MnSearch Summit - Session - Darren Shaw - How To Not Suck At Local Seo

Darren Shaw

How to Not Suckat Local SEO

+DarrenShaw@DarrenShaw_

Reviews can be hugein some industries

VS

Listings with reviews provide a better user experience

Google loves a good user experience

These things suck

Buying reviews sucks

Don’t buy reviews. Seriously. There is no need.

Review stations suck

Don’t set up a review station

Having no reviews sucks

Don’t have no reviews

Getting all your reviews from one source sucks

Don’t get all your reviews from only one place

How to not suck at reviews

Get at least 5 Google+ Local Reviews

Get 5 Google reviews, get the stars

Nice


http://www.whitespark.ca/review-handout-generator/












The mobile review handouts work amazingly well!


http://getfivestars.com/









Get keywords in reviews

If friends and family are reviewing, ask them to mentionthe service or product.

Increase awareness of Yelp


To rank in Yelp

1) Get reviews2) Get keywords

in yelp reviews




Killing it!

Barnacle SEO

Credit to Will Scott of SearchInfluencefor coining the term. @w2scott

Barnacle SEO

How to do it

1) Claim and complete your Yelp listing

2) Get lots of reviews (keyword rich content)

3) Link to your listing from anywhere you can

4) It helps if the keyword is in the business name (because then it is added to the title tag)


Awareness, NOT solicitation


Awareness, NOT solicitation




If only there was a way to findto find friends on Yelp



Thanks Yelp!


On your website


In your email


On your door


On your counter

Download this printable sign I made! (I’m so proud)bit.ly/1lsv4m9

http://bit.ly/1lsv4m9

Diversify Review Sites

GetFiveStars makes this easy

Reviews

Super high valueSuper low effort

2 minutes 15 minutes 15 minutes

These things suck

Keyword stuffing sucks

Don’t spam the hell out of your landing pages

Keyword UseEdmonton: 32 timesPhotographer: 34 times

No content on the homepage sucks (really bad)

Don’t have a home page with no content

No services content sucks (really bad)

Don’t have a services page with only bullet points

Trying to keyword spam dozens of locations sucks

Don’t jam every town within 100 miles in the footer

Anchor text optimized footer links suck

Don’t stuff the footer with internal links

Pumping out low quality content sucks

Don’t fill your blog or site with useless thin content

Duplicate content sucks

Don’t have duplicate content all over the place

How to not suck at local website optimization

Fix any technical problems

I highly recommend Nick Leroy for this!

http://nickleroy.com/

http://nickleroy.com/

Optimize the location landing page(s)

Single location: link to homepage

Multi-location: link to a dedicated location page


Include city and primary keyword in the URL


Title tag1) Include primary keyword.2) Include city & state abbreviation3) Include same business name as on Google listing


Add a couple of good paragraphs of"about us"/"this location" content.


Include name, address, and phone in schema.org


Embed a Google map, the right way






Write high-quality long form content on the services pages

OMG YES. 4500 words on DUI Law in Alberta

pringlelaw.ca/practices/1-impaired-driving

http://www.pringlelaw.ca/practices/1-impaired-driving

Write high-quality long form content on the services pages

It’s working out quite well for them

#1 Organic

#1 Local


Read these posts by Aaron Weiche! http://bit.ly/1yTKgzT

http://bit.ly/1yTKgzT

These things suck

Spamming the description sucks

City in description can cause a ranking drop. For realz.

Don’t add any keywords from your categories to the

description

It’s ok to add a link or two to the description, but don’t do

any exact match anchors

X X

Using a PO box or fake address sucks

It’s against the guidelines. Use a real physical address.

Putting your map marker in the ocean sucks

This will seriously impact your ability to rank.

Image courtesy Linda Buquet: http://bit.ly/1pGmZLP

http://bit.ly/1pGmZLP

Using a call tracking number on your listing sucks

What?! Nooooooo.

Not a call tracking number.I just needed a screenshot.

Redirecting your listing’s URL sucks

Pretty sure that’s bad. I heard it was anyway.

Not a redirecting URL.I just needed a screenshot.

Category dilution sucks

Each additional category seems to reduce the effectivenessof the others. Stick to the core categories.

Having the wrong primary category sucks

We changed the primary category for a client and they wentfrom #11 in Places to #5 in the local pack.

How to not suck at optimizing your

Google+ Local listing

Clean up duplicate listings






Add a descriptor then register the assumed name

People are reporting ranking jumps from adding descriptors.Never include a city name in the descriptor.

Business Name:

•Your title should reflect your business’s real-world title.

•In addition to your business’s real-world title, you may include a single descriptor that helps customers locate your business or understand what your business offers.

•Marketing taglines, phone numbers, store codes, or URLs are not valid descriptors.

•Examples of acceptable titles with descriptors (in italics for demonstration purposes) are "Starbucks Downtown" or "Joe’s Pizza Restaurant". Examples that would not be accepted would be "#1 Seattle Plumbing", "Joe’s Pizza Best Delivery" or "Joe’s Pizza Restaurant Dallas".


You should “go legit” and register the name variation as anassumed name or DBA with your Secretary of State!


There are even services for this. Only $99!

Pick good categories, and only the key categories

You must nail the primary category!

Write a good description for humans, not robots

Think of this like a meta description for your Google+ Locallisting. Won’t help rankings. Will help conversions.

These things suck

Building thousands of structured citations sucks

Once you get the core structured citations (150ish), the restare too low quality to bother with. Don’t waste your time.

This is ridiculous

Incomplete citations suck

Sad trombone :(

Incomplete citations suck

Trumpets! :)Not fully completing your citations is a major lost opportunity.

Call tracking numbers on your citations suck

There probably isn’t anything worse you could do to destroyyour chances of ranking in local.

I need a screenshot, so let’s just pretendthat’s a call tracking number ok?

Inconsistent citations suck

??Your Google listing

Stressing about 100% address consistency sucks

Google normalizes addresses, so variations like the ones above are no worries mate!

Street vs St

Northeast vs NE

Suite vs Ste

Floor vs Flr.

98115-8222 vs 98115

Stratford vs STRATFORD

(206) 729-1200 vs 206-729-1200

Duplicate citations suck

You gotta get the duplicates removed.

How to not suck at citations

Get 1 accurate & complete listing on the major data aggregators

You really must be listed on all 4 of these

http://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-usUsed with permission from David Mihm


http://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-us


Moz Local is pretty great for data aggregator distribution.

Go to http://www.expressupdate.com to find and remove incorrect listings.

Clean up duplicates on the major data aggregators

http://www.expressupdate.com/

Go to http://www.neustarlocaleze.biz to find and remove incorrect listings.


http://www.neustarlocaleze.biz/

Go to https://mybusinesslistingmanager.myacxiom.com to find and remove incorrect listings.


https://mybusinesslistingmanager.myacxiom.com/

Go to http://factual.com/data/t/places to find and remove incorrect listings.


http://factual.com/data/t/places

To update or remove: factual.com/contact


http://factual.com/contact

Get 1 accurate & complete listing on the second tier citation sites

On each of these sites, use the internal search function to find and remove incorrect listings.

Clean up duplicates on the second tier citation sites

Get some quality unstructured citations

Feature local artists at the business


Host events at the business


Offer student discounts


http://www.localstampede.com/citation-building-strategies-list/

Tons of great ideas here:




Get a handful of city-specific and industry specific citations

Get 1 accurate and complete listing on the remainingtop 50 citation sites

Clean up duplicates on the remaining top 50 citation sites

Get 1 accurate and complete listing, and remove duplicateson the remaining top 50 citation sites

https://www.whitespark.ca/citation-audit-and-cleanup-service




These things suck

Spammy links suck

I suspect everyone here already knows what kinds of links suck

1) Link directories

2) Cheap and crappy guest post links

3) Comment spam

4) Forum links

5) Blog network links

6) Etc.

How to not suck at local links

Clean up any spammy links

Do it yourself…

Clean up any spammy links

or, hire a professional

Get the typical basic links from citations, social profiles, etc

[0047] When the document falls within the broad area (block 460--YES), then a location prominence score associated with the document may be determined (block 470). The location prominence score may be based on a set of factors that are unrelated to the geographical area over which the user is searching. In one implementation, the set of factors may include one or more of the following factors: (1) a score associated with an authoritative document; (2) the total number of documents referring to a business associated with the document; (3) the highest score of documents referring to the business; (4) the number of documents with reviews of the business; and (5) the number of information documents that mention the business. In other implementations, the set of factors may include additional or different factors.

Get at least 1 super link


SS Scholarship SS Sponsorship


Their home page


Their scholarship page


Killing it!









Sponsorships

1. Boston inurl:sponsors2. site:.edu boston supporters3. site:.edu boston sponsors4. site:.org boston supporters5. site:.org boston sponsors6. site:.k12.ca.us supporters7. site:.k12.ca.us sponsors

Get a handful of local links


XLINK




Thanks!Any questions?

+DarrenShaw@DarrenShaw_

MnSearch Summit - Session - Darren Shaw - How To Not Suck At Local Seo

Education

location landing

call tracking

location prominence

remove incorrect

spammy links

primary category

businesss

google map