Local SEO GuideLocal SEO GuideThe science of being found in local rankings!

What you need to knowLocal SEO. It’s a subset of yourSEO program. If you’ve already optimized your site for search engines, you might findyourself thinking that you’re done with SEO.

Before you get too comfortable, you should knowthat if your business has a physicallocation, additional optimization for localsearch is more than worthwhile.

Local SEO Ad

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Local SEO GuideLocal SEO Guide

According to a recent study, 78% of localsearches on mobile and 61% of localsearches on laptops result in offlinepurchases. And that’s out of thewhopping 7 billion monthly unique localsearches.

78%61%

Just think back to the last time you werecraving a mocha latte. Did you type “coffee”into the search bar? Probably not. Most peopleinclude their physical location in the search aswell—“coffee Nashville.” And that’sexactly why local SEO is important.

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Why else should you optimize for local?• To pursue higher exposure in Local Organic Results• To get listed in the Local 3-Pack Results• To have your business’s Pin featured on the Google and Bing Maps• To have your own Local Knowledge Panel

What you need to knowThe first step in any local SEO strategyis getting citations in local directories.Here's a little more that you need toknow, and then we promise—you canstart doing!

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Citations or local directories: A localcitation is a mention of your business onany webpage other than your own.Citations include your business namefollowed by your address, phonenumber, or both, and don’t have to belinked to your website.

Business name. Your businessname, is probably the most crucial factor when itcomes to ranking well in local searchengine results. Your business titleneeds to be the same across theboard—meaning that every singledata source must list your name theexact same way.

Google provides these QualityGuidelines to explain further:

• Your title should reflect your business’s real-world title.• Marketing taglines, phone numbers, store codes, and• URLs aren’t valid descriptors. In addition to your business’s real-world title, you may include a single descripton that helps customers locate your business.

1. NAP: Common acronym used whentalking about citations: Name, Address,

Phone number.

Important: Your NAP needs to be listedthe same way everywhere! This meansevery little thing in your business name

and address. If your business is at 123Fun Street on your G+ profile, it betternot be 123 Fun St. on your Yelp profile.

Details really count in local SEO.

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Keep these four main factors in mind when creating your listings:

Physical address.

A slight variation in street addressmight not seem like a big deal butsearch engines are extremely fussyabout details so these addresses will beseen as separate businesses, andthey’d lower the search engine’s overallconfidence in your business and, as aresult, lower your rankings.

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Phone number.

If multiple phone numbers are attached to yourbusiness name it will trigger Googleand Bing algorithm alarms and your site rankings will sufferas a result.

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Proper categorization. In searchengines, when you create a locallisting for your business, you’ll beasked to pick 2–10 categories thatbest fit your business. Your rankings will beDESTROYED (what? too dramatic?!) ifyour categories are incorrect ornonexistent, so make sure youchoose wisely.

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Hotel

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Where should you be listed?• Local search engines. Make sure you’ve covered all your bases. • Google Places • Bing Places • Yahoo Local • Yelp • YellowPages • Foursquare

• Social media sites. Set up all the social media profiles that you think you need (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram). Remember, consistently and correctly list your NAP on all profiles

Tip Want to see if someone is usingyour brand name? SeriousSEM can check and help you secure your name on 500+ social media sites.

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• Data aggregators. Pull out the big guns. Give a data aggregator your business's listing information (and some $$$), and it will automatically create 100s of listings for your business—cutting out hours of tedious busy work on your end.

• Local directories and newspapers. Go back to basics—break out the papers. Switch up your terms a little from your blog search. Search for “[your city] business listings” or “[your city] directory” to find even more places to list your local business. Don’t forget to get listed on your city’s Chamber of Commerce website.

Local Business

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What you need to doNow that you’re armed with all thisinformation, it’s time to figure out how tostart and avoid being overwhelmed.Depending on many factors (like yourbudget and the size of your business),there are three main ways you can goabout implementing and managing yourlocal SEO strategy. Doing it yourself, thismethod will cost the least but also take the mosttime. The second is pay a data aggregator to doit for you. But then you have to hunt them down, compare prices, and see which is best for you. The final and often best option is make sure any SEO company you are going to work with has a local SEO plan for your business, and knows how to go about getting your business found locally. If they know what they are doing they will be able to handle all this work for you and work it into your monthly budget!

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How to get reviewsThe best way to get clients to reviewyou? Just ask! But wait—don’t send thatblast “review request” email quite yet.Each review site has different policiesaround reviews. Yelp, for example, isstrict when it comes to businessessoliciting reviews, and if they notice anyfunny business they’re not afraid to act.On the other hand, many other sites goso far as to recommend that you askyour client base directly for reviews.

Remember to familiarize yourself withtheir review policies beforecampaigning!

Note: No matter what review site you'redealing with, it’s never a good plan topay for or unfairly reward positivereviews over negative reviews. Reviewsare a learning process for you, too, anda great way to gather feedback thathelps you improve your business. 11

What you need to doLet’s recruit some reviews. Here aresome easy ways to get started. • Coach your staff to ask for referrals, especially if an interaction goes well. • Create handouts highlighting the sites where customers can review you. • Add badges to your website that link to your review profiles. You can also include links in any “thank you” emails your customers receive when they interact with your business.

Your first negative review might be hardto handle, but it’s on a public forum sobring your blood pressure back downand deal with it rationally. Your plan ofattack should be to diffuse the situationand appease the customer. Offering aa discount or something to make up forthe issue is never a bad idea. In the endyou should make yourself look as goodas possible and can even refer the angrycustomer to good reviews.

Not only are negative reviews a placefor you to make an angered clienthappy, they also bring attention to anarea of your business that not might beas good as it could be. This gives youthe opportunity to fix something that youmay not have realized needed fixing.

Managing reviews.All right, you’ve found the best reviewsites for your business, you’ve gotyourself some reviews...but, good orbad, how do you keep track of andhandle all the feedback?

Be proactive! A good first step is to setup Google Alerts so that you’ll receivean email each time your business nameis mentioned online.

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What else you need to doOptimize your pages: Even if you’vealready optimized your website forsearch engines (or even if you haven’t),you need to be sure to cover your localSEO bases too.

KW title tags. Keywords are veryimportant, but you don’t want them toseem forced or spammy—it’s not goodfor anyone. For SEO beginners andexperts alike, it’s always a good idea tofreshen up and expand your keywordlist. If you’ve done SEO previously, you’llhave a good head start on yourkeywords, but you still need to revampyour list to focus on local SEO. The bestway to go about this is to decide your #1keyword based on what your businessdoes and then add your location. Forexample, Morning Coffee Hose in Nashuahas done a good job.

Coffee

Morning Drink

Best Local Coffee

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NAP in HTML. As we said before butcan’t stress enough, having a consistentNAP (name, address, and phonenumber) is vital. Make sure that this infois included in the HTML of your website.Note It might look like you have yourNAP in the HTML, but it might only be animage, which Google and Bing don’trecognize. Check this by pointing yourmouse at your address—if you canhighlight individual characters, it’s text,in the HTML of your website, and you’rein the clear.

If you can’t select the text, that meansit’s actually an image, and searchengines can’t read it. Get that sucker inthe HTML! If you create your websiteyourself, that just means you have tomake sure your address is typed out inthe source and not inserted as animage. And if you have a designer,make sure they know to write out yourcontent.

Come Visit us at 123 Main St!

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Local website content. Having sitecontent that is specialized to your city isa great way to appeal to local searches.

This is usually done through a blog.Don’t be intimidated! You don’t have toupdate it everyday, and it will definitelyprove to be time well spent. Need someinspiration? Here are some topics to getyou going: • Write about what your customers are interested in. A fitness business? Outline some tips on post-work recovery. Music school? How about an article on tuning your guitar? • Write about your story—how your business came to be, your founder’s story, introduce the team, and give the history of what ever it is you sell.

• Partner with other local businesses that your customers would be interested in to do guest posts on one another's blogs/sites. Everyone wins with this strategy. Your customers and readers get more helpful content, you and the partner get more links and mentions, and all the while you're building community partnerships• Write about any upcoming events and how your business is taking part.• Leverage common local searches terms. Say you’re a yoga studio in New York City. You can host a yoga session in Central Park and then blog about it! Imagine the SEO on that one.• Write up a spotlight on a current customer or client. Maybe you interview long-time clients, new clients, interesting clients—you get the idea. Not only will you get great blog content, but you’ll also increase client retention!

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What more you can doYou have a great action plan for nailinglocal SEO, so here’s a bonus tip. Comeback to it after you’ve mastered thebasics.Schema. Not to throw something completelynew into the mix, but this is important!Schema, man.What’s schema? Schema markup is thecode that you put in your website to tellthe search engine what your data (orHTML markup) means in order toprovide more informative results forusers. Schema.org explains howimportant Schema is to searchoptimization:HTML tags tell the browser how todisplay the information included in thetag. For example, <h1>Avatar</h1> tellsthe browser to display the text string“Avatar” in a heading 1 format. However,the HTML tag doesn’t give anyinformation about what that text stringmeans — “Avatar” could refer to thehugely successful 3D movie, or it couldrefer to a type of profile picture—andthis can make it more difficult for searchengines to intelligently display relevantcontent to a user.

Why should you pay attention toschema?When you do schema markup correctly,your business will show up with theseawesome details in Google and Bing.Where can you add schema markup onyour site? • Reviews • Services or products for sale • Events • Name, address, and phone • Hours of operation

Now that you got a quick overview ofSchema markup and why it’s important,it’s time to put it into action!

You’ve learned the basics oflocal SEO, how to get citations, listingyourself on review sites, and tips foroptimizing your site, you can go forthand conquer the local search rankings.

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Get more online reviews to boost your reputation!

It’s easy with Serious SEM’s Reputation Amplifier!

• Target review sites that make a difference. Send customers to review sites that matter to your potential customers use. You choose up to 3 sites to request reviews on simultaneously.

• Obtain customer feedback. We automate the entire process with Reputation Amplifier. Reputation Amplifier gathers feedback, reviews and testimonials for you by contacting each customer.

• Take control of your reputation. Reputation Amplifier screens less than ideal feedback and stops it from turning into a negative review online.

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Step 3: Customer leaves feedbackYour business grows positive reviews while managing unhappy customers before they leave a bad review.

Step 1: Add your customerAdding your customer is as simple as entering their name and email address, the system takes care of the rest.

Step 2: Your customer receives an EmailSatisfied Customers are shown your review links, otherwise they are sent to an feedback form.

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