Local SEO query

Is doing citations the only method in ranking in Local SEO? And can you rank businesses without being registered in Google Places for Business yet?

ranjim said:

Is doing citations the only method in ranking in Local SEO? And can you rank businesses without being registered in Google Places for Business yet?

Click to expand...

Of course you can. You can rank organically with normal IM methods, you just will not qualify for the local algo.

If you specifically want the local algo, citations are critical because they are what more or less proves that you are a local brick and mortar business.

Find keywords that have weak competition, and go for it.

It is not the only method.

You can build a private blog network (PBN) with sites that have local backlinks. Say you are ranking a plumbing site for the city of Dakota (dakotaplumbing.com).

For your PBN, you might pick up an old defunct site for a local dakota news paper, or an old Dakota Diner. Then you link that back to dakotaplumbing.com

You can also pick up sites with plumbing backlinks (not necessarily from Dakota) IE Rogers plumbers .com

Also, issuing press releases can boost your rankings.

Hope this helps.

There are several methods, but since Google have their own algo for local keywords, its worth using all of their resources including citations and placements.

Techxan said:

Of course you can. You can rank organically with normal IM methods, you just will not qualify for the local algo.

If you specifically want the local algo, citations are critical because they are what more or less proves that you are a local brick and mortar business.

Find keywords that have weak competition, and go for it.

Click to expand...

I see. Thanks! And they work best if I submit sites to google, yahoo, bing places right?

And what footprint would I use in SB to get my competitor's citations?

xaviel said:

It is not the only method.

You can build a private blog network (PBN) with sites that have local backlinks. Say you are ranking a plumbing site for the city of Dakota (dakotaplumbing.com).

For your PBN, you might pick up an old defunct site for a local dakota news paper, or an old Dakota Diner. Then you link that back to dakotaplumbing.com

You can also pick up sites with plumbing backlinks (not necessarily from Dakota) IE Rogers plumbers .com

Also, issuing press releases can boost your rankings.

Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

Copy. Will make it a point that we can both target local rankings as well as the organic.

which one was the right thing about local SEO

local rank -> wide rank or wide rank -> local rank

im still confuse about this, cause google crawler take the most visitor in my site, and then the wide rank increase but local rank not

ranjim said:

I see. Thanks! And they work best if I submit sites to google, yahoo, bing places right?

And what footprint would I use in SB to get my competitor's citations?

Copy. Will make it a point that we can both target local rankings as well as the organic.

Click to expand...

Go to brightlocal.com, sign up for the free month of service and run a citation report for your company and a google + report.

These reports will show you your citations, and give you a list of citations that might be good for your company. In addition to that, it will show a table with your top competitors and indicate which of the major citations they have so you can compare yours to theirs.

Keep in mind that the above is only pertaining to structured citations. You can create your own "Unstructured" citations on any website. Anytime your name, address, phone and website appears, it is a unstructured citation. You can equate this to a decent backlink that carries no penalty, after all, you are simply just advertising your company.

This means make sure that on all your social accounts, you put these not only in the profile, but also in the public description.

It also means that you should build a few "tier 1" sites on popular platforms link it to your site, but not necessarily with an actual link.

In local, you want these to be associated to with your company, and you put your NAPW there for that purpose. Its like building backlinks with no penalty, and not having to hide your tiers. Its not a backlink scheme because you do not use many backlinks.

Needless to say, these properties MUST be superb in quality, you are representing your business here.

This is what I generally do over time.

I take my customers business and divide the business into different aspects. If I were doing a carpet cleaning site, I might make a wordpress.com site and this site would have information about steam cleaning perhaps. This will have tips and tricks that are helpful to general visitors.

Then I migt make a blogger site, and discuss water extraction, and a weebly site discussing dry carpet cleaning methods, pros and cons.

In each of these, you put your NAPW, and these are strong unstructured citations that will grow in authority over time, and they do not create penalties because you are acting like a real business, promoting your business online, and you are not building links.

Hi Techxan, any chances you can PM me some local sites tat use wordpress to promote their biz?
Thanks

VinceC said:

Hi Techxan, any chances you can PM me some local sites tat use wordpress to promote their biz?
Thanks

Click to expand...

Not a chance on God's Green Earth.

No where did I say to promote a WordPress site as your main business site. I am saying, use your social platforms to introduce your services to the users of those platforms. MySpace is a good example, no one uses a MySpace page anymore. It isn't Facebook, but it isn't garbage either. No reason not to have a MySpace page promoting your business with your NAPW publicly displayed. Just post project summaries and humorous stories that occur in he daily course of business. If you are a mover and you have to move a stuffed polar bear, shoot some pics and toss it on Facebook, MySpace, twitter, and any where else it will bring publicity to your business. Local bloggers and newspapers eat that right up.

When possible, promote your business online, so that when a customer Googles your name they find you all over the place talking about your craft. That is credibility.

Just treat it like reputation management, and include the NAPW, not links, the citation will never hurt.

Another question Tech. A client of mine has two sites, two addresses. He uses both addresses on the two sites. The reason is both sites are targeting different niches and different keywords.

Can I apply the same address on Google places and citations? Or would the better choice be to use one address for each site on Google places/listings and just mention in the sites that you have another branch in this address?

Company A has Address 1 and 2. Company B uses Address 1 and 2 as well. Only the Name and Website is different and Ad,Phone are the same.

You should have a separate address and phone for each site. Any time you introduce non matching information it lowers the trust Google has in your being the right company.

Think of it as this way, Google goes out and sees two companies that have the same information (same phone or address). Now there is a question of which is the real business? Is one of them a prior business that had this address or phone? If so which one? Or is one company trying to steal the customers of another?

Either way, google now has less confidence that your company is the one related to that local business.

Google assumes that a local business will have one specialty. If you do carpet cleaning, you probably do that exclusively, you may even do all types of floor coverings, but probably not fencing.

No serious small businessman is going to run two companies in different niches (entrepreneurs will), running one is hard enough.

Hi Tech, when you mentioned input NAPW and not link, do you mean without having a backlink to my site? And regarding the businesses on same address. There will be time when services do not need physical location to operate their biz, so they just rent a virtual office address in their local area. So will this be a problem in the NAPW or diff in ranking locally?
Thanks

I think as Google's local algo continues to evolve that you would also benefit substantially by not only doing citations, but also networking with others in that area and trying to obtain links on relevant industry business sites, news sites, and/or casual blogs. Yes it's harder to do, but the value and weight of just one link on a local website in the same place you are trying to be in the local serps for is much more relevant and authority passing.

VinceC said:

Hi Tech, when you mentioned input NAPW and not link, do you mean without having a backlink to my site? And regarding the businesses on same address. There will be time when services do not need physical location to operate their biz, so they just rent a virtual office address in their local area. So will this be a problem in the NAPW or diff in ranking locally?
Thanks

Click to expand...

Put a backlink to your site when you can make a good link. Powerful links that are related to your business are always good. But anytime your business is cited by name, address, and/ or phone online in a good website, it is also good.

Link to your site when you can, leave your NAP in places that you would use to advertise your business that may not give a link. The more you get your NAP out there, the more confidence Google has that you are a real business.

When it comes to ranking in Local Google + otherwise now known as "Google My Business" Citations are important. But they are by no means the "most important ranking factor." Having a content rich website with a "contact" page will do wonders. Little things like that helps Google identify you. Posting On your Google + page is another one of those things that can help you.

When filling out citations, make sure your information on your Google + page matches your citations.
I wouldn't recommend having any other type of phone number on your website, or address.
Another good thing to remember is make sure you are choosing the correct category, if the directory site doesn't list your category your better off not listing! Quality over quantity.

You can't get a business in local 7 pack (List A - G) without being verified, if that was what you were asking.

Hope this helps!

Thank you,
Skyler Jarman