Local SEO Guide

Intro

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your business’s website is vital for bringing in customers. Seem complicated and overwhelming? Don’t worry! We’re here to break it down and make the subject a little comfier for you.

SEO, you say. It’s the process of optimizing your website in order to rank higher in a search

engine’s (like Google’s and Bing’s) organic results. But we’re here to teach a short course in

Local SEO.

Class is in session.

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Local SEO Guide

What you need to know

Local SEO. It’s a subset of your overall

SEO marketing program. If you’ve

already optimized your site for search

engines, you might find yourself thinking

that you’re done with SEO. Before you

get too comfortable, you should know

that if your business has a physical

location, additional optimization for local

search is more than worthwhile. In fact,

it’s actually an integral part of your SEO

planning. And even if you haven't

tackled SEO at all, local SEO is a great

place to start.

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Local SEO Guide

There are 7 billion local searches in the

US each month. That’s more than seven

million local searches, or about 235,000

each day, in each of the nearly thousand

metropolitan areas in the US. No matter

how you cut it, that’s a number you just

can’t ignore. Google tells us that local

optimization accounts for around 18% of

Google’s ranking factors, and it’s

rumored that this will increase in

importance with upcoming changes.

Why is it so important? Gone are the

days when consumers sit at their kitchen

tables flipping open a 25-pound copy of

the Yellow Pages, skimming through a

bunch of listings to find local businesses.

The first thing one of those 125 million

US consumers with smartphones does

when they want a smoothie, massage, or

guitar lesson is to whip out their

smartphone, open their favorite browser,

and search to find the nearest, best, or

generally most appealing business to

satisfy their need.

According to a recent study, 78% of local

searches on mobile and 61% of local

searches on laptops result in offline

purchases. And that’s out of the

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whopping 7 billion monthly unique local

searches.

Just think back to the last time you were

craving a strawberry-banana smoothie.

Did you type “smoothie” into the search

bar? Probably not. Most people include

their physical location in the search as

well—“smoothie seattle.” And that’s

exactly why local SEO is important. As a

business owner, you want to make sure

your business shows up when potential

customers perform those local searches.

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To pursue higher exposure in Local Organic Results

To get listed in the Local 3-Pack Results

To have your business’s Pin featured on the Google and Bing Maps

To have your own Local Knowledge Panel

Why else should you optimize for local?

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Local SEO Guide

What’s typically searched for “locally”? If

any of the following items are things

your customers might be searching for

in relation to your business, you need to

optimize your local search.

To locate an address

To search for a business with certain

product or service

To find a phone number

To discover hours of operation

To get driving directions

To find coupons and special offers

To read ratings and reviews

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What you need to know

The first step in any local SEO strategy

is getting citations in local directories.

Here's a little more that you need to

know, and then we promise—you can

start doing!

Citations or local directories. A local

citation is a mention of your business on

any webpage other than your own.

Citations include your business name

followed by your address, phone

number, or both, and don’t have to be

linked to your website.

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Local SEO Guide

NAP: Common acronym used when

talking about citations: Name, Address,

Phone number.

Important: Your NAP needs to be listed

the same way everywhere! This means

every little thing in your business name

and address. If your business is at 123

Fun Street on your G+ profile, it better

not be 123 Fun St. on your Yelp profile.

Details really count in local SEO.

Keep these four main factors in mind when creating your listings:

Business name. Your business

name, or business title, is probably

the most crucial factor when it

comes to ranking well in local search

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engine results. Your business title

needs to be the same across the

board—meaning that every single

data source must list your name the

exact same way. This helps to

establish Google’s and Bing’s trust

of your location and existence.

Google provides these Quality

Guidelines to explain further:

Your title should reflect your

business’s real-world title.

Marketing taglines, phone

numbers, store codes, and

URLs aren’t valid descriptors.

In addition to your business’s

real-world title, you may include

a single descriptor that helps

customers locate your business.

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Local SEO Guide

Examples of acceptable titles with

descriptors 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."

Physical address. Again, the most

important thing is to be consistent.

For example:

Your actual NAP: Mary’s Music

School, 123 Fun Street, Seattle,

WA, 98122

Your Google Places account:

Mary’s Music School, 123 Fun St.,

Seattle, WA, 98122

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Your Yellow Pages listing: Mary’s

Music School, 123 Fun, Seattle,

WA, 98122

The slight variation in street address

might not seem like a big deal but

search engines are extremely fussy

about details so these addresses will be

seen as three separate businesses, and

they’d lower the search engine’s overall

confidence in your business and, as a

result, lower your rankings.

Phone number. Not to sound like a

broken record, but focus on

consistency! If multiple phone

numbers are attached to your

business name it will trigger Google

and Bing algorithm alarms and your

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alarms and your site rankings will suffer

as a result.

Proper categorization. In search

engines, when you create a local

listing for your business, you’ll be

asked to pick 2–10 categories that

best fit your business. The engines

will use these categories when

giving search results for related

keywords. Your rankings will be

DESTROYED (what? too dramatic?!) if

your categories are incorrect or

nonexistent, so make sure you

choose wisely. Wondering which are

the best categories for your

business? Here are 13 best practices

to help you make the best decisions

on choosing categories.

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What you need to do

As promised, it’s time to create citations

(or local listings) for your business

Where should you be listed?

Local search engines. Make sure

you’ve covered all your bases.

Google Places

Bing Places

Yahoo Local

Yelp

YellowPages

Foursquare

Social media sites. Set up all the

social media profiles that you think

you need (Facebook, Twitter,

Google+, Instagram). Remember,

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consistently and correctly list your

NAP on all profiles

Tip Want to see if someone is using

your brand name? KnowEm can check

and help you secure your name on

500+ social media sites.

Local blogs. Reach out to local

bloggers! Ask if they’ll feature you in

a post or review your business in

exchange for a free service. How to

be featured in local blogs? You’re

gonna have to get your hands dirty.

You can find local bloggers by

searching “[your city] blog.”

Contact every publication on the

first page of search

Local SEO Guide

results-they’re the ones that

show up the best Google and

Bing results.

If you’re looking for something

more specific, you can also try

searching “[your city] [your

industry] blog.

Reach out! Keep in mind that these

bloggers and sites probably get a lot of

outreach from businesses asking for

links and coverage. Check out these tips

for gaining blogger respect and forging

solid partnerships.

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Example If you happen to be a yoga

studio in LA, http://layoga.com/ is a

perfect online publication for you to go

after.

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Data aggregators. Pull out the big

guns. Give a data aggregator your

business's listing information (and

some $$$), and it will automatically

create 100s of listings for your

business—cutting out hours of

tedious busy work on your end. Here

are a few data aggregator

companies you can use:

Acxiom

Infogroup

Neustar Localeze

Factual

Local directories and newspapers.

Go back to basics—break out the

papers.

Switch up your terms a little from

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your blog search. Search for “[your

city] business listings” or “[your city]

directory” to find even more places

to list your local business.

Don’t forget to get listed on your

city’s Chamber of Commerce

website.

What you need to do

Now that you’re armed with all this

information, it’s time to figure out how to

start and avoid being overwhelmed.

Depending on many factors (like your

budget and the size of your business),

there are three main ways you can go

about implementing and managing your

local SEO strategy.

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Do-It-Yourself

Get yourself prepared before starting

Moz put together this handy Local

Citation Building Template that provides

a way to track all of your citation sites as

well as a storing place for the most

common information required on the

sites.

Use roboform to autofill signup forms on

many sites. Even though you need to be

sure to review each site, it’s definitely a

worthwhile timesaver. Plus it gives you

the ability to share across your team

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With those two tools in place, you’re

fully prepared to dive in. Here’s the

game plan:

Check to see if your business

already exists on the listing. If it

does, make sure it’s accurate. If it

doesn’t, add it! Be sure to keep

your template updated as you

go.

Hit all the top sources that we

already mentioned? Don’t

reinvent the wheel. Look for

where your competition is listed.

You can use Whitespark or just

search for your competitors’

NAPs!

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Example If you’re a gym owner in

Seattle, Mode of Fitness might be a

competitor. You find their NAP, search for

it on Google and Bing, and, without

doing any of the heavy lifting, find pages

of different sites your competitor is listed

on (in other words, a bunch of sites to

consider listing your business on).

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Local SEO Guide

Use software. Here are a few tools to

help you get listed consistently in

multiple directories. While that can be a

great option, depending on your

situation, make sure you know what you

are getting into.

Moz Local. A tool that creates

your business listings and

maintains their accuracy,

consistency, and visibility across

the web.

Yext. A service that easily

publishes to dozens of

directories. Some will start

showing instantly, and some will

come up within a few days with

very little work. But think twice

about it—it’s over $475 a year

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for the retail version.

UBL. Universal Business Listing

is another option you have

when wanting to create and

maintain all your business

listings across the web.

Hire out. If you don’t have the

manpower (or willpower) and you have

the budget, an agency or consultant

might be a good idea. If you want an

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idea of how much you’d be looking to

pay if you went in this direction, check

out this survey by Moz.

So now that you know what review

sites you should be listed on, it’s time

to start racking up those reviews.

How to get reviews

The best way to get clients to review

you? Just ask! But wait—don’t send that

blast “review request” email quite yet.

Each review site has different policies

around reviews. Yelp, for example, is

strict when it comes to businesses

soliciting reviews, and if they notice any

funny business they’re not afraid to act.

On the other hand, many other sites go

so far as to recommend that you ask

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your client base directly for reviews.

Remember to familiarize yourself with

their review policies before

campaigning!

Note: No matter what review site you're

dealing with, it’s never a good plan to

pay for or unfairly reward positive

reviews over negative reviews. Reviews

are a learning process for you, too, and

a great way to gather feedback that

helps you improve your business.

Local SEO Guide

What you need to do

Let’s recruit some reviews. Here are

some easy ways to get started.

Coach your staff to ask for referrals,

especially if an interaction goes well.

Create handouts highlighting the

sites where customers can review

you.

This Review Handout Generator will

give you a template to create a PDF

to send to your clients with simple

instructions on how to give you a

review on Google.

Add badges to your website that link

to your review profiles. You can also

include links in any “thank you”

emails your customers receive when

they interact with your business.16

Managing reviews.

All right, you’ve found the best review

sites for your business, you’ve got

yourself some reviews...but, good or

bad, how do you keep track of and

handle all the feedback?

Be proactive! A good first step is to set

up Google Alerts so that you’ll receive

an email each time your business name

is mentioned online.

Your first negative review might be hard

to handle, but it’s on a public forum so

bring your blood pressure back down

and deal with it rationally. Your plan of

attack should be to diffuse the situation

and appease the customer. Offering a

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a discount or something to make up for

the issue is never a bad idea. In the end

you should make yourself look as good

as possible and can even refer the angry

customer to good reviews.

Not only are negative reviews a place

for you to make an angered client

happy, they also bring attention to an

area of your business that not might be

as good as it could be. This gives you

the opportunity to fix something that you

may not have realized needed fixing.

What else you need to do

Optimize your pages: Even if you’ve

already optimized your website for

search engines (or even if you haven’t),

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you need to be sure to cover your local

SEO bases too.

KW title tags. Keywords are very

important, but you don’t want them to

seem forced or spammy—it’s not good

for anyone. For SEO beginners and

experts alike, it’s always a good idea to

freshen up and expand your keyword

list. If you’ve done SEO previously, you’ll

have a good head start on your

keywords, but you still need to revamp

your list to focus on local SEO. The best

way to go about this is to decide your #1

keyword based on what your business

does and then add your location. For

example, Vinyasa Flow Yoga in Stockton

has done a good job.

Local SEO Guide

NAP in HTML. As we said before but

can’t stress enough, having a consistent

NAP (name, address, and phone

number) is vital. Make sure that this info

is included in the HTML of your website.

Note It might look like you have your

NAP in the HTML, but it might only be an

image, which Google and Bing don’t

recognize. Check this by pointing your

mouse at your address—if you can

highlight individual characters, it’s text,

in the HTML of your website, and you’re

in the clear.

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If you can’t select the text, that means

it’s actually an image, and search

engines can’t read it. Get that sucker in

the HTML! If you create your website

yourself, that just means you have to

make sure your address is typed out in

the source and not inserted as an

image. And if you have a designer,

make sure they know to write out your

content.

Local website content. Having site

content that is specialized to your city is

a great way to appeal to local searches.

Local SEO Guide

This is usually done through a blog.

Don’t be intimidated! You don’t have to

update it everyday, and it will definitely

prove to be time well spent. Need some

inspiration? Here are some topics to get

you going:

Write about what your customers

are interested in. A fitness busi-

ness? Outline some tips on

post-work recovery. Music

school? How about an article on

tuning your guitar?

Write about your story—how

your business came to be, your

founder’s story, introduce the

team, and give the history of what

ever it is you sell.

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Partner with other local busi-

nesses that your customers

would be interested in to do

guest posts on one another's

blogs/sites. Everyone wins with

this strategy. Your customers and

readers get more helpful con-

tent, you and the partner get

more links and mentions, and all

the while you're building com-

munity partnerships

Write about any upcoming

events and how your business is

taking part.

Leverage common local search-

es terms. Say you’re a yoga

studio in New York City. You can

host a yoga session in Central

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Park and then blog about it!

Imagine the SEO on that one.

Write up a spotlight on a current

customer or client. Maybe you

interview long-time clients, new

clients, interesting clients—you

get the idea. Not only will you get

great blog content, but you’ll also

increase client retention!

What more you can do

You have a great action plan for nailing

local SEO, so here’s a bonus tip. Come

back to it after you’ve mastered the

basics.

Schema. Not to throw something com-pletely new into the mix, but this is im-

portant! Schema, man. 20

What’s schema? Schema markup is the

code that you put in your website to tell

the search engine what your data (or

HTML markup) means in order to

provide more informative results for

users. Schema.org explains how

important Schema is to search

optimization:

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HTML tags tell the browser how to

display the information included in the

tag. For example, <h1>Avatar</h1> tells

the browser to display the text string

“Avatar” in a heading 1 format. However,

the HTML tag doesn’t give any

information about what that text string

means — “Avatar” could refer to the

hugely successful 3D movie, or it could

refer to a type of profile picture—and

this can make it more difficult for search

engines to intelligently display relevant

content to a user.

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Why should you pay attention to

schema?

When you do schema markup correctly,

your business will show up with these

awesome details in Google and Bing.

Where can you add schema markup on

your site?

Reviews

Services or products for sale

Events

Name, address, and phone

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Hours of operation

Now that you got a quick overview of

Schema markup and why it’s important,

it’s time to put it into action! Here are

two tools that you can use to automati-

cally generate markup to embed in your

website:

Schema Creator

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Now that you’ve learned the basics of

local SEO, how to get citations, listing

yourself on review sites, and tips for

optimizing your site, you can go forth

and conquer the local search rankings.

We’ll see you at the top of the Google

results.

Class dismissed.

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Local SEO Guide

Learn more about how you can grow your business. Give Front Desk a call. 855.417.7108