So I've acquired a "client", sort of. It's a good friend of mine who owns a plumbing business. My goal is to rank the website I just created for him on page 1 of google. I'm targeting the keywords "city + plumber" "plumber + city" etc.
I'd like to discuss various tactics for ranking local businesses in google. I'm interested in methods for ranking in the 7 box as well as organic SERPs.
So far, I've established content, fixed citations for NAP, and built new citations (about 40) with backlinks.
I'm wondering what type of link building strategy I should pursue. If anybody wants to chat, PM me for my skype. Thanks.
The single most important thing to get down first is the keyword targeting on the pages of your site. You must make sure that Google understands exactly what your pages are about, or they will send you someone who looking for something that is not there. When someone who is searching for exactly what you offer arrives on your page, they are very likely to become a customer. If they were searching for somethng else, even if your site is close to what they were looking for, they are less likely to become a customer.
Think of the ramifications of this. You are trying to rank for the keyword that you think your site is targeting but you are wrong. All the very few precious links will be targeting something that your site is not about as far as the search engines know. They will be somewhat unrelated links
Now suppose someone does come by on a keyword that Google thinks your site is about, does not find what they were looking for, and leaves. Your bounce rate will go up, generally weakening your website rankings.
In your case I suggest you do this:
(Provided you have based all of this on solid keyword research and not on what you think are the keywords to target)
Nail down the onpage SEO, pay for this to be done properly if you cannot do it.
You need to go over to Brightlocal.com and sign up for their free month of service. When you get there, run all the reports that you can for your client.
This will include a website seo alalysis, a ciation report, a ranking report, and get a google + local report. Use Xenu for a broken link rerport and fix everything you find.
Take the citation report and sort the citations by authority. Start getting the higher authority ones, and avoid ones under 30 or so. In addition, start searching for places in the customers locality and niche to get citations from. Expect a local citation to be of lower authority than a national one, but get all the local citations you can. It adds authority to the notion that you are a real business in that area.
You have done 40 or so citations and you should do about 200 or so to start. Again, stick to the higher authority ones even if there are not as many of them.
When you do your citations, do them exactly alike, and I mean exactly. Use the same titles, descriptions, format (use (XXX) XXX-XXX for the phone number) images an so on for each citation. Do them by hand, and pay extra careful attention to get into the best possible category that applies.
Use the same pictures, called the same thing, preferably the same size for all the citations.
The object here is for google to find only one possible business out there when they decide rank your authority. If you list one set of services on one site, and a different set of services on another citation site, google will have less confidence in your being the company they think you were. If all the information about your business is exactly the same no matter where they find your business online, they have great confidence that it is one business.
If your business is "windows essence" and you are in dallas with 456-7896 phone number you damn sure don't want to be confused with "Windows essence of palm beach Florida that has a 456-xxx phone number.
Online data is scattered and much of it obsolete, People use personal phone numbers for business and the PTA announcement,then lose the number and it winds up as some businesses number, creating all kinds of incorrect information attached to the number, or address, or whatever information is available. Google has to decide are you REALLY a Brick and Mortar business, that is in fact currently in business, or not.
But Google has identified things that local businesses tend to do and decided to raise their confidence in the folks who behave in the statistical manner..
Local businesses get mentioned in their local area. They advertise in their local area, because that is where their business is. They register in places where their customers might look when seeking their services, by getting citations related to what they do and their service area.
They get reviews, real reviews from all over their service area, by people with online histories. They participate in their niche online, visiting places elated to their niche or location, joining forums and groups that allow then to grow their businesses and reach their customers.
They do not typically build links, they get a few from various places over time.
The sites that do link to them are quality sites and link to the because there is value for their own readers. Relevance to industry and location will help you here, non relevance could possibly hurt you.
Use the website seo analysis and the Google local report to improve in places where it shows you are lacking.
Set up an active review acquisition system to encourage customers to leave a review in various places.
That is a start, hope it helped:
I offer a service that might be perfect for your situation, PM me if you are interested.
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