If you have a local business or one that targets audiences in a specific geolocation, then you will want to move beyond general guides for search and social optimization. This post will take you through several marketing strategies for local search and social media marketing.
Keyword Research for Local Search
Before you can optimize your website, social media profiles, or anchor text for link building, you have to know what keywords you want to use. When it comes to local search marketing, you are not only targeting industry-specific terms, but geo-specific terms as well.
Let’s look at an example of a local plumbing business that might have several locations in Washington. When planning their optimization strategy, the first thing they might do is take a look at some geo-specific keywords + plumbing to see how many times they are searched using Google AdWords Keyword Tool.
While the numbers may not be exact, you can rest assured that, in looking at the above data, seattle plumbing is searched more than tacoma plumbing, but tacoma plumbing is searched more than everett and edmonds plumbing combined. When you start with terms like that, you will also get additional suggestions plus the approximate number of times those phrases are searched monthly.
Want to try some other ways to get keyword ideas? Try typing in your keyword ideas in Google search, then scroll down to the bottom to see the related searches.
You can also take your most popular competitor’s website (the one that ranks highest for your main targeted keyword phrase) and look at the keywords they rank for using SEMrush. A free account will show you 10 keywords they rank well for.
Using a combination of these tools and researching other local competitors in your industry should help you develop the right keywords to use for the local search optimization of your business.
On-Site Optimization for Local Search
Once you have your keywords set, the next thing you will want to do is optimize your own website for local search. Let search engines know what locations you are targeting by including geo-specific information, keywords, and phrases in the following places on your website.
Title and Meta Descriptions
When it comes to search results, people are going to see your website’s SEO title tag and meta description or other related snippet from your website first.
Note that, when searching for air conditioning repair seattle, those keywords are bolded in both the title and snippet about the website. Make these two areas count for local search by doing the following.
- Locally Optimized Title Tags – The SEO title tag is still one of the most important elements for on-site optimization, even if Google sometimes chooses alternate titles for search results. Regardless, you should still assume that Google might choose your specified title tag to link to your website in search results. Hence, you will want to make sure it not only includes your primary keywords, but your location as well within 70 characters.
- Locally Optimized Meta Descriptions – Again, Google might choose a snippet of text from your website instead, but it never hurts to have an optimized meta description. Make sure it includes your primary keywords, areas your business serves, and phone number if possible within 165 characters.
Local Address & Phone Number on All Pages
Another good signal to search engines is a local street address and phone number on all pages. Most businesses will place this information in their website’s footer. Be sure that it is actually in the text and not in an image. This is good for search engine bots and for people on their mobile phones as your phone number will be clickable!
Location-Specific Pages
Have more than one location but only one website? That’s not a problem. Just create a page on your website specific for each physical location. This way, anyone searching for your business in a particular region, city, state, or country should be directed to the appropriate page.
Embed a Map
If you enter an address on Google Maps, you can get HTML embed code to add the map to your website. Just click on the link icon to get the code.
You can also click on the customize link to choose sizing and other features for your map before embedding it on your website.
This is a great way to help visitors to your website find your location easily and who knows – it might tell a Google search bot more about your location.
Create a Geo Sitemap
Want to make absolutely sure Google knows where you are? Then create a geo sitemap and KML file for your website. Geo Sitemap Generator makes it easy. Just fill in your company details, download the files, and upload them to your website’s root folder.
Then go to Google Webmaster Tools, add your website (if you haven’t already), verify it using your Google Analytics code (other options available), and then add your geo sitemap’s URL under Site Configuration > Sitemaps. Instead of waiting for Google to find out where you are, this will tell them where you are!
Local Search Directories
Once you have optimized your site for local search, you should begin to start some off-site optimization. The first places to begin are applicable local search directories.
The above graphic shows the current landscape of local search directories and how they feed into each other.
The following are seven of the top local search directories.
Google Places
The ultimate goal is to have the best Google Places listing. For local businesses, it could mean having your business show up on the first page above some of the organic search results.
To get started, add or claim your business on Google Places. When you create your profile, be sure fill out as much information as possible and add up to 10 supplementary photos. You can even link five videos from YouTube about your business.
Also note that you can hide your address on your listing by selecting that your business serves customers at their location. When you select that option, you will get a checkbox to not show your address.
This is a great option for home businesses that target local clients. Once you have completed your profile and hit submit, you will need to choose a way to verify your business. Some will have the option to verify by phone immediately – others will have to wait two to three weeks for a postcard by mail to the business address.
Once your Google Places profile is live, be sure to encourage your customers to review your business. Be sure to also monitor your business reviews. You can respond good or bad reviews as the owner – this is a great way to demonstrate your customer service skills publicly!
You can even use your responses as a way to advertise your friendliness to potential customers as the above business has done. And don’t worry if customers review you on other sites as many of them feed into Google Places.
The only unfortunately part is off-site reviews won’t count towards the number of reviews and stars shown in Google search results.
While Google Places one of the most important places to get listed on, you have to also build profiles on other sites to build citations for local SEO. The more consistent listings you have on additional local search directories, the better your local rankings will be.
Yahoo Local
Yahoo Local should be next on your local search listings and citations quest. You can add or claim a basic listing for free which includes the vital information (contact information, link to your website, hours, payment options, email address, products, and services) or you can choose the enhanced listing for $9.95 per month which allows you to add photos, coupons, a 3,000 character company descriptions, and a 150 character company tagline. You can also run a report to see the number of impressions and clicks you have received with an enhanced listing. The nice part about Yahoo Local compared to Google Places is that verification is done on Yahoo’s end and takes a couple of days to go live.
Bing Local
Bing Local allows you to add or claim a free listing with up to nine photos for your business. Their submission system (the Bing Business Portal) is currently in beta and not the most user-friendly compared to Google or Yahoo. Verification is done by mail and can take two to three weeks. One nice thing about their local pages is that they pull in reviews from a variety of other local search sites and, unlike Google, the total number of ratings and stars from all sites are listed in Bing’s local search results.
Yelp
Yelp is one of the most well-known local search directories. You can add or claim your business listing for free and add photos and lots of additional details beyond just your contact information. Business owners can respond to reviews on their page, which is a plus for demonstrating customer service skills. Yelp also offers pay per click advertising within their network so you can get your business listing in front of more people.
Merchant Circle
Merchant Circle is another popular local directory that allows businesses to add or claim free listings with an extended description, profile picture, and link to your website. They also offer free basic statistics about your listing including keywords driving traffic to your listing and the amount of visitors your listing has received in the last thirty days compared to average businesses and the top business on Merchant Circle in your category. You can click on the who is this link to find out who the leader in your category is to learn more about your competitor’s local marketing strategy.
Superpages
Superpages allows businesses to add or claim free listings that include an extended description of their business, multiple categories, a listing of products and services, one related business image, and a link to their website. You can add or claim your business listing here.
Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages allows businesses to add or claim free listings that include an extended description of their business, multiple categories, and a link. You can also add additional photos for the business listing.
Additional Local Directories
Looking for more? You can use tools like Whitespark Local Citation Finder which will help you find the best local directories for your business. You can also search for the names of your main competitors to see what sites they are listed on and make sure you get listed there as well.
Why It Is Important to Claim Your Listings
If a business has been around long enough, there is a good chance that the business is already listed with their address and phone number. With that in mind, is it important to claim your business listing? Absolutely! Many local directories do not have any verification method to prove that someone editing a listing actually belongs to the business.
If you take the initiative to claim your listings on major local directories and networks, it prevents other people from modifying (or even completely removing) your listing.
Getting Local Reviews
Once you’ve claimed your business profiles on local search directories, the most important thing you can do to boost your visibility is get reviews. Having a positive rating can help your elevate your business in search results, especially on sites that allow visitors to sort businesses by the number of positive ratings.
Here are some tips to getting great social local search reviews.
- Add Buttons / Badges to Your Website – Let your website visitors know they can rate your business on directories like Yelp by adding links to your business listing on your website.
- Encourage Reviews in Your Store – If you have a store or restaurant, encourage local reviews by simply putting a mention or link to your Yelp or other business listing on receipts.
- Encourage Reviews via Emails – Does your business have an online ordering system? Do you encourage people who buy from your website to sign up for your mailing list? If so, email people after they should have received their purchase and ask them to rate their experience with your business on the business listing of your choice.
- Simply Ask – If you interact with people on a daily basis in your business, simply ask people to add a review on your business listing. Most people will be happy to oblige.
No matter how great your business is, you still might encounter the bad review. As I mentioned previously, many sites like Google Places and Yelp allow business owners to respond to their reviews individually. Be sure to regularly monitor your reviews and respond to them as necessary. Leaving bad reviews unanswered does not make the go away… it just makes visitors to your profile wonder what, if any, resolution your unsatisfied customers received.
By responding to your bad reviews, you show potential new customers that your goal is to make sure everyone is happy no matter what.
Link Building for Local Keywords
Once you’ve built your local business listings up, the next thing you should start doing is building links to your website. Keep in mind that you don’t want to over do things as Google is hard at work on an over optimization penalty as we speak. That said, there are many great ways to acquire links.
Since I’ve already discussed 10 hard-hitting link building tactics and leveraging link blending to maximize rankings, I won’t go into any more general link building strategies here. Instead, lets look at some local linking options including the following.
- Related Local Businesses – Look for businesses that are in the same industry, but are not competitors. See if those websites have resource pages that link out to other businesses similar to yours. Then see if you can strike up a dialog with the business owner and convince them why they need to have your link listed as a valuable resource their visitors.
- Local Bloggers – Find bloggers that are in your region whose audience might be interested in your business. See if you can arrange to do a guest post for them, or get them to sample your products or services in exchange for a review on their blog.
- General Local Resource Pages – Search for local business resources that may not have come up in your local directories search and find out if you can get your site listed.
- Competitor Backlinks – Using tools like Open Site Explorer, find out what backlinks your local competitors’ websites have to see if you can get yourself listed on them as well.
- Local Events – Be on the lookout for events in your area, such as industry conferences, expos, or shows. Check the event’s website to see if they link to their exhibitors and sponsors. If they do, invest as an exhibitor or sponsor of the event so you can get your link on their site as well.
- Local Charities – Give back to your community by sponsoring and donating to local charities. Many will have websites that thank their local sponsors and donors, linking back to the sponsor’s and donor’s websites.
Now that we’ve covered most of the local search marketing bases, let’s take a look at some local social marketing strategies.
Local Marketing on Facebook
With 845 million monthly active users, you’re bound to find some of your target audience on Facebook. Here are some ways to make sure your business gets found by Facebook users in your area.
Optimizing Your Facebook Page for Local
The best way to optimize your Facebook page for a local audience is to make sure it is set up as a Local Business. If you haven’t created your Facebook page, make sure to create your page as a Local Business.
If you have already created it, you may be able to change the category, depending on your number of fans. To check to see what category your page is listed as, go to Admin Panel > Manage > Edit Page and then Basic Information. Here you will see a category and sub-category for your business.
Once your Facebook page is set up as a local business, be sure to enter all of your local details including your street address, local phone number, and business hours. If you don’t want to list your exact street address, you can just enter the city, state, and zip code to give users an approximation of your location.
One thing to mention in regards to the new Facebook pages design is the About information for your business. It will generally show your business category, location, phone number, and business hours.
You can make the area show your website by removing your phone number and business hours from your page’s details. You just have to decide which is more important for your visitors – seeing your phone number on your Facebook page or having the ability to click through to your website. If you do want your local business information to stay intact, you can also add a status update with a link to your Facebook page, then pin the status update to the top of the page so it shows in the top left column.
Connecting with a Local Audience on Facebook
Once your Facebook page is locally optimized, you will want to get your page in front of a local audience. Some simple ways to do this are as follows.
- Invite Your Friends – Go to the Admin Panel > Build Audience area and use the Invite Email Contacts option to invite your email contacts to become a fan of your business page. Then use the Invite Friends option to invite friends on your personal profile to become a fan as well. Be sure to invite contacts in your region to get the most targeted audience for your page.
- Become a Fan of Local Businesses Pages – Again, you will want to avoid competitors, but become a fan of related local business pages by using Facebook as your page and liking the page. Once you become a fan, you will be able to interact on the local business page as your page in comments on the page’s updates. This will get you exposure with your target audience and will hopefully lead to new local fans of your page.
- Target Status Updates by Location – Send status updates only to people in specific locations by changing the dropdown for your status update from Public to targeted by Location / Language. There, you can specify an audience within a particular country, state, and/or city.
- Use Facebook Ads – Facebook Ads are a relatively inexpensive way to target Facebook members in your region. Select your Facebook page as the Destination for your ad, and then use the local targeting option to show the ad to only people in a specified country, state, province, city, or zip code.
Local Marketing on Twitter
While Twitter may not have as large of an audience, it does have 100 million active users. It is also much easier to gain followers since you can interact with people without them even following you. Here are some ways to make sure your business gets found by Twitter users in your area.
Optimizing Your Twitter Profile for Local
With Twitter profiles, you don’t have to worry about properly categorizing them from the start to make them local friendly. All you have to do is a few minor edits to your Twitter profile. Be sure that you include a specific location in your Twitter information as well as a local keyword phrase in your Twitter bio.
This will help anyone searching specifically for local businesses on Twitter to find yours easily.
Connecting with a Local Audience on Twitter
As previously mentioned, remember that on Twitter, you can interact with anyone regardless of whether they are following you by simply mentioning their @username in a status update. Here’s how you can grow a local audience on Twitter.
- Connect with Local Twitter Users – There are several ways to find local people on Twitter, thanks to Twitter lists and directories. You can start with TwitterCounter, Twitter Grader, and Wefollow to find the top users in your area. Or you can use Twitter directories like Twellow and Follower Wonk to search for users in specific locations by keyword.
- Check Out Followers for Local Businesses – Look for local businesses on Twitter in your industry (including competitors), and take a peek at their followers. Chances are, they might be interested in your business as well.
- Follow Local Discussions – Use Twitter Advanced Search to monitor conversations based on specified keywords from users near a particular place which can be specified by name or zip code.
- Try Twitter Maps App on Bing – Bing offers several apps to enhance the functionality of their maps including a Twitter app. To access this app, go to explore map apps and select Twitter Maps. Zoom into your location on the map and see tweets that are were sent in your region.
Once you find some people that fit your targeted, local demographic, be sure to follow them on Twitter. Don’t just click the follow button though, be sure to actually follow their updates and interact with them. The second part is key if you expect to get any local followers to your Twitter profile in return.
Local Marketing on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the top social network for professionals, therefore it’s the perfect network for business professionals. Here’s how you can grow a local audience on LinkedIn.
Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile for Local
To ensure that your profile comes up for anyone searching for professionals in your area, just make sure you have entered your correct location in your profile’s basic information settings. Then, for keyword optimization, include your location in your profile’s headline. Also be sure to list locations in your current and past job experiences.
Connecting with a Local Audience on LinkedIn
LinkedIn only wants you to connect with people in real life as opposed to networks like Twitter where you are encouraged to follow anyone you are simply interested in. To get more local connections on LinkedIn, be sure to do the following.
- Invite Email Connections – The best way to start building your LinkedIn connections is by importing your email connections into LinkedIn. LinkedIn will then allow you to invite anyone who is on LinkedIn to your network.
- Connect with Colleagues & Alumni – After you have connected with everyone in your address book, you can then connect with current and past colleagues at your jobs as well as alumni from the college you attended.
- Open Networkers Groups – LinkedIn Open Networkers (LIONs) are people who want to connect openly with as many people as possible on LinkedIn. Search for open networkers in LinkedIn groups, join a few LION groups, and then start perusing the member’s list. You will be able to use the group as how you know the person on the LinkedIn connect form. Then just include a private message explaining why you want to connect with them, such as you are trying to make more local connections on LinkedIn.
- Local Networking Groups – When searching groups, be sure to also search for local networking groups. After you have spent some time engaging in the local groups, you can start to connect with other members you have interacted with.
- Email Your Local Contacts – Remember that LinkedIn contacts are not meant to be spammed. That said, you can go to your connections and filter them by location. Then you can select one or more people in a specific location at a time to email. You should probably email everyone individually and personalized if possible, but if not, this could be a good way to get an important message to lots of local contacts simultaneously.
Local Marketing on Google+
Although Google+ doesn’t have nearly the amount of users as Facebook or Twitter, they do corner the market in influencing search results. There are lots of reasons you should use Google+ such as the fact that businesses that might not normally show up on the first page of results will thanks to having the right Google+ connections.
Google has even incorporated Google+ people and pages above Google AdWords ads for some searches.
If you want to reap the search and social benefits of Google+, here is what you need to do.
Optimizing Your Google+ Profile for Local
If you want your Google+ profile to appear in search recommendations for local searches, be sure to include your current location in your Google+ profile in your Places Lived section. Also be sure to add locally optimized keyword phrases in your profile’s headline, introduction, and occupation.
This should help people find you both on Google’s main search and Google+’s internal search.
Optimizing Your Google+ Page for Local
For Google+ pages, be sure to set up your page as a local business from the start. You can even use your Google Places information to populate your page’s data.
This is especially important now that Google mixes people and pages in their main search results and within Google+’s internal search.
Connecting with a Local Audience on Google+
Google+ is similar to Twitter in the fact that you can follow anyone you choose, assuming that they share public updates. If they do share public updates and have it set that anyone can comment on them, you can comment on them without having to wait for them to follow you! Here’s how you can grow a local audience on Google+.
- Make Sure Your Google+ Profile is Publicly Visible – Click on your profile’s Edit Profile button and check to make sure that each section of your Google+ profile is publicly visible. If your profile is not set to public, it will not show up in search results.
- Add Local Google+ Users to Circles – Use the Google+ internal search to find local Google+ users that might be interested in your business and connect with them by adding them to circles using your personal profile. Be sure to create a separate circle for local users so you can target status updates directly to them.
- Interact with Local Connections – Interact with your local connections regularly. For those that share their public updates and allow everyone to comment upon them, this is a great way to gain additional exposure with a local audience.
- Suggest Your Google+ Business Page to Local Followers – Once you’ve built up a good local following, you can suggest your Google+ business page to them through a status update targeted to your local connections’ circle.
- Follow Your Local Connections Back on Your Business Page – Show your local connections that you value them on Google+ by following them back as your page. One of the perks to Google+ pages over Facebook pages is that you interact with personal Google+ profiles as your business page once people are following your page. Be sure to use this to gain even more exposure for your business to a local audience.
Local Marketing on Foursquare
Last but not least on the social circuit is Foursquare, the ultimate social network for local businesses. If you have a location that you want to share with the public, you will definitely want to add or claim your business on Foursquare.
Optimizing Your Foursquare Profile for Local
Foursquare business pages are as locally optimized as they get, so nothing to worry about there. Just be sure to take advantage of adding extra details about your business, including your other social profile links and a link to your website.
Connecting with a Local Audience on Foursquare
The best thing you can do on Foursquare is encourage people to check-in to your business. One of the top ways of doing this is by offering incentives such as discounts or coupons for people who check-in often at your business. You can offer perks by creating specials for newbies, friends, swarms (when lots of people check in during the same time period), loyalty, and mayors (the person who checks-in the most at your location).
The reasons check-ins are so powerful is that most of the time, users will not only check-in on Foursquare but also share their check-in with their Twitter and/or Facebook audience. This is great word-of-mouth marketing as people are more likely to go places their friends have been or recommended.
Promote check-ins at your business location by putting a Foursquare window cling on your business’ window to remind people to check-in. Also be sure to advertise your Foursquare presence and specials on your website so people will know they are getting a great deal to check-in when they arrive.
More Local Social Media Optimization Tips
The following are general tips that fit almost any network in terms of making sure your social media presence is locally optimized and you are ready to build an even larger local audience.
- Include Social Links in Your Emails – Anytime you send out emails, whether they are to your general mailing list or just regular emails to contacts, be sure that your email signature includes a link to your top social profiles.
- Include Social Buttons on Your Website – Add social media buttons or badges to your website so that visitors will be able to connect to your business easily. You can add them in the header, sidebar, or footer of your website.
- Add Social Mentions to Printed Materials and Advertisements – Do you have a brochure in your store, business cards, or advertisements in local magazines or newspapers? Be sure to add a simple “Follow us on Twitter” or “Find us on Facebook” to these items (and direct links if possible).
- Stay Active – Staying active on your social networks will help greatly in encouraging engagement with your current audience.
- Encourage Sharing – If you create content on your website in the form of articles, newsletters, or blog posts, be sure to encourage that your audience shares them socially. This should help lead new traffic to your website and connections to your social profiles.
Looking at Local Analytics
To make sure that your local marketing strategies are getting local results, be sure to check out the following analytics.
Google Analytics
When reviewing traffic to your website, you will want to look in your Google Analytics’ Audience Demographics data.
Here, you will be able to see if local visitors stay on your site longer than other visitors by analyzing time on site, bounce rate, and pages per visit. If you have set up goals on your website, such as when a person makes a purchase or signs up for your mailing list, you can see if people in particular regions are completing these goals more often than others. You might find additional regions that you will want to target your local marketing efforts towards through use of your analytics.
Facebook Insights
Want to see if you are getting likes from the right audience? Check out your Facebook page’s Insights to see demographics information for your page’s likes, reach, and people talking about your page content.
If you notice that you are getting more likes outside of your targeted location, you will need to figure out better ways to encourage audience growth in your desired region such as creating more location-specific content or specials on your Facebook page.
Conclusion
If you follow the steps I mentioned above, you should start seeing an increase in foot traffic to your business. But the thing to keep in mind when doing local search and social optimization is that it takes time to see the results. Don’t expect for miracles in the first 30 or even 60 days. It will take months, if not a year before it really kicks in.
What other local search and social optimization tactics do you use?
This amazing course will teach you, step by step, how to double if not triple your traffic over the next 30 days.
I have to agree, the analytic’s are a very important part as it points out the weak areas and areas you need to improve on.
Yep, you have got it.
Another 4+ hours spent writing another masterpiece post! Well done, Neil. Even though I don’t really do local search, there are lots of nuggets here that I will learn loads from. Thanks!
Awesome, I am glad to hear you were able to pick up at least a couple of helpful pointers.
Submitting KML map will help a lot in Local search ranking and it is the most effective and fast way to rank in the local search results and i recommend to submit KML site map in order to rank your local business in the search engines.
Nice article and there are plenty of think i learned from this article.
Thanks Manendra for the recommendation.
I dont actually have business premises, if Im just a blogger is there a benefit to linking with other local bloggers?
of course backlinks are very important to improve your site performance.
I agree, thank you for your response Vignesh.
Anything can help you in this case. All the links coming to you will eventually make your blog go higher. All the small things ad up after all.
Definitely, all the little things really do add up.
I think the most important component of local marketing is local citations. Getting reviews, listed in as many different directories as possible will increase you visibility with your Google Places page.
Google is still tweaking the algorithm for local to make searches more targeted, but these are definitely the signals that they are looking for.
Definitely some good points, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the matter.
Neil another great post.
Also reverse engineer your local competitors by putting in their address in Quotation marks and then seeing which citations pop up, then submit your site or clients site to those local citation sites.
Thank you Robert,
Great tip!
I never knew about the KML sitemaps. What else can help with ranking higher in Google Places?
Getting quality reviews, and having your keywords align with your placement.
Google places is excellent for free SEO on google and getting your business mapped!
Well said there, Ryan… free SEO indeed. But without the knowledge of lots of the things explained here by Neil, many will still grope in the dark.
Yep, you have to learn as much as you can and implement it or else you won’t see the results you were hoping for.
Definitely!
Thanks for sharing such useful information and content to get your business mapped on Google and for free!
No problem Ryan, happy to help.
Neil
We are just learning how to optimise our sites so your post about local searches came just at the right time. It was BRILLIANT and VERY helpful.
Our problem is that we are a lawn care company and there are 3 of us in the business and we are self employed.
Due to our location we border 3 specific counties (NOT countRies
) ) in the UK so we struggle trying to be area specific and our SEO is VERY weak.
We will try to follow your instructions as it is definitely going to help us.
Thanks again for the great information. It must have taken you hours to write it but we want you to know that it wasn’t time wasted and was extremely valuable to us.
That is great Nick, I appreciate the feedback and supportive words.
Best of luck!
Thanks for the great post Neil! Saving this one locally for future reference on local optimization.
Glad you liked it, hope it helps in your future use.
Local Search optimization is very important now a days for any local business. It is also important to have a website for any local business. If you can get your listing on Google Local Business Listings and other search engine local listings, one can get plenty of leads!!
Yep, today every business should be online and utilizing the internet to the fullest.
Another tip for Yelp. If you have 4+ star reviews, you can add a Yelp Bar just like the Hello bar at the top, to create instant trust. You just need the Yelp API code and the plugin from the WP directory and you’re good to go.
Great tip, thanks for sharing Raj!
This a well written post. Thanks Neil. You give so much value and detail information. I love it.
Thank you Edgar, I appreciate the kind words.
A great tip is to actively encourage visitors to your business to fill in reviews of your service.
Set up a simple web page with two options, one for those that liked the service and one for those that didn’t.
Redirect those that liked your service to Google/Yelp to leave a review.
Redirect those that didn’t to a contact us page so you can get feedback directly but without ruining your reviews on other websites.
Steve,
Do you have any example pages?
Not really unfortunately, but it is a very clever method!
Once you’ve got the page set up, give out business cards with the link on to all your customers.
Steve
That is some great advice Steve, thanks for sharing with everyone.
Wow..That is very detailed tutorial Neil ..Thanks
Thanks Amit!
Terrific post, Neil – so many of the obvious “close-to-home” solutions are overlooked as we build our grand global strategy.
As always, success comes from mining the details.
Pay close attention to those who rank above you and learn from them. One day they will learn from you…
I agree – success does come from minding the details. Perhaps that’s why it’s said that “the devil is in the details”
Yep, I believe that is what it means.
Definitely, details may be small but they can either make you or break you.
This is going to take a while to work through and implement these tips. Little by little.
I agree, but it is worth the effort in the long run.
Wow, pretty comprehensive post, Neil. Nicely done and thanks for sharing.
Thanks John, glad you enjoyed it.
Awesome strategies to improve business step by step. Thanks for your useful article.
Thank you Vignesh, happy to help.
Very helpful article! Thank you so much, Neil!
One question about the order of getting into local directories: I’ve heard it’s best to be listed in as many local directories as possible BEFORE claiming your Google Places listing. The notion is that when you are claiming your Google Places listing, Google goes out to see where else you are listed; if you want a better ranking, make sure Google finds your business in several directories during that process. If you sign up in local directories AFTER you do your Google Places, it’s too late to get “credit” from Google for those directory listings.
Is that B.S., or a good practice?
Thanks!
It’s definitely good pracice to get listed in as many local directories as possible.
However, I cannot see why you would have to do this before you make your Google listing.
Steve
I believe it will make you appear more legitimate to Google.
That is actually good practice. You want to seem as legitimate as possible if you are setting up a places page.
Great post Neil, a lot of information in here; it will take me a while to really absorb and implement it.
Thanks Mattew,
Get started as soon as you can!
With such comprehensive article I sure learned more than “a thing or two”,
Neil’s articles are always masterpieces. Perhaps he should be a professional writer. It’s not easy to write, especially to write so well consistently and to maintain (and even improve) the quality!
Awesome,
Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate the support.
Really complete post! I just have a question for you that has been confusing me ever since i started to use Google Adwords keyword tool. Do you use exact searches on your local keywords to have an idea of how many monthly searches it has, or you use general searches?
Remember to also decrease that number further as a percentage of clicks will go to adsense rather than the organic SERPs.
Steve
Hi Steve!
Thanks for your info. Do you have any idea of the percentage that goes to adsense?
Thanks for your additional input Steve.
Exact searches tend to give you the most targeterd results.
Amazing information – I will need all day to digest this post. As a small business in the construction industry everything in this post is relevant – I just need to action and prioritise these steps.
Wonderful to have all this in one post – thanks Neil – brilliant work.
You need all day indeed. I find myself coming back to just read and digest Neil’s awesome posts. They are a real education in themselves, to say the least.
Thank you,
I appreciate your support.
Thanks Paul,
Glad to hear that this post is relevant for your industry.
In keyword search tool high competition means what ? whether it is high competition for the advertisers for that particular keyword or for the keyword itself ?
Yes, it means it is high competition for anyone who is going after it.
Great content and very timely. I am in the middle of setting up a mobile WP site for a small business so this was great timing. I did not know about the geositemap (now added to several blog sites) and found out that I should have also added a mobile sitemap for the site as well (now done). I would not have known if I had not gone to add the geositemap. I will be back again. count on it.
Thank you Daniel,
Will be happy to have you back.
Neil you’ve hit my main area of interest with this blog. I love it
Awesome!
Most of the people do optimization of the web page / business for the worldwide but very few are optimizing business for the local search. So these tips will help lot especially for local optimization of the web page or business.
I agree. Most people even think it’s something that can’t be done or is difficult to do. Neil lays it out here just easy and makes it well explained for those who are “running” away from doing local search and social marketing,
Great, glad you agree.
They definitely should.
You mention the ability to hide your address on Google Places, but it’s important to mention that Google recently changed its policy and it is now mandatory to hide a business address if the given business does not service customers at its address (for example, this could apply to a plumbing business that always goes out to customers).
Some businesses have actually had their Google Places listing removed with no notice because Google determined that the address should have been hidden. Wanted to give the heads-up!
Thanks for letting everyone know, I did not know that.
What a great resource Neil, thank you for this. One question though, how important would you say it is to use “phrase” and “exact” match when doing your keyword research?
Super important! often
Try looking at the numbers for ‘dry cleaners’ for example. Google gets very confused on how to associate things.
[dry cleaners] = 33,100 searches globally
dry cleaners = 1,000,000 searches globally
So the difference is a factor of 30, the trouble is the broad matched dry cleaners includes phrases like ‘dry cleaners prices’, ‘online dry cleaners’ which aren’t too bad, but then it includes ‘office cleaning’ and ‘carpet cleaning’ which are terrible (if you’re a dry cleaner)
Always try a broad match and the scroll down the list to see what Google thinks is associated, as your view of whether a phrase is worth optimising for may rapidly change.
Thanks for your response Thomas, I appreciate you helping out.
I use a mixture of both. The keyword tool is a great resource, but I like having as many resources available as possible.
Neil’s content are always works of art. Perhaps he should be an established author. It’s not simple to create, especially to create so well continually and to sustain (and even improve) the quality!
Thank you, I appreciate the kind words.
Great post as always Neil! For those of you who don’t know, getlisted.org is a free service that help you get listed on various local sites/directories (not aff., I just think it’s a great service).
Cool, thanks for sharing Julien.
It is really a shame that it takes as long as it does before you see any real results from local search. I have found from prior experience that social marketing usually works out pretty fast.
Yep, but well worth the wait and effort.
Neil, I really appreciate your posts. They are consistently well-written and to the point. I hope you are getting paid well for your good work.
Thanks Joseph, but I do not get paid to blog. However I do get traffic to my Quick Sprout Traffic System, which makes a profit.
Thanks for sharing Awesome Post…Could you please describe e some Social Media Optimization Factors… How to get start with Social Media Optimization..
Thanks
Here are some older post I have written, that may be able to help you.
10 Ways to Get More Traffic, Attention and Higher Rankings Through Social Sharing
http://bit.ly/AeznYl
How to Create a Jaw Dropping Social Media Strategy in 5 Steps
http://bit.ly/A1SSG5
The Social Media Handbook – 57 Resources For First Time Entrepreneurs
http://bit.ly/KjiYN7
To get links back to the site , does anyone have a blog or knows any financial websites where I can post, it’s written by editors in UK.
I am sorry I do not.
One other thing: Don’t underestimate the power of keyword research for local searches. You can be on the first page of Google quickly when you use this idea along with Google maps and places.
Definitely, good point Wade.
Specially, after giving more importance to the Meta title and Meta description by Google search engine, many people believe that keywords are not so much important in the eye of the Google but it is wrong because meta title and meta description are being built on the basis of it only. So always focus on the local searched keywords as well as generic keywords is the best practice.
Yep, you have got it.
I find this guide on business optimization for local search and social marketing very helpful to me now. I’ve just got a project to promote a business in Australia using the power of the Internet. Thanks for sharing this, Neil. This guide will be my workbook on completing my tasks.
Awesome, that is great to hear. I hope these tips will help!
This was a really great guide to business optimization! Thanks for this great share Neil Its going to help me a lot in my future projects as well as current ones.
No problem Brian, happy to have been able to help.
You’ve certainly define a careful analysis on one’s business battle online. Those listed tips for optimization are really essential and needed to apply not to mentioned the keyword research with its external free tool (Google AdWords) and including a map for showcasing the geographical location of a certain place.
Thanks, glad you liked it.
Great Post!! Love how you used a plumbing location as a example!! Especially since Im a plumber looking to score higher in seo! I must say though, how would you go about getting ahead of the competition? I assume we are all doing the same seo tactics!
There is not much else you can do, expect provide better quality and unique content.
I love doing local SEO, it’s probably my most favourite because you can really participate in the local community (instead of country wide). One thing you should always check though while doing keyword research, is placing the city name before the keyword, as well as placing it behind the keyword. The differences in local search results could surprise you!
Thank you Kiki for the tip, I appreciate you sharing it with everyone.
Neil another great post. Ican stop reading your posts..You are bookmarked for tomorrow..
Thanks Sinisa, I will see you tomorrow then.
Fantastic post. I really enjoy this blog and think I’ll save it to my favorites. Great work Neil keep it up.
Thank you, I hope theses tips have helped.
Great post with some valuable tips for SMBs. We just gave a webinar on the topic in Orlando at the digitalNow Conference and the room was filled with people taking notes and asking questions.
I am going to print it out and use it as a reminder of our must do check lists!
Thanks Again!
Awesome, best of luck!
Hi Neil,
I was wondering if you have a blog post or ideas on how to apply these ideas for B2B marketing and national focus for the UK rather than just locally?
Regards
Vasileios
Unfortunately I do not. :/
Google doesn’t support GEO Sitemaps anymore. They say they still support kml files but there’s no way to load them in Webmaster Tools.
Thanks for letting me know, I will have to check it out.
wow, i read through this post and i just wanted to say this was very helpful. especially because i’m an seo intern @ a furniture company and our goals are to dominate within a 5 mile radius. In this post i fould a lot of value, how long do it take you to write this post neil? i proabbly would of had to take a break and come back to finish it lol
I don’t recall, but usually my post take anywhere from 2-4hrs.
I’ll be using your local search strategy as part of the overall mix. One tip to everyone out there. Just keeping chipping away and you’ll get there in the end. Neil’s local strategy is just one of a number of techniques to improve traffic levels overall. I think local search will be become more and more important in the future.
Cheers
John
Thanks for the tip, dedication and determination are indeed a powerful thing.
Great stuff, I think keyword density is important as well.
Thanks for the input glad you liked it.
Your welcome, but to be honest, I doubt the target searches given by Google is correct, one one of the search terms My website was first, while on google web master tools, I saw different result, anyway no alternatives as global search is monopolised by Google.
What a great post once again. Your blog post is a boon for anyone who wants to learn SEO
Thank you, I am happy to hear it.
Didn’t realise you could hide your address on Google Places thanks for the info
Yep, happy to have shared something new.
I found this article from a kissmetrics article where you said,
“How can you leverage local search? One way I did this was to claim that Hyatt Hotel in Seattle where I live, as the location of my business. This has led my business to appear when you search under that keyword: “Hyatt Hotel in Seattle.†I landed one enterprise customer worth $120,000 for my company.”
It doesn’t seem like you explained in great length how you did this (I assume you listed your address as the Hyatt’s own). But this woulda been cool to have a walk-thru on how you made $120K just from doing this..
Thanks for the feedback Andrew, I will take it into consideration when writing future posts.
Hi Neil – this is one of the best posts that I have read on localism – key to any local business success. I have seen good results with G+ on less competitive real estate words and will try to put your recommendations to work. Thanks!
Thank you David,
Let me know how these tips work out for you!
Awesome post on optimizing business locally. I will follow your points for my local business. Thanks!!!!
Thanks, let me know if these tips worked out for you.
Simply amazing article with a lot of good information. It is also important to make sure the information of your business is consistent throughout the web, including business name, phone and address. http://www.infocities.com/articles/tips-for-creating-a-google-plus-listing-for-your-local-business
For example if you add your business to Google plus, make sure that the info is the same when you add your business listing to other online directories.
Yes, I agree. Thank you for brining it up.
This is could be a guideline for every local businesses. It takes time and effort to implement all the details. It’s better that the business owner takes control and make it a 3 month plan – a list of ” what to do next after website finished” .
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks May, glad you liked it.
Hi Neil,
Really nice article this post is really helpful for our business step by step. I will follow your points for my local business.
Thanks for great posting.
Thanks, glad you found it helpful.
Is there a way to expand local rankings to other cities/suburbs? I am working with a company with 1st page ranking for St Paul (they are a suburb of St Paul) but they are actually closer to Minneapolis where they rank on the second page. Minneapolis is a bigger market and would like to be ranked there as well. Great post thanks for the help.
They can start adding pages targeted towards other cities, which should help a lot.
Think of Yelp’s strategy…
Hi Neil
I am grateful for the information because it applies directly to my local real-estate site. Even though I had already implemented some of the measures there is some really good powerful ones I overlooked. Thanks, and I would implementing them for sure.
Great post.
Awesome, I hope they helped!
hey neil,
great information you have shared with us. this is an incredible post. local marketing concept is awesome.
Thanks.
Matt
Thanks Matt, I appreciate you letting me know you liked it.
I think the admin of this web site is really working hard for his website, because here every
data is quality based information.
Thank you, I do work very hard on my site.
Amazing post, Almost you covered all the optimize tips for local.
Thanks Britto, if there are more you would like to share please do!
Both local search engine marketing techniques and social media optimization, or “SMO”, are becoming very important tools for marketers.
Being able to capitalize on these types of marketing strategies will help a marketer utilize these techniques to generate much more targeted traffic for their websites!
Yep, glad you get it Daniel.
THE definitive step-by-step guide to Local Optimization!
I visit often – thanks Neil
Andy Kuiper – Calgary
Thank you Andy, I appreciate you frequently visiting.
Neil, 1 of the better writeups I’ve seen even 10 months later!
Question – do you submit to the data aggregators first and wait a while for the sites to populate or just start submitting to all on day 1?
I just start submitting to all on day 1.
Neil,
Very helpful tips & guide, thank you very much.
Thank you, so glad you found it helpful.
Thank you for this local marketing guide, especially for overviewing GEO sitemap creation. Keep writing, you’re great at it.
Happy to share, glad you liked it.
Hi,
what if 2 different businesses in 2 different towns want to share one website; so they would both use the same URL on their Google plus local pages (to point to their shared business website). Do you think Google would find that acceptable?
Thanks,
Hans.
I think they would, but I am not sure why 2 different businesses would want to share one website.
Great advice Neil! Thanks
Sure thing, let me know if you ave any questions!
Hi Neil,Am totally agree with you,your blog is the best one I read about local optimization.But can you elaborate about yahoo,Bing local optimization?I think local optimization of yahoo and bing is little more difficult from that of Google.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will consider elaborating on it in a future post.
Geez, this is the longest blog post I ever had to read, and among the most informative! I bet it required a lot of work, but how helpful it turned out being! Thanks Neil, and keep it up!
Thank you,
Happy to hear you enjoyed it.
It was really helpful info Neil, I am really having a good evaluation in your posts. And I am still reading along your posts to gain helpful tips from you.
Great, glad you found it helpful!
Neil, this is the best and most helpful post. Thanx a million
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.
Awesome share Neil, greatly appreciated!
Danny
Thanks, happy to do so.
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Quite interesting post. The way you have explained linkbuilding for local keywords is very impressive. I had also written a blog for local SEO here: http://www.resultfirst.com/blog/index.php/local-seo-enhancing-your-search-engine-rankings/
I’m amazed, I have to admit. Rarely do I encounter a blog that’s equally
educative and interesting, and let me tell you, you’ve hit the nail on the head. The problem is an issue that not enough folks are speaking intelligently about. Now i’m
very happy I stumbled across this during my hunt for something concerning this.
Great ideas here. One new site I found where you can list yourself is YLocale (http://ylocale.com/). Right now it looks like they’re having a free advertising promotion where you can put in a full-color ad with links free of charge. Might be a good way to get free advertising plus some links pointing to your website to help with SEO.
Bryan, thanks for the heads up. I’ll have to check it out.
This is a pretty impressive post on local SEO and really thorough and lot of work to do. Lot of businesses are not really aware how powerful local seo can be and really bring a lot of business to small local businesses, especially with mobile devices local searches will dominate the searches. I think this is something small businesses cannot ignore….great info and guide.
Pretty! This has been an incredibly wonderful post.
Thanks for providing this info.
Roma, glad I could be of help.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on area checker web site examination search engine marketing exploration find far more why don’t we perform research.. Regards
Lynell, thanks for reading. Glad you found it helpful
Absolutely AWESOME post, Neil! I was searching all over for a simple, yet comprehensive guide, and this is the bomb! You should totally do a repost with updates for Google+ Local Business Pages. Perhaps adding a link list at the top of the post with anchor links to the key section headings would be handy for usability/navigation and for bloggers looking to link to specific sections?
BTW, I found this post by searching for “percent of businesses that optimize for local search”. It didn’t surface for my earlier searches for “local search guide” or “local search guide for businesses.” Just FYI. =)
Angie, Glad you found it helpful. I will definitely look into all those suggestions
This is an excellent post with all one needs to dominate local search. why run adwords when you can optimize well?
A mixture of both can really get you a lot of traffic.
Neil this is one of the best free SEO articles I have ever come across. Thank you for sharing and especially being so detailed in each step.
I assume that when you say local it can be applicable for country specific search as well. For an example, if an Australian business should rank high in google.com.au than in google.com if optimized for local search.
Sandra, thanks for reading. Glad I could help
Nice article, will definitely use some of these tips when optimizing my blog for local search performance.
Thanks once again.
Great, let me know how it works
Ce sa nu faci in promovarea site-ului online
Great post, this gets book marked for sure!
Thanks for reading
Aw, this was a really good post. Taking the time and actual effort to produce a very good article… but what can I say…
I procrastinate a lot and don’t seem to get anything done.
Lorrie, glad you enjoyed the post. You definitely can get something done
Great article! After years of spinning our wheels we are finally gaining traction with local SEO. We are now #2 in local results for our primary search phrase. Still can’t quiet understand how to rank well for multiple search phrases in local results. Do we need to add more pages with targeted info for additional results?
Ed, I think that may help. I also think a focus on quality unique content can do the trick as well..
Great article! Thank you. It was written before the Panda and Penguin updates and Penguin 2.0 is imminent. Does anything above change materially since those updates?
Michael, there are a couple of changes. Things are always being updated. Nothing extremely noteworthy though.
This is great article.
It is so important that local business and local customers improve their Local SEO for a better conversion.
Daniel, very true and very important.