you need help with setting up a comprehensive online business directory management, you can read the blog we wrote on this very topic. We give a lot more information on how to take control of your directories, and how Anchor Wave’s comprehensive management programs can simplify the process!
Optimizing a Site for Tucsonans
Alright, so we’ve covered how local Tucson businesses can build their off-site presence, helping them be discovered through search engines, directories, and building brand reputation and trust by ensuring consistent information and branding across citations. But this is only half the strategy! While your potential customers may find you through search engines or directories, they learn to trust you through your website.
For Tucson businesses, the website has the most potential to convert potential customers into full-blown brand advocates. They offer a unique place to tell your brand’s story and the people who wrote it, highlight glowing customer testimonials and reviews, present what sets you apart from your competition, and celebrate your wins and work (all while establishing your brand’s visual language and approach to language)!
By writing a website to be user-friendly, and with some website backend know-how, your own site can become your most important citation. This practice is the sister to off-site SEO, using techniques and research to help your own site appear strongly in local and/or industry specific search results: on-site SEO!
On-Site SEO Basic and Best Practices
There are many tools and techniques at your disposal to optimize your website, and most are totally free and (relatively) simple to implement. With some research and careful planning, you can boost your website’s chances of being found by Tucsonans looking for local businesses. To help get you started, here’s a short list of the most important tools/techniques you can use today to help your Tucson site’s SEO:
Keywords
In the most basic definition, a keyword is a word or phrase that someone searches to find relevant results. For Tucson businesses, keywords are standardly searches for industries or solutions for problems, sometimes based around geographic parameters. Some examples Tucson businesses would appear in would be “plumber,” “roofer near me,” or “HVAC repair Tucson.”
By researching the most powerful keywords in your industry, you can include them in your website's copy, answering common questions and telling search engines that you are a business that specializes in a specific industry, and offers a solution for the problems or questions a searcher is having!
Meta Information
While most on-site SEO is viewed through the lens of what potential customers are seeing (i.e. the copy and design of your website), there is a world of information which is primarily read by search engines themselves. This is called meta information, and it is used to provide search engines with invaluable information about your website's content, helping it appear in more relevant search queries.
Every website page has a meta title, meta description, and a featured image, and all of these help ensure your website can be found in local searches. There are countless web builder plugins which allow you to find ways to boost your page’s SEO rating, however here are some quick tips:
- Pick a strong and well searched keyword as your “featured keyword,” or what could be viewed as the main keyword of a specific page. You don’t want to be too vague, but you also don’t want your featured keyword to be something no one’s looking for!
- Use that featured keyword throughout the page, but not too often. A general rule of thumb is once per every 200 words.
- Make sure you have a meta title which has your featured keyword. It should describe the page succinctly and effectively, and should also include your business’ name.
- Write a meta description which describes the page, and what its content covers. It ought to have your featured keyword, and be roughly 155 characters long.
- Ensure you have a featured image (this too helps SEO)!
Check out the image below to get a better idea of what these components are, and how they appear!
Optimizing Page Length and Content
Sometimes less is more. But in the world of search engine optimization, there really is a thing as too little! While search engines can technically show pages with any word count, creating content that is too thin or lacking in information lessens your chances of a page being shown in search results. It also provides less context and answers for your potential customers.
Of course, there is also such a thing as too much. If you are spending 8000 words to describe how you would repair an A/C unit, then you are overstuffing your content! This may even result in very few (if any) of your potential customers reading the entire page; something which Google is paying attention to.
The answer: write authentic, relevant, and authoritative content which provides your unique perspective, while also using well researched keywords! If you want a simple standard, try to create pages that are around 300 words, which is often long enough to fully explore a concept/service/product, while not bogging it down in unnecessary diction.
Putting the Basics to Action
So that’s our beginner guide for Tucson businesses to get found online (we hope you liked it)! But you may be asking yourself, what now?
To get the most out of your online presence, and to ensure that you maintain said presence, you’ll have to do the hard work of implementation. You’ll have to build your off-site SEO, building a Google Business Profile, building citations, and getting your business listed (and updated) on as many directories as you can. This will require a directory management service, and research to find the correct places to get your business found.
Next, you’ll have to ensure your website is fully optimized for SEO, adding meta information to all pages, altering your content for ideal length and keyword distribution, and making sure all this information is updated on a regular basis!
You may be thinking to yourself, this sounds like another full-time job! And that’s because it is. Listen, we know the difficulty of being a Tucson business; we’re right there with you! It takes dedication, research, and a whole lot of elbow grease to break through the noise and be found by your fellow Pima County residents.
SEO is not a set and forget solution; it is something which, to maximize its results, requires a diligent, calculated, and studied approach. If you’re tired of trying to wade through the waters of SEO and simply want to put your effort into making sure your business is providing the high quality work it can, then maybe it’s time to hand your digital marketing efforts to the Tucson SEO experts at Anchor Wave.
At Anchor Wave, we understand SEO and help local businesses compete online. We’ve helped countless companies grow their leads and presence in the digital marketing arena. However, we also understand Tucson better than a national agency ever could.
We know how seasons affect the city. How the city’s businesses are impacted by college students and winter visitors, and where those individuals spend their money. We know how monsoon season impacts businesses, and how certain industries find their most business in responding to our unique weather. And we understand Tucson’s fascinating history, and how it is constantly shaping its present and future!
When it comes to being found online in Tucson, no other agency has the same level of experience, expertise, sympathy, and understanding as Anchor Wave. If you are finding SEO and digital marketing too much to focus on, then you can trust Anchor Wave to empathize with your issues, and create a customized plan to help you succeed!
If you want to learn how we can meet your unique goals, give us a call or schedule an appointment to meet with a web strategist!
