Window treatment companies desperately need effective ways to connect with leads in their area via local search. This is especially true is they offer in-home personal design, commercial design, window treatment repairs, drapery cleaning, and other related services.
Today we’re going to take a closer look at the best free tools and resources that help these companies better reach local markets.
1. Local SEO Checklist
Local SEO Checklist is a great resource for beginners and experienced digital marketers alike. It’s comprised of a whopping 30 different checks to help ensure you’ve optimized your site as best as possible for local search…and it doesn’t cost a dime. Admittedly, I was disappointed that the service asks for your email address and telephone number, but that’s fairly common among free services.
On the other hand, I has pleased to see how many different categories of checklists there are. The first and largest checklist category helps inspect on-page elements such as title tag optimization, URL structure, location data, and more. The next group of checks is listed as All Things Google, which helps check and optimize Google My Business listings, Google Webmasters and Google Analytics, and even checks to help ensure you’ve setup a mobile-friendly website Google will applaud.
Other notable categories of checklists include Top Business Directories, Build Citations, Customer Reviews & testimonials, and of course, Website Content & Backlinking. If local SEO makes your head spin and you’re not sure where to start, this tool will help guide you down the path of reaching reaching a local audience.
2. 51Blocks Local Search Toolbox
The next free local search resource is 51Blocks Local Search Toolbox. It doesn’t seem to be as comprehensive as the previous Local SEO Checklist, but it does help identify issues and optimize a local search campaign in three main areas of focus: your actual website, Google My Business, and citations. I absolutely love free resources and tools and I understand that most free tools are going to ask for some information – typically an email address. But I was a little surprised to see all the fields of information required before accessing this resource is permitted, including your name, email address, website, and email address.
3. Unamo SEO Keyword Tracking Tool
I must admit, the Unamo SEO Keyword Tracking Tool may not be the most advanced tool in the world, but it will aid your local SEO endeavors. It’s a keyword tracking tool that can be used to hone in on keywords and separate regular keywords from local search terms. Furthermore, it can also help you track keywords in individual regions with a fair degree of granularity.
For instance, you could use it to analyze keywords in a single city or region, such as St. Louis. Be forwarned, however, because the whole SEO Performance Tracking and Analytics Suite is not free, though the keyword tracking tool is. Also be aware that to download and use the tool, Unamo requires you to enter your work email (no real surprise there).
4. Whitespark’s Local Citation Finder
The next free resource is Whitespark’s Local Citation Finder, which uses a freemium service model. The paid version doesn’t have any encumbrances, but the free version only allows an individual three searches per day, but is still a useful tool. If you weren’t already aware, a citation is essentially any reference to your business, website, or content on the Internet, regardless of whether or not the citation includes a backlink.
Not only does it help you find your citations as well as your competition’s, it also shows the most popular sites that do not provide a citation to your site, as a means to identify new citation and backlink opportunities to increase organic rankings. Furthermore, it has a targeted keyphrase tool that can help uncover related geo-keywords you may have overlooked.
5. SEMRush
SEMRush is a massive suite of popular search analytics tools, and is favored by big brands like HP and smaller businesses alike. It has a comprehensive set of analytics tools that will help provide everything from keyword data to website traffic statistics and other useful metrics. Furthermore, it has a backlink tool to see where your backlinks are coming from as well as a tool that analyzes the competition’s website metrics tool.
Sounds pretty great, right? The only problem is that SEMRush is a paid tool. However, the good news is that you can try it out and make good use of it. The trial only lasts for 14 days, but it is nonetheless a fantastic way to gather data about your website and test the waters before committing to a subscription.
6. Moz Local Citations and Listings
Every marketer who isn’t a novice has, at one time or another, heard of the extremely popular marketing group Moz. In part, this is due to their wildly successful marketing how-to videos with Rand Fishkin, but also due to the fact that Moz has created a handful of proprietary tools and marketing products.
One such marketing tool is Moz Local Citations and Listings, which helps generate a local search score. In addition, it helps show how complete your listings are across a wide array of search engines. However, this tool acts as a teaser to guide leads towards the full-featured package, which starts at $99 per year.
Final Thoughts
Local search is certainly critical for the vast majority of businesses, but even more crucial for small businesses that provide a service, such as window treatments. If you haven’t mapped out a local search strategy or simply don’t know where to begin, we’d love to have a chat with you, because you’re failing to take advantage of opportunities that would otherwise help grow your business.
