This isn't necessarily a bad thing - with increased competition in Auckland's case means an increase in the population so if you can get ranked you'll receive an awesome lift to traffic.
Compare the search terms such as 'florist Auckland' and 'florist Whitianga'. The Auckland search has over 1,000 people a month for that exact search term. Whitianga doesn't even register which means under 10 people are searching a month.
Search Engine Optimisation in Auckland
Since SEO in Auckland is much more competitive - how do you begin to rank?!
Google Business pages are a lifeline here. Since you're in Auckland, this means Google has the ability to show you in their local pack. Getting a Google Business page allows you to start appearing in this local pack, almost separate from organic search.
The huge plus here is if you don't have any presence online at the moment, it doesn't really matter. You can quickly get yourself in this local pack and then focus on ranking organically.
Breaking down the image above you can see that under the keyword 'florist Auckland' there are three main sections that Google shows.
Adwords
The first are Adwords. These are ads that companies pay for. Every time someone clicks on one of these ads, the corresponding company pays.
Adwords are quite easy to set up but hard to master. We can help here but before you want to buy your way to the top remember that your business is now based on paying for clicks. Because of this we heavily suggest that you combine Adwords with SEO so you can benefit from both the free and organic clicks as well as the paid clicks.
Local SEO
The local pack is the section on Google with the map and the 3 results below it. As you can see, the map shows a picture of Auckland City and the three most relevent local companies. This is where you can appear with the Google Business page.
You can also see that these companies have reviews and a button that brings the visitor to the website or gives them directions. On the phone this also gives the customer the ability to call which is amazing.
The process of getting here is called Local SEO.
Local SEO is super powerful and is one of the earliest things we recommend our customers do if they haven't already.
The next stage of Local SEO is building citations (business directories) which builds Google's trust that they are actually in Auckland in this case and are established.
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Search Engine Optimisation Auckland
The final section is organic search which is the primary focus for SEO. This is where you can really generate results for the big terms.
Where Local SEO only focuses on products and services in a certain region, with organic SEO you can rank for search times like 'flower deliver' where the customer doesn't augment the search with a location.
Although it's harder to rank for more organic search terms, once you do, it pays massive dividends.
4 Tips For Successful Auckland SEO
The 4 main hacks I'd suggest you start with today are:
- Claim a Google My Business page
- Get your customers to leave a review
- Build at least 30 business listings or citations
- Break down the information on your site to key pages. If you think you do an awesome delivery process, create a page about it! Include some photos, have some fun and rank for that term.
Before you know it, you'll be delivering all the flowers in Auckland ;)
To get a more in-depth list of steps, download our SEO Cheat Sheet. You'll save yourself thousands and make even more!