Local Search Marketing by WSI and Grow Plumbing Gregg Towsley

Local Search Optimization
Gregg Towsley – WSI Quality Solutions

Let’s do Local Search
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Understanding the basics
Perfect your Google+ page
Clean your website
Work on your citations
Get reviews

©2012 RAM. All rights reserved.

What is Local Search
• Local Search is the use of search engines by users
who are looking for a product or service provider
(what) in a specific local area (where).
• Examples
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Plumber
Dentist
Air duct cleaner
Italian restaurant in Mississauga
Plummer
Bed and breakfast

Why Local Search?


Why Local Search?

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http://www.brightlocal.com/2013/11/18/smb-internet-marketing-survey-2013/

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BrightLocal SMB Internet Marketing Survey 2013 in partnership with ChamberofCommerce.com

Local Search ‘Basic’ Fundamentals
Need to understand the ‘Local Search Ecosystem’


Local Search ‘Basic’ Fundamentals
• Names, Address & Phone Number


Local + Mobile

What about phones, apps, iPads, netbooks, etc?

Evolution of Google + Local


The Evolution of Google
• Blended Search (Close Up)


• Educate the prospect – how consumers buy now


Why Focus on Local Search?
• Media chaos organized


Why Focus on Local Search?
• What it takes to be successful today


Understanding the Basics
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Read, understand and follow Google’s rules
E-commerce business, don’t bother trying to get on the ‘local map’
If you work from home- you can ‘hide’ your address from Google listing
It takes time – usually months – to get visible in local search
Things change all the time in Google: the rules, search results appear, and of
course the rankings
Local search visibility is a moving target
Use a real address for your business
Get a separate phone number for your business – more than one location
Make sure you have the ability to make changes to your site at any time
Set up Google Analytics on your site


Six tips for Local SEO success


Google Places

https://support.google.com/places/answer/142906?hl=en&ref_topic=1656881

Google Places
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List your official business name
Get your category right and pick as many relevant ones
Business Description should have relevant local search terms
List your services, areas served, specific benefits, photos,
website URL, email
• Logo and cover image
• Link the page onto your website


Perfect your Google+ Local Page


Google+
Two main tasks to do with your Google listing:
• Make sure it’s 100% compliant with Google rules &
• Pick out the right ‘business categories’
• Google compliant? Use only your real business info
• Use your real business name, use real street
address
• Don’t create multiple Google listings for same
business


Google + Local

If you don’t see ‘Write a review’ buttons, then you’re not looking at your local Google+ page

Clean your website
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Focus on as few sites as possible
More information rather than less
Avoid ‘thin’ pages. Have at least a couple of small paragraphs on each page
If your business has multiple locations, have a page for each location
Avoid near-duplicate, cookie-cutter content, Don’t have all your ‘services’ or
‘locations’ pages sound alike
Provide pics whenever you can in addition to content. Name the pics in a way
that’s relevant to your services, your location(s), or both
NAP on every page
Optimize for humans, not just for search engines
Avoid having a ‘static’ site


Clean your website
What if you have multiple locations?
If you have multiple locations and a landing page for each
location, have only one NAP blob on a given location page.
If you don’t have a landing page for each location, just have the
NAP info for all your business locations on every page.


Clean your website / Tags
• Your title tags should not be just a parade of keywords
• Writing good title tags is more an art than a science.
They’re extremely important to get right.
Main KW + city I 1-2 KW I business name + city
• Write your description tags only for human eyes.
Google doesn’t consider description tags for rankings.
Only benefit is that we see them in the search results
• Get rid of any garbage content
• Create unique content for ‘city pages’

Unique Content for ‘City Pages’
• Write a simple case study on a job you did in your target city
• Write about what you like about working in your target city, or what
you like about its residents
• Write a blurb about any of your employees from your target city or
write about any local laws or regulations that your potential customers
might want to know about.
• Photos – pictures of jobs, picture of a local landmark. Reflect ‘local’
subject matter in the names of the photos, alt tags
• Videos. Each city page can have a different video./YouTube
descriptions a link to your city page and Geo tag the video
• Testimonials. Mention the city of the customers who wrote them.
• Offers or giveaways that are tailored toward the residents of your
target city.
• Any custom maps – Google map creator


Anatomy of an LP


Citations – Huge Factor
• Google+ Local rankings has to do with your listings on other sites –
online business directories
• They are ‘mentions’ of your business on sites that Google generally
trusts on local business
• Any time the name, address, and phone number of your business are
published online, that’s a citation
• List your business on a bunch of these sites – basic business info (NAP
+ website) is accurate and consistent
• Working on your citations is a lot of work, not just ‘building’ also fixing
listings and remove listings that are totally wrong or duplicate content
• It also takes time: at least a couple of hours of work on your part, and
at least a couple of months for Google to check all your citations
• Check on all your listings after a couple of months. Fix any listings that
need fixing.


Volume of Citations


Get Reviews
• They can help rankings – both in terms of earning and
maintaining them
• Google+ reviews are more likely to click on a business
with reviews than one without reviews
• Reviews in general help you cultivate sources of
visibility on sites. They’re often the main or the only
ranking factors on those sites.


Volume of Reviews from 3rd Party Websites


Online Reviews


Clean up
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Incorrect or duplicate Google listings
Incorrect or duplicate citations
Bad inbound links to your site
Broken links / dead links on your site


‘ Basic’ Solution to Promote
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Responsive website/ Mobile website or optimized
Clean up the existing website
Local listing in all major search engines
Listing in all local business directories
Listing in Social Directories
Citations
Customer reviews
Social media sites
Social Book marking
Content marketing

The End

Call Gregg Towsley – 310-909-8835 – www.ContactWSI.com

Local Search Marketing by WSI and Grow Plumbing Gregg Towsley

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