LOCAL  SEO  SECRETS

LOCAL  SEO  IS  DIFFERENT  FROM  STANDARD  SEO

GO  TO  GOOGLE  MY  BUSINESS  https://www.google.com/business/  ARTICLE  ON  HOW  TO  SET  UP  "GOOGLE  MY  BUSINESS"  http://robertkarbaum.com/youtube-­‐postal-­‐service/how-­‐to-­‐setup-­‐google-­‐my-­‐business/  

All  you  need  to  know  is  that  once  you’ve  set  it  up,  you  should  include  the  following:  

• Add  a  long,  unique  description  that’s  formatted  correctly  and  includes  links.  • Choose  the  correct  categories  for  your  business.  • Upload  as  many  photos  as  possible.  • Add  a  local  phone  number  to  your  listing.  • Add  your  business  address  that’s  consistent  with  that  on  your  website  and  local  directories.  • Upload  a  high-­‐resolution  profile  image  and  cover  photo.  • Add  your  opening  times/days  (if  relevant).  • Get  real  reviews  from  customers  (I’ll  come  onto  this).

NAP  (Name,  Address,  Phone  Number)  

Consistency  is  key  here.  You  need  to  ensure  that  you  have  your  full  NAP  across  your  whole  website  (i.e.  every  page).  Furthermore,  you  must  use  the  exact  same  details/format  when  you  mention  your  address  on  other  websites  (i.e.  local  citations).  

You’ll  also  want  to  use  Schema.org  markup  on  your  NAP  to  give  the  search  engines  all  they  need  to  display  your  company  information  correctly.

The  screenshot  above  shows  how  a  local  business  in  London  has  placed  their  NAP  in  the  footer  of  their  website,  marking  it  up  with  Schema.org  data  markup.

Here’s  the  code  that  you  can  adapt  to  your  own  website:  

<div  itemscope  itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">  <p  itemprop="name">COMPANY  NAME</p>  <p  itemprop="address"  itemscope  itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">  <p  itemprop="streetAddress">ADDRESS  LINE  1</p>  <p  itemprop="addressLocality">CITY</p>,  <p  itemprop="addressRegion">REGION</p>  <p  itemprop="postalCode">POSTCODE/ZIP</p.  <p  itemprop="telephone">PHONE  NUMBER</p>  <meta  itemprop="latitude"  content="LATITUDE"  />  <meta  itemprop="longitude"  content="LONGITUDE"  />  </div>  All  you  need  to  do  is  change  the  text  in  bold  to  your  own  details  —  simple

Local  Reviews  

Local  reviews  have  a  direct  impact  on  local  search  rankings.  Spend  time  getting  them!  

Not  just  Google  reviews.  You’ll  also  want  to  focus  on  getting  reviews  on  your  Yelp  page  (they’re  used  by  Apple  maps),  along  with  other  local  directories.    

Your  first  priority  should  be  Google  reviews  though.

CONCENTRATE  1ST  ON  LOW  HANGING  FRUIT

CURRENT  CUSTOMERS  -­‐  OFFER  AN  INCENTIVE

CREATE  A  PAGE  ON  YOUR  WEBSITE  THAT  TEACHES  YOUR  CUSTOMERS  HOW  TO  REVIEW  YOUR  BUSINESS

Local  On-­‐Page  SEO  Factors  On-­‐page  SEO  for  local  businesses  conforms  to  some  pretty  old  school  SEO  tactics.  There’s  quite  a  large  weighting  towards  the  on-­‐page  content  in  the  local  search  listings,  so  it’s  important  that,  where  possible,  you  squeeze  the  most  value  out  of  your  content.  

• Add  your  City/Region,  plus  a  relevant  keyword,  within  your  landing  page  title  tag.  • Add  your  City/Region,  plus  a  relevant  keyword,  within  your  landing  page  H1  tag.  • Add  your  City/Region,  plus  a  relevant  keyword,  within  your  landing  page  URL.  • Add  your  City/Region,  plus  a  relevant  keyword,  within  your  landing  page  content.  • Add  your  City/Region,  plus  a  relevant  keyword,  within  your  landing  page  image  ALT  attributes.

Local  Link  Building  &  Citations  Link  building  within  local  SEO  campaigns  is  incredibly  important  and  it’s  also  something  that’s  often  overlooked.  

Local  SEO  relies  much  more  on  links  from  other  local  websites  that  are  really  relevant  to  your  business.  It’s  less  about  getting  links  from  high  authority  websites  (although  that  obviously  helps)  and  more  about  getting  links  from  websites  local  to  you  that  are  talking  about  similar  things  to  what  you  do.  

This  means  that  local  directories  are  a  useful  resource  for  link  building,  especially  when  it  comes  to  building  citations.  

“A  citation  is  an  online  reference  to  your  business’s  name,    address  and  phone  number  (NAP).”  (source)  

These  citations  don’t  even  need  to  be  linked,  as  long  as  they’re  referencing  your  business  NAP  consistently  in  the  same  way.

Use  BrightLocal.com    to  check  out  any  existing  citations  you  have  and  then  update  them  so  that  they’re  all  consistent.  You  can  also  use  the  tool  to  track  your  competitors’  citations  and  add  your  own  to  the  same  websites.  

Tons  of  ways  to  get  citations  

Use  a  service  like  WhiteSpark.com  and  get  them  to  find  and  upload  local  citations  for  you.  

Go  through  the  extensive  list  of  citations  on  the  Moz  website  and  manually  submit  your  citations.  http://moz.com/learn/local/citations-­‐by-­‐category    

Use  a  tool  like  ahrefs.com  ,  majestic.com  or  OpenSiteExplorer.com    to  run  competitive  link  research  and  find  citations  that  your  competitors  have  gained.  

Set  up  alerts  through  Mention  or  Google  Alerts  to  track  new  mentions  of  your  competitors’  NAP  listing.

Local  Link  Building  Strategies  

Here  are  a  few  to  get  you  started:  

• Go  to  Meetup.com  and  search  for  a  list  of  local  events  relevant  to  your  industry.  Find  those  that  have  websites  and  contact  them  about  sponsorship  (most  of  the  time  you’ll  only  need  to  put  on  a  lunch  for  them).  If  they  accept,  you’ll  get  a  link  from  their  website  (local  to  you)  and  their  Meetup.com  page  (highly  authoritative,  local  link).    

• Sign  up  to  press  request  services  to  get  quoted  in  local  publications  (huge  potential  for  high  authority,  local  links).  

• Run  an  AMA  on  Reddit  http://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/  within  a  relevant  subreddit  to  your  industry)  and  within  other  local  communities.  

• Line  up  interviews  and  columns  within  relevant  online  publications.  

• Give  a  discount  to  local  organizations  for  your  products/services  in  exchange  for  a  linked  mention  on  their  website.  

• Enter  local  awards  (or  start  your  own  if  there  aren’t  any!).  • Spend  time  dedicated  to  local  PR  outreach  to  get  online  and  offline  coverage  in  local  news.  • Run  regular  competitive  link  research  and  capitalize  on  any  new  opportunities  that  your  competitors  have  gained.  

• Offer  scholarships  (you  get  links  from  local  universities)  or  offer  jobs  to  students  (you  can  get  links  from  their  careers  pages).

Q  &  A