5 Simple (but not easy) search engine optimization tactics to ensure that your website will be highly visible to search engines.

1. 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO
DOMINATE LOCAL
SEARCH IN 2018

2. 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO DOMINATE LOCAL SEARCH IN 2018
• Google My Business
• Citations – online directories
• Online reviews
• On page elements – titles and descriptions
• Make it mobile friendly
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

3. GOOGLE MY BUSINESS
Your first step to greater online visibility
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

4. GOOGLE MY BUSINESS – WHAT IS IT?
Google defines Google My Business as a free and easy-to-use tool for
businesses, brands, artists, and organizations to manage their online
presence across Google, including Search and Maps. By verifying and
editing your business information, you can both help customers find you
and tell them the story of your business.
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

5. Why You Should Claim Your Listing
Google My Business
• You have control over what Google users see when your
listing appears in search results.
• You can add your hours, website, street address, photos,
and more.
• You can read and respond to reviews from your
customers.
• You’ll have access to valuable insights about how many
people searched for your business, how many called
directly from the listing, how many clicked through to the
website or to driving directions, and more.
• You can share photos of what you do, new products,
storefront, and more.
Tip: Google says that businesses that add photos to their listings
receive 42% more requests for driving directions on Google Maps
and 35% more clicks through to their websites than businesses that
don’t.
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

6. THE GOOGLE MY BUSINESS
BACK END
This is the Home screen
This is the Info screen
This is the Photos screen
This is the Reviews screen
This is the Insights screen
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
This is the Messaging screen

7. Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

8. • Search queries are becoming more
geographically specific
• Google results are based on
• Proximity
• Relevance
• Prominence
• If your GMB profile is not verified and
fully configured, your ranking may
suffer
GOOGLE MY BUSINESS – YES, IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

9. and easily the
most important
one – and
speaking of
citations
GOOGLE MY BUSINESS IS AN EXAMPLE OF
AN ONLNE DIRECTORY OR CITATION
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

10. LOCAL CITATIONS
Where your business gets mentioned
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

11. LOCAL CITATIONS
A local citation is any mention of your business on the web;
it is any combination of your company name, phone
number, address, zip or postal code, and website address.
Citations in SEO are a key factor in improving your local
search results.
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

12. TYPES OF CITATIONS
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
Unstructured Citations
An unstructured citation is your
business information (NAP) on any
other site that’s not specifically a
business listing directory.
Structured Citations
A structured citation is your
business information (NAP) on a
business listing directory. Business
listing directories allow you to
submit your business and get a
citation.

13. The Local Search
Ecosystem

14. LOCAL CITATION CHECKER
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
Percent complete
Percent
incomplete
Inconsistent
Duplicates

15. Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
• Google My
Business
• Facebook
• Foursquare
• Superpages
• Infogroup
• Factual
• Citysearch
• Insider Pages
• Best of the Web
• Axciom
• Localeze
Listings are complete or nearly complete for:

16. * IMPORTANT *
Your critical business information, i.e. business name,
business address and phone number, is listed in the major
directories even if you didn’t proactively ask for the listing.
If the information is inaccurate, inconsistent or just wrong,
your search rank will suffer.
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
Verifying ownership of your business
with the various online directories will
allow you to fix any incorrect
information.

17. ONLINE REVIEWS
Yes, they matter
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

18. SOME NUMBERS TO PONDER – A STUDY BY BRIGHTLOCAL
• 97% of consumers read online reviews for local
businesses in 2017, with 12% looking for a local
business online every day
• 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as
personal recommendations
• Positive reviews make 73% of consumers trust a local
business more
• 49% of consumers need at least a four-star rating
before they choose to use a business
• Responding to reviews is more important than ever,
with 30% naming this as key when judging local
businesses
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

19. HOW TO GET QUALITY REVIEWS - DO’S AND DON’TS
• Hold a contest
• Get reviews from family and friends
• Review yourself
• Post on behalf of customers
• Offer incentives
• Have a marketer of SEO practitioner (like me) review you
• Swap reviews
• Buy reviews
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
Don’ts

20. HOW TO GET QUALITY REVIEWS - DO’S AND DON’TS
• Get listed on big review sites
• Respond to any negative reviews you find
• Make it easy to leave spontaneous reviews
• Ask new and old existing customers for their email addresses
• Pick about 5 customers and ask them to review you somewhere
• Respond to any reviews you can
• Continue asking small groups of customers every week
• Don’t stop asking. You’ll get better at it.
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
Do’s

21. MAKE IT EASY TO LEAVE REVIEWS – A FEW SUGGESTIONS
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
Insert a review badge on your website
Add link to your email signature
Add a link to from your
website

22. Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

23. CREATE A REVIEW PAGE ON YOUR WEBSITE
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

24. REVIEW SUMMARY
• Remember the don’ts and just don’t!
• The best way to get reviews is to ask for them
• The best way to get great reviews is to do great work
• Make it easy for your clients/customers to write reviews by providing them with links
• Don’t be afraid of negative reviews. See it as an opportunity to turn an unhappy customer into an
evangelist
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
Be Authentic

25. ON PAGE OPTIMIZATION
Improvements you can make directly to your website
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

26. META TAGS
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
Optimizing HTML Constructs for Search Engines
•The Title tag
•The Meta Description
•Page Headings

27. THE TITLE TAG
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
The Title tag tells the search engines what your page is about. The
maximum number of characters allotted for the Title tag is approximately
45-70 characters.
<title>General contractor north shore, Boston | Affinity Construction</title>

28. THE DESCRIPTION TAG
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
The Meta description should be about twice as long as the Title tag and written like a
sentence. Search engines use the description tag to create the snippets you see beneath the
page title in their results
<meta name=“description” content=“General contractor providing construction and home improvement
services to businesses and homeowners throughout the north shore of Boston | Affinity Construction”>

29. HEADINGS
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
Heading tags (H1 – H6) that are applied to headings and
subheadings:
• Best practice –There is no minimum guideline for use of
heading tags but each page should have only 1 H1 tag
and may have as many H2, H3 tags as are relevant to the
content on your page

30. DEALING WITH IMAGES
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
ALT tags – descriptive text placed in the HTML for an image file assigned to images on the page
<img src="http://www.design9today.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/04/Marmion-Way-Living-Room-After-
400x284.png" alt="Home Staging Gallery - Living Room View
One - Rockport, Massachusetts" />
Using image alt tags:
• Give the search engines some textual
information to help them understand
what the image is
• Are an opportunity to use keywords
• Give sight impaired visitors using helper
applications a way of understanding
what the image they can’t see is about

31. DEALING WITH IMAGES
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
Naming images – use common sense and save images with names that are
meaningful
What makes more sense – naming this image
0035001.jpg
Or
1972-sunburst-les-paul-w-
bigsby.jpg

32. MAKE IT MOBILE FRIENDLY
More people surf the internet on their mobile devices
than on their desktop computers
Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

33. Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490
* Mary Meeker, analyst at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
The latest data available shows that
mobile digital media time in the US is
significantly higher at 51% compared to
desktop at 42%*
… and it’s not just a question of user
convenience, it’s an important ranking
factor in Google’s algorithm.
Use Google’s mobile friendly test sit at
https://search.google.com/test/mobile-
friendly

34. Essex Street, Suite 205 Salem, MA 01970 | Tel: 978-587-3490

35. Quick Review
• Google My Business
• Citations/Online Directories
• Reviews
• On Page elements
• meta tags
• Naming images
• Using the alt attribute on all images
• Make it Mobile

36. Find Me Here
Kaneworks, Inc.
265 Essex Street, Suite 205
Salem, MA 01970
(P) 978-587-3490
(C) 978-836-7182
email:mjkane@Kaneworks.com
website: kaneworks.com
https://www.facebook.com/kaneworksseo/
https://twitter.com/kaneworks
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marvinkane/
… and here
https://www.youtube.com/c/KaneworksIncPeabody