The Ultimate Local SEO Guide eBook

Local SEO eBook

KathodeRay Media The Ultimate Local SEO Guide

Chapter 1:

What is Local SEO & Why is it Important?

Chapter 2:

The 9 Biggest Local SEO Mistakes & How to Improve Them

Chapter 3:

7 Local SEO Best Practices

Chapter 4:

50+ Local Listing to Get Listed On

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Local SEO eBook

Chapter 1 What is Local SEO and Why is it Important?

As competition and mobile usage continue to grow, so will the importance of local SEO. To make it easier for people to find your website online, companies employ local SEO strategies. These strategies involve building search directory listings such as Google My Business, optimizing listings, creating consistent listings, and implementing appropriate on page SEO techniques.

With competition and mobile usage consistently growing, businesses turn to local SEO to make it easier for them to get found locally.

Since Google offers 11 or 12 possible spots on page one, it’s easy to understand the value of local SEO on web visibility.

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Local SEO eBook

Should My Business Be Doing Local SEO? Any business that is limited to a physical area should be doing local SEO. Whether you’re running a law firm, restoration company, or a restaurant, local SEO can make it significantly easier to reach more people.

Since it’s highly targeted, local SEO helps to present your business in front of the right customers at the right time.

On Google, targeting mobile users is simple. With mobile searches surpassing desktop searches, it’s only one more reason why your business should be doing local SEO.

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Local SEO eBook

Chapter 2 Biggest Local SEO Mistakes: 1) Inconsistent NAP/Business Citation The biggest mistake businesses make when doing local SEO is having inconsistent NAP information, which is your name, address, and phone number.

Often times, companies won’t update an address or phone number when it’s changed which not only makes it difficult if people are trying to find your location, but it can affect your rankings.

Businesses will also use similar names such as “Hunter Mountain,” and “Hunter Mt Ski Bowl.”

While it might not make that much of a difference for larger companies, smaller companies need to keep consistent NAP information if they want visibility.

2) Ignoring Your Website Another mistake many companies will make is to not optimize their website for local search. To improve your local search results, you have to include your contact information, feature great content, include your city in title tags, and have multiple location pages if you have multiple office locations.

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Local SEO eBook

3) Duplicate Listings Whether by accident or because they forget login information, many small businesses have duplicate listings. This is an issue because it not only confuses Google, but if one of them has incorrect information it won’t be removed. It can also split up the amount of reviews you get.

Luckily, there’s a simple solution. You just have to claim your listing, that way you’re not creating duplicate listing.

4) Not Verifying Ownership So you’ve taken the time to complete a listing and fully optimize it, but sometimes there’s one more step.

Google and some other search directories require you to verify ownership before the listing is completed.

Not taking the time to verify a listing is a mistake that is easily avoidable.

5) Missing Information Are you registering for these listings, entering your company’s basic information, and then calling it a day?

The more information that you complete on local listings, the more value it has for your business. When you’re creating listings, you should fully optimize them with numerous photos and detailed content.

6) Abandoning Your Listings Search engines like to see that you’re actively managing your listings and not just leaving them out to dry. If you have new information or new photos, you should add them to your listings.

Since it can be time consuming, many small businesses won’t take the time because they feel it’s not important. But that’s the message that you’re relaying to search engines when you aren’t updating the content on your listings. You’re telling Google and Bing that these listings don’t really have much meaning to your business, and they’re able to confirm that because you haven’t made any updates.

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Local SEO eBook

7) Missing Relevant Categories Even if your company handles several services, you don’t want to exclude categories. You should try to keep your main categories as consistent as possible when creating directory listings, but you also want to include other categories.

8) Not Having Separate Pages for Multiple Locations You’ll notice that many larger companies will have individual pages on their website for specific locations.

This makes it easier to pair local listings with a particular location, but many companies fail to do so. This should be practiced even if you only have two locations.

9) No Customer Reviews Positive reviews don’t just determine whether a customer wants to do business with you, but having positive reviews can influence your ranking.

This is why delivering the best customer service is important.

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Chapter 3 Local SEO Best Practices: 1) Consistent NAP Information It can’t be stressed enough – keep your name, address, and phone number consistent throughout each of your listings.

2) Website Information is Consistent with Listings Your NAP information should be included on your website. You can also use title tags to further emphasize where your company is located.

3) Fully Optimized Listings What does optimizing a local listing mean? It means that any applicable information is completed, you chose relevant categories, wrote meaningful descriptions, and you include photos that accurately reflect your brand.

4) Having Separate Pages for Multiple Locations Some businesses, such as banks, operate in multiple locations. They have several branches and that means they need listings for each location.

A good local SEO best practice that you can use for multiple locations is to have individual pages on your website for each of the locations.

5) Use Schema Using schema, you can categorize important information so that search engines can understand your website better. Basically, it organizes the information that search engines are going to look at.

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Local SEO eBook

6) Encourage Customers to Leave Reviews While this shouldn’t be something that’s overdone, offering subtle reminders for customers to leave a review can help you gather more reviews. The more positive reviews you receive; the more positive changes you’ll see to your rankings.

7) Create Social Media Profiles Your social media profiles can also impact your local SEO strategy. This is why you’ll see a business’ social media profiles high in the search results.

Some tips you can implement include:   

Having a relevant content strategy Optimizing your profiles Having a consistent presence on each social media profile

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Local SEO eBook

Chapter 4 50+ Local Listing to Get Listed On While not every local listing may be relevant to your business, these are the top listings you can be listed on.

Note: Don’t just try to get listed on every local search directory possible. Make sure you’re creating quality listings, and not just aiming for quantity.

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Google Bing Yahoo Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Pinterest YouTube Yelp MapQuest Foursquare Merchant Circle Topix Manta The Business Journal Better Business Bureau ChamberofCommerce.com and your local chamber Angie’s List TripAdvisor Thumbtack HomeAdvisor Yellow Pages Superpages White Pages Yellowbook 411.com 8coupons About.me

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Best of the Web Switchboard DexKnows Kudzu Hotfrog Local.com USCity USdirectory.com EZlocal LocalStack Brownbook CitySquares eLocal Factual Judy’s Book Insider Pages ShowMeLocal.com CitySearch YellowBot Pushlocal City-Data Urbanspoon.com Acxiom My Huckleberry

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