With 91%, DM-Line reached Google´s Top 3 thanks to local landing pages

Every company's dream? Ranking high in Google with the keywords your site wants to be found on. Unfortunately, your competitors want the same thing. When you have to compete against big players with even bigger budgets, the dream seems to shatter. Fortunately, there is a way to get high rankings anyway, even in highly competitive markets. In fact, a local SEO strategy with accompanying content for local searches can make all the difference to your rankings. We discuss the benefits of high rankings, how to achieve them with local pages, and illustrate this with a case study on custom closets company DM-Line.

The SEO ranking online contributes to the organic success of your website. But how do you know when your site is sufficiently optimised? Spoiler: it never is. However, if you are not appearing on the first page of search results for a relevant keyword, then you have some work to do in any case. Because the better optimised a site is, the higher your rankings in search engines. And that comes with a lot of benefits.

Websites that rank high in Google attract more traffic. The page in first position gets 42% of the traffic, the second 11% and the third 8%. These figures are not surprising, as Internet users simply click on the first result they come across. A top position with high traffic also generates more leads and therefore more sales. And that's what every company is striving for, right?

What's more,a high ranking ensures that Internet users regard your website as authoritative. Data shows that users view the sites at the top of the SERP as the most credible companies within their sector. Even if this is not actually the case, the company is perceived as such.

Internet users assume that the position of a website or page in Google is proportional to the quality of the products and services it offers. This builds trust and, more importantly, gives a nice image boost to the company in question. Business who have secured the first position in Google must surely have the best products and services in the sector (or at least according to Internet users).

The main obstacle for local businesses to rank high in Google is competition. 'Small' (i.e.: local or regional) companies compare themselves too much to big players in the market and are disappointed when they do not achieve similar results. But the big players have more resources and budget to build up authority, provide complex technical solutions and invest in tons of quality content. There are three important factors to get a high ranking in search engines:

• Authority

Authority is all about trust, and backlinks (= links from external sites to yours) are an important indicator of that. The more quality backlinks, the more reliable the website is considered by search engines. In addition, the expertise of the authors of your web content and the trustworthiness of your company itself (based on reviews, social mentions and so on) also contribute to the authority of your website.

• Technical parameters

Whether it is for a multinational or a local business, the technical parameters of a website can have a major impact on your organic findability. Of course, large sites often present different obstacles than small ones, and both require different approaches. For example, with large sites, you will have to have more consideration for more complex issues such as crawlability and indexability, or correctly applying hreflang and canonical tags, among others, while with smaller sites you usually only have to focus on the more standard requirements such as loading speed, responsiveness or resolving 404-errors.

• Quality content

The quality of the content and how well it responds to the search query have an impact on a page's SEO ranking. Businesses with a strong team of copywriters can easily provide and maintain that content. That way, they can continuously optimise their pages to rank higher in Google, even when the keyword is highly competitive.

Smaller companies often lack the time, manpower and budget to invest in authority, content and technical solutions. Does that make it impossible to still rank higher in Google than the big companies in your sector? Even when your keywords around your products and services are competitive? No! By focusing on other keywords and investing in a local SEO strategy, even smaller players can achieve a spot at the top of the SERP.

The better the quality of the content, the longer visitors stay on the page and the lower the bounce rate. Blogs and guides are examples of strong, quality content because they inform website visitors according to their search query. To generate relevant content, your texts need a specific flavour. Extensive keyword research can provide inspiration.

However, many companies tend to create texts about a generic keyword. Sports, for example. Generic keywords have a lot of search volume and therefore a lot of competition. Indeed, everyone wants to take advantage of this high search volume. Unfortunately, the chances that your site will hold a top position are tiny. So tap into other keywords that have search volume but little competition. Synonyms or long-tail keywords are ideal in this regard. 'Summer beach sports' is an example of a long-tail keyword. You can see that it is a lot less generic and it offers a nice angle for relevant content creation.

If you are a company with your products and/or services operating in a specific region, then it's a good idea to invest in a local SEO strategy. You then no longer focus on generic keywords, but on local long-tail keywords: keywords relevant to your business combined with place names. That way, you address a target audience looking for a product or service that they want to purchase immediately, preferably as near as possible to the indicated location. Generating content that provides local information sets a smaller company apart from the big players in the market.

Two of the most effective ways to boost your local SEO rankings are a Google Business Profile and local landing pages.

Local SEO landing pages are pages on a company's website that contain content with a local flavour. The pages are part of a local SEO strategy and focus on keyword combinations consisting of products/services and a location (e.g., buying a garage door in Merksem).By envisaging unique, local content, they target Internet users who in the short term want to make a purchase of the product in the indicated location. A lot of companies in various sectors benefit from local pages, as long as they offer a product or service in one or more locations or regions. Because local pages are a perfect match for a local search, they enjoy strong visibility and high rankings in the SERPs each time.

Affordable custom work, that is DM-Line's business. Dressing rooms, bookcases, sliding doors, you name it. As in many other sectors, the construction and interior design sector has a lot of SEO-related local searches. People look for windows and doors, cavity wall insulation, garage doors or made-to-measure wardrobes, often in combination with the city, municipality or district where they live. They are looking for a distributor or installer who can deliver the materials and/or carry out the work at that specific location.

Thanks to high rankings in Google and Bing search results for 'custom-made closets', not only does DM-Line attract the necessary visitors to the website, but they are also seen as the key reference within their market.

The local pages were put online on 23 December 2020. The positions in Google are measured with SE Ranking. We measured the rankings at two points in time. The first time on 25 May 2021, five months after the pages went live and the second time on 25 May 2022, another year later.

For the keyword 'custom closets', the local pages scored the following positions:

Conversion rates (period from 17 May to 31 Aug 2021

For the second keyword, 'custom closets', this resulted in the following rankings of the local pages:

Conversion rates (period from 17 May to 31 Aug 2021)

It is striking that the longer local landing pages are online, the higher the rankings climb. The large quantity of local pages obviously took time to index, but the above results highlight the importance of relevant, (local) content that responds to the (local) search query. The local pages of DM-Line respond accurately to the search intent of Internet users. For every search with the keyword "custom closets/custom-made closets + location," a local page of DM-Line appears. Relevant content, high rankings.

To further clarify the impact of local pages on rankings, DM-Line's rankings were compared with those of their competitor Camber for the keywords "custom closets + location". DM-Line has local pages for these keywords, but Camber does not.

Comparison of top positions between DM-Line and its competitor Camber

The results speak for themselves: without local pages, the top positions are out of reach for a local search. Businesses with a local or regional area of activity can see their website SEO rankings rise by investing in a local SEO strategy. A path well worth taking.