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

Darren Shaw
How to Not Suck
at Local SEO
+DarrenShaw
@DarrenShaw_

Reviews can be huge
in some industries

VS
Listings with reviews provide a better user experience

Google loves a good user experience

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

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 mention
the service or product.

Increase awareness of Yelp
To rank in Yelp
1) Get reviews
2) Get keywords
in yelp reviews

Killing it!

Barnacle SEO
Credit to Will Scott of SearchInfluence
for coining the term. @w2scott

Barnacle SEO
How to do it
1) Claim and complete your Yelp listing
1) Get lots of reviews (keyword rich content)
2) Link to your listing from anywhere you can
3) It helps if the keyword is in the business name
(because then it is added to the title tag)

Awareness, NOT solicitation

If only there was a way to find
to 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

Diversify Review Sites
GetFiveStars makes this easy

Reviews
Super high value
Super low effort
2 minutes 15 minutes 15 minutes

Keyword stuffing sucks
Don’t spam the hell out of your landing pages
Keyword Use
Edmonton: 32 times
Photographer: 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/

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 tag
1) Include primary keyword.
2) Include city & state abbreviation
3) 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

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

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

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 effectiveness
of the others. Stick to the core categories.

Having the wrong primary category sucks
We changed the primary category for a client and they went
from #11 in Places to #5 in the local pack.

How to not suck at
optimizing your Google+
Local listing

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 an
assumed 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+ Local
listing. Won’t help rankings. Will help conversions.

Building thousands of structured citations sucks
Once you get the core structured citations (150ish), the rest
are 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 destroy
your chances of ranking in local.
I need a screenshot, so let’s just pretend
that’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.

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-us
Used with permission from David Mihm

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

Go to http://www.neustarlocaleze.biz to find and

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

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

To update or remove: 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 remaining
top 50 citation sites

Clean up duplicates on the remaining top 50 citation sites

Get 1 accurate and complete listing, and remove duplicates
on the remaining top 50 citation sites
https://www.whitespark.ca/citation-audit-and-cleanup-service

Spammy links suck
I suspect everyone here already knows what kinds of links suck
1) Link directories
1) Cheap and crappy guest post links
2) Comment spam
3) Forum links
4) Blog network links
5) 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:sponsors
2. site:.edu boston supporters
3. site:.edu boston sponsors
4. site:.org boston supporters
5. site:.org boston sponsors
6. site:.k12.ca.us supporters
7. site:.k12.ca.us sponsors

Get a handful of local links
http://www.localstampede.com/citation-building-strategies-list/
X

Thanks!
Any questions?
+DarrenShaw
@DarrenShaw_

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

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