How To Rank Nationally With SEO

Whenever a customer searches for something relevant to a business, search engines display both local and national results. Though it makes sense for some types of businesses to focus more on one than the other, most businesses can benefit from optimizing both types of results. Maximize your efforts by learning how to rank nationally with SEO.

What Does It Mean To Rank Nationally With SEO?

National SEO is the process of optimizing your website to appear among the first few results in national search queries. National rankings are primarily relevant for businesses that have a nationwide presence or that sell products and services online. However, local businesses can also benefit from improving their national rankings.

What Are the Benefits of Ranking Nationally?

70% of Americans shop for products online. Even if your business is primarily local, many customers search for product information on the internet before they go to a local store to make a purchase.

Improving your national rankings builds your reputation, expands your customer base, and helps prevent losing sales to national competitors that customers may find while researching products. Strong national rankings also make it easier for you to expand to online sales if you decide to.

If you are already selling nationwide, it is essential to be competitive on search engine results pages for national searches. Most customers won’t click on results past the first few on the first page, so neglecting your national SEO efforts can cause you to miss out on potential sales.

National SEO campaigns are one of the most cost-effective ways to increase leads and conversions and to grow your company’s customer base. While creating SEO content requires an investment of time and other resources, organic search traffic doesn’t cost you money when a customer clicks on your link, unlike pay-per-click advertising.

How Can You Rank Nationally With SEO?

To rank well in national searches, you must identify what your target market is searching for and optimize your content around those keywords. You can discover which keywords you should target by analyzing the terms potential customers are searching for and the keywords popular sites in your industry use.

Additionally, you can build content around the features and benefits of the products and services you sell. People searching for these keywords are likely to have an interest in purchasing something from you. There is a variety of techniques that you can use to optimize your site for these keywords.

Create High-Quality Content

The most effective way to improve your rankings for relevant national keywords is to produce a large volume of high-quality content. Blogging regularly is one of the best ways to accomplish this goal.

Select topics that are relevant and useful to your target audience. For example, if your company sells pizza flour, you could write a blog about the best way to store flour.

In-depth content tends to perform better than short posts because Google considers it more helpful to readers. Longer content also keeps visitors on your site longer, which can encourage more sales and repeat traffic, and boost your rankings.

Useful content also attracts backlinks and social media shares, which can drive more traffic to your site. To rank nationally with SEO, focus on evergreen topics that are not specific to any region. This will help you reach the largest possible audience for the longest possible time.

Build White-Hat Backlinks

How authoritative and trustworthy search engine algorithms think your site is will impact your rankings. Links from other authoritative sites to your content improve your domain’s ranking for expertise, authority, and trust.

Contact journalists, bloggers, and site owners relevant to your industry and target audience, and ask them to create useful content and link to your site. Offer to write guest posts, and include a link back to your site.

Create industry reports, and share them with industry sites to attract backlinks. Ask industry podcasters to feature you on their shows and link to your site when promoting their podcasts.

Track Your Results and Make Changes

Search engines frequently change their algorithms, and competitors change their SEO strategies. Additionally, changes in the market and consumer behavior can affect your national SEO rankings.

Audit your content periodically to identify opportunities for improvement, and make changes based on your findings. You can make this process easier by using tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

Perform Regular SEO Maintenance

Over time, links can break, content can go stale, keywords can change, and technical issues may crop up with your site. You must constantly monitor your SEO performance and make adjustments as part of your regular SEO maintenance to keep your rankings from slipping.

Additionally, keep track of online mentions of your business, and make sure information, such as your address, phone number, hours of operation, and products and services offered, are up to date. This will boost both your local and national rankings and build your brand’s reputation.

Update Older Content

Google considers how recently you published or updated your content when determining your national SEO rankings. This can cause the rankings for older content to go down.

Update content that is performing well to boost its rankings, and remove or rework content that is underperforming. Optimize your older content for current search algorithms and keywords. Update informational content to reflect any changes in the market, product updates, advances in technology, or relevant research.

Maintain a Social Media Presence

Social media doesn’t directly affect your search rankings. However, sharing links to your content and engaging with your target audience can drive traffic to your site and encourage backlinking.

Building an engaged social media following increases word-of-mouth advertising by encouraging followers to share your content. Promote engagement by asking questions and soliciting feedback.

Search for and respond to reviews of your company. Offer incentives to encourage customers to leave positive reviews.

How Can BKA Help You Rank Nationally With SEO?

BKA’s SEO experts know how to rank nationally with SEO. Our content creation, white-hat link building, and other national SEO services help businesses reach their goals while freeing them up to focus on what they do best. Visit us online to learn more.