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5 Local SEO Questions with @LocalSEOGuide — Andrew Shotland https://ift.tt/2N2wLNE This week we dive into Local SEO with Andrew Shotland, who most of you know by the twitter handle @localseoguide.
Along with being a valued member of the SEO community, Andrew helped launch Showtime Networks first website, and with NBC’s Internet division, launched some of the first TV to Web experiences. In 2003, he helped launch InsiderPages which was acquired by CitySearch in 2006. Since then he has been guiding SEO clients big and small at his company Local SEO Guide. Read on for Andrew’s expert insight into our questions surrounding Local SEO. 1. How has Local SEO changed in the past 2 years?There are so many things that have evolved in this space over the past two years; it is hard to keep track of. In no particular order, are some of the more interesting developments:
As far as tactics go, we have done a large Local SEO Ranking Factors study for the past two years, and we keep seeing link building and reviews as critical. Citations can still be important for businesses that don’t have many or don’t rank in the Local Packs, but once you start showing up in the Local Packs, the importance of citations seems to decline. 2. How do I beat out big competitors like Yelp etc., when I have no budget?The good news is that the trend over time appears to be that Google wants to show more and more truly local businesses in each part of a Local SERP which means less opportunity for these big directories. There will always be some directories in these SERPs, but smart local businesses even with small budgets can compete.
Once you have your basic website, a Google My Business Page and your local citations in place, it pretty much becomes a content, links and reviews game. In some cases, local businesses can win if they are able to pump out some content that is materially better than say Yelp’s nail salons in <city> page, or even just publish on their site the most common FAQs they get from customers. But that is not going to work for most SMBs, so they should focus on getting a steady stream of positive customer reviews on Google, Yelp, and any other site that is relevant to their niche/market. They also should be in the habit of prospecting for links as they network in their community. It doesn’t take many links to move the needle for most local businesses. And the new GMB services like Posts are a great free way of helping attract customers that may already be familiar with your brand. 3. How much does social media factor into my Local SEO efforts?We don’t see it playing a huge factor outside of reviews. We know some guys who use Google+ to try to send the right signals to Google, and that is kind of interesting, but other than seeing URLs that get a lot of action on Twitter get crawled more, social SEO is not really a thing we focus on. Of course, if all of your customers are on Facebook, you should probably be active there too. 4. If I am a local pizza/plumbing/real estate business, how do I best differentiate myself from all the other local businesses in my niche?Well, if you are a local pizza/plumbing/real estate business that seems pretty differentiated from the get-go. (Authors note: This actually made me LOL.) The easy answer is you need to “build a brand.” That can mean a number of different things these days, but, outside of some of the spammier industries like legal and dentistry, we tend to see businesses that have decent brands — as in they market themselves offline, they have good word of mouth, etc. — tend to do well with SEO once you get their program in place. But there are plenty of businesses with not much of a brand that can do well, usually, by just setting up their site and GMB pages correctly and getting links and reviews. 5. What 3 Local SEO tips do you have for businesses trying to boost their local rankings and conversions?I hate to be a broken record but: 1) Come up with a unique but inexpensive way to generate links on a regular basis. Sponsor a kids’ soccer team — actually, sponsor all of the kids’ soccer teams. 2) Bake customer review generation into your processes. 3) Make sure you have an SEO strategy. We see so many big and small companies that just want “SEO” but have no strategy to get it. The companies that succeed at Local SEO: - Have a website that is easy for Google to understand and navigate. Huge thank you to Andrew for answering some of our burning Local SEO questions! To recap:
Are you trying to rank for local results? We would love to hear about your trials and tribulations in the comments. SEO via SEMrush blog https://ift.tt/1K8Zzbp August 31, 2018 at 02:25AM
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