There are not too many Seattle marketing companies around who don’t specialize in offering local seo services to area businesses. The trick in picking the right one to work with though is to know a little about the local seo service process yourself. Then you’ll be able to judge for yourself whether the company you’re talking to is the real deal or just someone blowing smoke up your pant leg.
Here’s a good post that shares some tips on Local SEO that is worth the read.
Local SEO Tips
Hello everyone it’s time to hand out some Local SEO Tips!
Businesses are starting to realize that those little “red balloons” on Google maps drives sales. As such the highest ranking balloon gains the most traffic and whoever gets the most traffic is likely to gain the most dollars. So how do you do local seo? I mean in reality it is a whole different animal than doing on-page/off-page “traditional” seo.
Well the first thing you need to do with any optimization efforts into new territory is:
1) Identify what’s controllable
There are two aspects to identifying what’s controllable. You need to identify what’s controllable on the inside and on the outside. By the inside I mean what can “you” actually control. From the inside you can usually control what identifying information is displayed from hours to pictures. By the outside I mean what items can you not control, but are controlled by your visitors. Those items are usually written reviews and star ratings. All of these things are in local SEO and if you think about it even in Itunes. So if you’re walking into new territory identify everything you can control from the inside, and what’s controlled on the outside.
2) Fill out everything!
One thing you have to remember about any business is they want to present to you their best products. Every search engine wants to present to you their best recommend website based off your keyword search, and when it comes to local SEO Google maps wants to present their best recommend businesses based off your local keyword search. So if go to Google maps and type in Ice Cream shops Google is going to present to your their best recommendations for Ice Cream Shop.
Since Google can’t go to every shop and eat every flavor they have to rely on something else, and that’s information! If your listing doesn’t have information than Google has nothing to base their recommendation on, so fill out everything! Give as much detail as you possibly can, and don’t forget to include an eye catching photo. So if that means Photoshop something, than Photoshop something.
Now that you’ve filled out everything imagine Google has two Ice Cream shops. One Ice Cream shop has a filled out local SEO listing, and the other Ice Cream shop has a half done local SEO listing, which one will Google rank higher than the other? The filled out one because from Google’s perspective this Ice Cream shop cares enough about their “consumers” to have provided information that they must also care about their Ice Cream. Since Google can’t be everywhere they have to make an assumption about a business based on the “work” put into their controllable items.
3) Don’t Stop with Google!
Now that you’ve filled out one listing with Google, keep moving forward. You may notice that even though your Google listing is updated Google may still display the wrong information! Well that’s because Google is a information gathering machine, and you need to change the information.
Google reaches out to other local index sources and grabs all the data, compares the data, and comes to a conclusion from the data. Some sources such as Localeze, Infogroup and Yelp for examples hold more weight with Google than other smaller local index sources but the point is if Google has 8 sources of information saying “x” and 1 source of information saying, “y” than Google believes “x” even if “y” is correct! So don’t stop with Google!
Getlisted.org is a great source to quickly identify your business’ local listings across multiple sources. From here you can quickly view your current listings and make sure they’re filled out and the information is correct. You can also setup local listings across sources in which your business is absent. Basically the more information you provide the more Google recognizes your business cares about getting it’s information out there, and as such is more confident in recommending your business’ local listing. To finish reading Local SEO Tips click here.
Here’s a video guide sharing some more great local SEO tips. Enjoy the watch
