Local SEOGetting More Local Business

Agenda• Introductions• About Local SEO• Local SEO Ranking Factors• Local SEO Tips & Tricks• Conclusion

IntroductionsWho we are and what we do

Tyler Horvath

tytonmedia.com

CEO

What is Local SEO?• Local SEO is the methodology of

gaining traffic from search engines based on geo-located searches.

Who Needs Local SEO? Local SEO is needed by any

business with a physical location.

Restaurants, Doctors, Retail, Dentist, Lawyers, etc.

Businesses looking to gain customers in their local area

Benefits of Local SEO

Increased Local Customers More Business Reviews

More Targeted Traffic Increased CTR (click through rate)

Local SEO Ranking Factors

My Business Signals

Add your business to Google My Business

1. Upload photos of your business

2. Choose the best category

3. Add a your local phone number

4. Submit your business address

5. Add and verify a domain based email

External Location Signals

NAP Consistency

Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)

Data Aggregators

Citation Volume

Citation VolumeA citation is a reference to your business on the web, either containing a backlink or not.

• Structured citations are usually found on business listings like yelp.com, superpages.com, yellowpages.com, etc.

• Unstructured citations are found on job websites, event listings, online newspapers, or blogs.

Building Citations• Use the local citation finder to find

opportunities

• Create an event at your business location and submit it to online newspapers

• Write a press release with your business address on it

• Join your chamber of commerce or local business association

NAP Citation Consistency

• It’s important to keep NAP citations consistent

• Consistent business titles, zip codes, phone numbers and street numbers

• Use google chromes auto-fill for better consistency

Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)Internet Yellow Pages are directories where you can add your business with

(consistent) NAP citations.

Data Aggregators

There are 4 main data aggregators:• Infogroup• Acxiom• Nuestar Localeze• Factual

Data aggregators are companies that collect local data and distribute the data to search engines and online directories.

Use ExpressUpdate to add your business to all data aggregators

On-Page SignalsOn page signals are the most important ranking factor for local SEO

Most important signals

• Header tags

• Title tags

• Meta descriptions

• Images

• Maps

• NAP Citations on every page

On-Page Signals (cont.)

Add your service, location and brand in page titles, meta descriptions, title tags, images and in-content.

Use schema.org to structure your data.

Try the Google Structured Data Testing Tool to validate markup

Link SignalsLink signals are similar to link building for normal SEO with a focus on local

sources instead of high authority links.

1. Give an interview to a local reporter about your website or

business

2. Offer a scholarship or job to students in college

3. Create a AMA on Reddit in your local community (and relevant

subreddit)

4. Build a local meetup community and cite your NAP on the

events page

5. Join a meetup.com local event. Contact them about sponsoring

an event and get a local citation

Review SignalsGoogle correlates good reviews with a good business so they will naturally rank that business higher for local searches.

These reviews come from a large list of sources:

Building Review Signals

Simple ways to get more reviews from your customers:

• Link to review profiles on your website• Try this review handout generator by whitespark that walks your

customers through reviewing your website• Get a ‘Find Us On Yelp’ Sticker• Add your review profiles to your order confirmation email• Set up an email to send 30 days after your customer receive their

product, asking for a review

Social SignalsSocial signals can be tweets, shares, +1’s, retweets, shares, etc.

• Create a how-to guide and share it on all your social media profiles

• Make a paid page like ad on Facebook

• Like and follow other profiles to get return likes & follows

• Be active on social media using hashtags frequently

• Add all your social links on your Google+ page

Behavioral SignalsThese signals are based on user behavior both in google and on your website.

Search engines use the following behavioral ranking factors:

1. Time2. Duration3. Frequency4. Type of access5. Click-through rate (ctr)6. Navigational paths

Behavioral Signals (cont.)

Time FrequencyDurationTime of day can have an impact on behavioral signals. Whether people

tend to click on certain website more in the morning.. or at night.

The average time a user stays on your website can give search engines a good idea whether your website is good or

not.

The average time a user stays on your website can give search engines a good idea whether your website is good or

not.

Behavioral Signals (cont.)

Type of access PersonalizationCTR (click through rate)

Having a website that is responsive (works on all devices) is very important

for this ranking factor.

This is one of the most prominent search quality feedback in many

algorithms for search. Increasing your CTR can be done by

adding rich snippets, getting reviews, add phone extension and schema.org

structured data.

Personalization refers to the unique results per user. Its the convergence of

local, social and mobile which is personalized to each persons search

results.

Wrapping Up

tytonmedia.com