Local SEO for Any Size Business

Local SEO for Businesses of Any Size
October 2018
Presenter: Pam Ann Aungst
@PamAnnMarketing

sales@pamannmarketing.com 973-664-7775 2 PamAnnMarketing.com/Slides @PamAnnMarketing
Agenda
1. What is Local SEO?
2. How to Improve Your Local
SEO, including:
• Optimizing Google My
Business
• Creating local listings
• Generating localized content
• Obtaining online reviews
• Increasing domain authority

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Hold Questions
To ensure that we get
through all of the
material, please hold
questions until the
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I’m also happy to
answer further
questions in the
hallway after the
session.

About Me/Us
• Coding since 6 years old
• Creating websites since 1997
• Driving traffic to websites
professionally since 2005
• Marketing MBA
• Nationwide Conference Speaker
• Guest-Lecturer at universities such
as NYU and Centenary University
• In business 7+ years
• Provide services & training for SEO,
PPC, and Google Analytics
• Google-Certified Partner Agency
• Won several awards
• Recently launched private-label
division (Stealth™ Search and
Analytics) for reselling our services

What is Local SEO?
“Local SEO” primarily
refers to optimizing a
business to appear in the
“local pack” on search
results.
The “local pack” is the
section of local listings
that typically appears
below the text ads and
above the organic
(unpaid) results.

What is Local SEO?
The contents of the local pack are Google My Business listings.
These are the same listings that are found on Google Maps.

What is Local SEO?
A company’s Google My Business
Listing is also used to inform the
“knowledge panel” that can come
up on the right side of search results
when a company is searched for by
name.

What is Local SEO?
There are a variety of factors that impact a
company’s position in the local pack.

Google My Business Factors: Proximity
The #1 strongest factor in determining which listings show up high in the local
pack is proximity between the business location and the point of search.
Point of search can either come
from adding a location to a search
(i.e. “Plumber Mahwah NJ”), or
from the searcher’s current
location.

To optimize for proximity,
ensure that your business has a
verified Google My Business
listing.
Don’t have a physical office?
You can still create a GMB
listing as a “service area
business.”
You CANNOT use mailbox
rentals for a GMB listing.
Create, verify, or manage GMB listings at: https://business.google.com/

Regular GMB Listing
(Address Shown)
Service Area Listing
(Address Hidden)
You own or rent your own
physical office space
You work from home
You share office space with
other companies (either
traditional office space or
coworking) AND have your
own signage at the facility
You rent JUST a mailbox (not
office space)
(PO Box, Mailboxes Etc., UPS
Store, Virtual
Office/Coworking facility)
You rent space at a virtual
office or coworking facility,
but do not have your own
signage there

Other Google My Business Factors
 Fully completed listing with
photos
 Proper business category
selections
 Local area code in phone
number on GMB listing
 Quantity and rating of reviews
 Keywords and location name in
business name*
*Don’t fake this! You’re just in luck
if your business name has good
keywords and a location in it

Link Factors
 Overall amount of high-
quality inbound links to
your website
 Amount of high-quality
inbound links from local
websites (i.e. local Patch
sites, chambers of
commerce, etc.)

On-Page Factors
 GMB name, address, and phone
(“NAP”) matches address listed on
website
 NAP on website marked up with
Schema.org markup

On-Page Factors
 Keywords and location
in website title

On-Page Factors
 Website has a lot of high-quality content about the product/service

On-Page Factors
 Website has high-quality
localized content*
*Do NOT just create a bunch of
similar/crappy pages about each location
that you serve.
Get creative and work location names into
high-quality content like testimonials, case
studies, and photo gallery image tags.

Do NOT Do This!

On-Page Factors
 Mobile-friendly (responsive) website
https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

On-Page Factors
 Fast-loading website
https://developers.google.com/
speed/pagespeed/insights/
https://www.webpagetest.org
/lighthouse
 Minimum Scores:
80 Mobile / 80 Desktop
 Minimum ”Performance” Score: 65

What is a Citation?
“A local citation is any online mention of the
name, address, and phone number
for a local business.” -Moz

Citation Factors
 Quantity of Citations on
High-Quality Sites
 Completeness of
Listings
 Proper Business
Category Selections
 Consistency of Citation
Data (NAP)
 Lack of Duplicate
Listings

Citation Tools
Moz Local Yext BrightLocal Whitespark
Create
Listings
Automatically on
partner sites + the
4 aggregators*
Automatically on
partner sites + 1
aggregator*
Pay them to do it for
you (per-listing fee +
aggregator
subscriptions)
Pay them to do it for you (per-
listing fee + aggregator
subscriptions)
Remove
Duplicates
On 10 partner
sites*
On 84 partner
sites*
Manually Manually
Citation
Monitoring
& Reporting
On 10 partner sites On 84 partner sites Yes, automatically for
top 50 sites
Manual
Review
Monitoring
Included in
Professional &
Premium plans
Included in highest-
priced plan
Yes, included with all
monthly plans
Available for extra monthly fee
Best For… All businesses
(easiest way to get
in the aggregators
+ some other top
sites
Businesses that
have a lot of data
errors or duplicates
to correct, or that
need to build a lot
of listings quickly
All businesses should
use for citation
reporting / monitoring
+ review monitoring
Businesses that have a lot of
data errors or duplicates to
correct
Pricing $99 - $249 per year $199 - $999 per
year
$29 - $79/mo for
monitoring, $3/listing
for creation, $55/yr for
top 4 aggregators
$4 to $5/listing for creation,
$279 to $679/location one-
time for cleanup,
$149/location one-time for top
4 aggregators*, $35 - $215/mo
for review monitoring*Requires ongoing subscription to keep created/edited listings live

Data Aggregators
Local Data Aggregators
push information about
local businesses to other
listing sites.
The 4 main local
aggregators are:
• Infogroup
• Factual
• Acxiom
• Localeze
Moz Local or Bright Local offer
the easiest ways to submit to
the top 4 aggregators

Review Factors
 Number & Sentiment of GMB
Reviews
 Number & Sentiment of All
Reviews on Web

Review Tips
 Always provide top-notch service.
 Always ask for feedback. Direct
negative feedback to a private
survey, and positive feedback to
GMB and/or other online sites.
 No, you can’t delete negative
reviews, but you can report negative
reviews that violate the terms of
that site.
 Bury negative reviews with a high
quantity of positive reviews.
• 85% of people read reviews before trying a new business
• 79% trust a positive review as much as a personal recommendation

Review Tips
 Do NOT solicit or buy fake reviews
 Do NOT build a ton of reviews at
once. Build them gradually at a
natural pace.
 Yes, Yelp’s review algorithm sucks,
but it is what it is.
 Solicit positive reviews from active
Yelpers, those are more likely to not
get filtered out than inactive
Yelpers.

Behavior & Personalization Factors
 Click-through-rate from
search results
 Clicks-to-call on mobile local
pack
 Clicks on driving directions
 Personalization of results
 People who have visited
your website before may
see it appear higher in
search results than new
visitors

Behavior & Personalization
• Write catchy title tags & meta descriptions

• Ensure your website is
user-friendly
Ask friends/colleagues to
use your website and
give you feedback

Add new website content frequently (i.e. blog articles) to
keep users coming back

• Publish posts, events, product sales,
and offers on GMB

Social Signals
• Build a strong social media
following
• Share high-quality website
content on social
frequently

Google My Business (GMB)
 Create or verify listing
 Ensure listing is 100% complete
(including photos)
 Use local phone number in listing
On-Page
 Ensure NAP (name, address, phone)
on website matches NAP on GMB
 Add Schema markup to NAP on site
 Add keywords & location to website
title tags (esp. homepage)
 Add a lot of high-quality topical &
local content (articles/case studies)
 Ensure site is mobile-friendly & fast
Citations
 Add listings to top 50 sites + top 4 aggregators (manual or tools)
 Ensure all listings are 100% complete
 Ensure listings have proper business categories
 Ensure NAP (name, address, phone) data is consistent across
listings & avoid duplicate listings
Behavioral Personalization
 Write catchy title tags & meta descriptions
 Ensure your website is user-friendly
 Add new content frequently (i.e. blog articles)
 Publish posts, events, product sales, and offers on GMB
Links
 Acquire links naturally
from HIGH-QUALITY
websites
 Acquire links naturally
acquire links from LOCAL
websites
Reviews
 Always provide top-notch service & ask for
feedback
 Direct neg. feedback to a private survey, and
positive feedback to GMB and/or other sites
 Report negative reviews that violate terms
 Bury neg. reviews with many positive reviews
 NEVER solicit or buy fake reviews
 NEVER build a ton of reviews at once
 On Yelp, try to get reviews from active Yelpers
©2018 Pam Ann Marketing, LLC
The 2018 Local SEO Checklist - by Pam Ann Marketing
Social Signals
 Build a strong social media following
 Share high-quality website content

BrightLocal’s Top 25 Citations
 facebook.com
 mapsconnect.apple.com
 business.google.com
 bingplaces.com
 foursquare.com
 mapquest.com
 yelp.com
 yellowpages.com
 angieslist.com
 merchantcircle.com
 yellowbook.com
 manta.com
 superpages.com
 kudzu.com
 local.com
 local.botw.org
 spoke.com
 chamberofcommerce.com
 hotfrog.com
 communitywalk.com
 2findlocal.com
 company.com
 brownbook.net
 tupalo.com
 ibegin.com
Top 4 Aggregators
 expressupdate.com (Infogroup)
 factual.com
 acxiom.com
 neustarlocaleze.biz
Top 50 Citation Sites of 2018 + Top 4 Data Aggregators + Tools
BrightLocal’s Top 26-50
 worldweb.com
 where2go.com
 citysquares.com
 ezlocal.com
 ebusinesspages.com
 cylex-usa.com
 getfave.com
 bizhwy.com
 lacartes.com
 myhuckleberry.com
 hub.biz
 cityinsider.com
 wand.com
 n49.com
 yelloyello.com
 opendi.us
 fyple.com
 us.bizadee.com
 callupcontact.com
 mysheriff.net
 smartguy.com
 finduslocal.com
 nexport.com
 wowcity.com
 wherezit.com
Source for Top 50 List:
https://www.brightlocal.com/2018/0
2/08/top-50-local-citation-sites/#USA
Top Local SEO Tools
 moz.com/products/local
 brightlocal.com
 yext.com
 whitespark.ca

Download Slides
Download these slides at:
PamAnnMarketing.com/Slides

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