For self-storage businesses, the key to success is being visible, easy to reach, and offering solutions that resonate with the needs of prospective customers. And with the majority of consumers turning to the internet for research, the importance of effective SEO strategies is only increasing.
Here are our top 10 recommendations to amplify your digital presence and steer more customers to your storage facility.
1. Optimize Local SEO
Most people looking for self-storage facilities prefer a convenient location near them. Meaning, most of your clients are probably going to be from your local area. By optimizing your SEO strategy for local searches – an approach known as local SEO – you can significantly improve your visibility to these potential customers. This includes optimizing your website and content for location-specific keywords, getting listed on local directories, and optimizing your Google Business Profile.
Recommendation: Start by researching and using geo-specific keywords in your content, title tags, meta descriptions, and headers. Tools like Google Keyword Planner and Moz Keyword Explorer are great starting points to identify highly searched keywords in your locale.
2. Leverage Online Reviews
Effective SEO goes beyond integrating the right keywords and having a user-friendly website. Your online reputation, specifically reviews, can significantly affect your SEO rankings. Businesses with positive and varied online reviews tend to rank higher on search engines. Enter Podium Reviews: a text-based platform that helps you collect and manage online reviews at scale.
Podium streamlines the review management process, making it easy for your customers to leave reviews and for you to respond to them promptly. More reviews and better engagement lead to higher search engine rankings, driving more traffic to your site and ultimately leading to more business for your facility.
3. Utilize Schema Markup
Schema markup, a form of microdata, provides search engines with more detailed information about your web page content. This ensures that search engines understand your content fully and can enhance its display in search results, potentially leading to improved click-through rates.
Our advice is to leverage this tool to ensure that search engines interpret and display your website content correctly. Adding schema markup to your site improves the richness of your search results, increasing your site’s visibility and attracting more potential customers.
4. Create Value-Adding Content
Producing high-quality, informative content not only gives your company a professional image but also increases your website’s visibility on search engine results pages. This could include writing useful blog posts, infographics, or white papers related to self-storage.
We suggest prioritizing quality over quantity – regularly update your website with well-written, original content that adds value to your audience. Ensure that your content includes relevant keywords, but avoid keyword stuffing as it can negatively affect your SEO performance.
5. Leverage Google Ads
Google Ads allows your business to place an advertisement for your storage facility at the top of search results, increasing your visibility and likely bringing in more customers. While it’s not a direct response to SEO, it complements your strategy by increasing your online presence.
Our recommendation is to use Google Ads in tandem with your SEO efforts. You can gain quick visibility while you’re building your organic SEO presence. (Remember to use relevant keywords in your ads and optimize them for the best results.)
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6. Optimize For Mobile
With the ever-increasing usage of smartphones for online searches, having a mobile-friendly website is essential. A site that isn’t optimized for mobile use can lead to a poor user experience and ultimately impact your SEO.
Make sure your site is accessible and user-friendly on mobile devices. This can be achieved through responsive design, where your site’s layout adjusts based on the device it’s being viewed on.
7. Speed Things Up
A slow-loading website can negatively impact your SEO performance. Many users expect a site to load in less than two seconds. If your site is slower than this, you can lose potential customers, and search engines may penalize you in their rankings.
Our advice is simple – regularly test and optimize your website speed, focusing on aspects like optimizing images, enabling compression, reducing redirects, and using browser caching.
8. Build Backlinks
Having credible websites link to your content can significantly improve your SEO rankings. These ‘backlinks’ indicate to search engines that your content is valuable, thereby improving your credibility and ranking.
Create shareable content, establish relationships with industry influencers, and write guest posts to amass high-quality backlinks.
9. Use Social Media
Although social media does not directly impact your SEO, it can broaden your online presence and increase traffic to your website. As more and more people interact with your content, share it, and visit your site, search engines will interpret this as a signal of quality, which can positively affect your rankings.
Regularly post engaging, relevant content on various social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and engage with your followers to build strong relationships.
10. Track Your Progress
An effective SEO strategy requires regular testing and adjustments. Using tools like Google Analytics, you can track your site’s performance and identify areas that need improvement – whether it’s on-page SEO, backlink quality, or site speed.
Our final word of advice? Continuously monitor your SEO strategy’s effectiveness, refine it based on your findings, and stay adaptable to the ever-changing SEO landscape.
Improve Faster with Podium
Managing a successful business in the digital age requires a robust online presence. Leveraging the right mix of SEO strategies can increase your visibility, making it easier for potential clients to find your services.
With tools like Podium, you can boost your SEO efforts even faster, especially when it comes to managing your online reviews – a critical factor in today’s digital marketing landscape. Try Podium for free today.
