Ready to rank higher in Google Maps and local search results?
We’ll follow Google’s local search ranking factors which Moz reports every 2 years. I broke these down into factors on and off your WordPress site. Citations (online directories like Yelp, Superpages, and Axciom) are about 11% of local SEO, so it wouldn’t be fair to leave these out.
This guide assumes you’re using the Yoast SEO Plugin. If you don’t have Yoast, I suggest installing it then configuring my recommended Yoast settings. It also assumes you have a physical address in your targeted city which is not mandatory, but is the #1 factor in Maps.
Table Of Contents
1. Local Search Ranking Factors
2. Localized Keywords
3. Blog Post Keywords
4. Geo-Targeted Pages
5. Google My Business
6. Moz Local
7. Whitespark
8. Mobile Responsiveness
9. Mobile Speed Optimization
10. Reviews
11. Local Link Building
12. Targeting Multiple Locations
13. Measure Keyword Rankings
1. Local Search Ranking Factors
Here are Google’s 2018 local ranking factors. The main factors are Google My Business, citations (directories), reviews, geo-targeted pages, mobile optimization, and of course – links.
Top 50 factors for local pack and localized organic…
Google your primary local keywords and see which results you want to target…
2. Localized Keywords
Google Autocomplete
I have a separate tutorial on choosing Yoast focus keywords + green light optimization but I’ll go over this briefly. Go to google.com and use the underscore character _ anywhere in the phrase to have Google fill-in-the-blank and learn keywords people are searching in your city…
To find even more keywords, try using different variations of the keyword, like plurals…
Use different word ordering to get even more ideas…
Target Specific Services – if “Chicago Wedding Photographer” is your primary keyword, try also targeting Indian and Gay Wedding Photographer. Same thing with web design… you can target both Chicago Web Design and Chicago WordPress Design which both show up in Autocomplete. For dentists, you may have Chicago Dentist, Chicago Dental Implants, Chicago Emergency Dentist, etc. Relying on 1 single keyword for ALL your traffic is never a good idea. You need to research Google Autocomplete for all your services, then create a page for each.
Moz Keyword Explorer
Next, use Moz Keyword Explorer to make sure you’re not missing keywords. This is similar to Google Keyword Planner only it’s completely free (you don’t have to sign up for AdWords), plus you can group related keywords so you’re not browsing through the exact same ones.
Once it runs, click keyword suggestions –> see all suggestions. You should see a nice list of keywords and the volume (monthly searches). Note phrases you DIDN’T find in Autocomplete.
Estimating Local Keyword Competition
More Autocomplete results + broad phrases = more competitive…
Less Autocomplete results + specific phrases = less competitive…
You can also use the MozBar Chrome Extension to Google any keyword and learn it’s competition. The higher the PA (page authority) and DA (domain authority), the higher the competition and the more effort needed to rank for it. Try to stay within your own DA range.
3. Blog Post Keywords
Blog posts usually attract the most links to your site (a huge ranking factor) since people naturally link to USEFUL content (not promotional service pages) which benefit the rankings of your entire WordPress site. Just like we researched keywords for pages, find as many informational, non-promotional blog keywords as you can, then write a post for each topic.
4. Geo-Targeted Pages
Create a page for each keyword – target your primary keyword on your homepage, then create a separate page for Chicago Indian Wedding Photographer and other specific services. Average Cost Of Wedding Photographer In Chicago would be a good article on your blog.
Optimize content with Yoast – you can get green lights all you want, but designing a nice (ideally lengthy) page with awesome photos, testimonials, video and other useful content – is the heart of content optimization. Yoast only detects exact keyword matches so if you use “Wedding Photographer in Chicago” instead of “Chicago Wedding Photographer” in your content… that counts as a keyword. So even if that specific light isn’t green (eg. keyword density), you can ignore it as long as a variation is present. Synonyms are actually encouraged.
Presence of NAP – each location page should have your business name, address, and phone somewhere on the page. If you only have 1 location you can add this in a footer widget or your copyright area at the very bottom of your website (like I do) so it’s present on every page. For multiple locations you’ll usually want to add it somewhere in the actual content body.
Short Permalinks – use short permalinks with your keyword in it.
Keyword Density – include your keyword in the first couple sentences and a few times in your content body (naturally). Sprinkle LSI keywords (synonyms) in your content instead of using the same keyword over and over. These can be secondary keywords you want to rank for.
Alt Text – label your images before uploading them to WordPress since the visual editor automatically uses the image file name as the alt text. This should simply describe the image – don’t stuff keywords. Images in widgets and page builders may not do this so check the HTML:
<img src=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/chicago-wedding-photographer.jpg” alt=”Chicago Wedding Photographer” width=”680” height=”380” />
Internal / External Links – Google follows links on your page to learn what your content is about. The important thing is linking to useful content your visitors will actually find helpful (like a blog tutorial). Interlinking blog articles/pages is also a natural way to build links to your own website but outbound links are good too since it’s kind of like citing sources to Google. Finally, always use descriptive link text (called anchor text)… never use words like “click here.”
SEO Title – use a modifier to spice up your headline so more people click on your link in search results… “Award Winning Chicago Wedding Photographer – Tom Dupuis” is a good example. Also make sure your SEO title has a decent length (the bars in Yoast should be green).
Meta Description – the main purpose of the meta description to entice people to click on your link. This and the SEO title are the first thing people see in search results so spend time writing these. It should include your Yoast focus keyword, plus a secondary keyword if you have one.
Post Long Content – Google measures “average time on page” which is why videos and other engaging content is key. Long, organized content generally ranks higher than short content.
Social Media Optimization – this ensures your page will display a properly formatted image when shared on Facebook and Twitter. Click the “share” link in Yoast and upload custom images where it tells you to. If you don’t see the tabs, check your Yoast social settings to enable Facebook and Twitter meta data. Yes, this means you need to design 2 separate images for Facebook (1200 x 630px) and Twitter (1024 x 512px). I leave the other fields blank which let you write a custom headline and description when it’s shared on Facebook/Twitter.
Rich Snippets – make your snippets stand out in search results by adding rich snippets to your content. You can do this with events, reviews, recipes, articles, products, organizations, restaurants, and videos. I use the premium WP Rich Snippets plugin which supports all rich snippet types except for events (use All In One Schema.org) and videos (use Schema plugin. However if you’re doing any other type of rich snippets, WP Rich Snippets looks way better and has more options, plus they have awesome add-ons. Here’s my WP Rich Snippets review which is definitely worth the money if you have content on your site that can be marked up.
Example Geo-Targeted Landing Page…
5. Google My Business
Optimizing Your Google My Business Page
*Google is increasingly taking into consideration activate business owners who: post on Google Posts, respond to reviews, keep special hours updated, answer questions, make it convenient for customers to take direct actions on GMB using business URLs.
- Create a GMB Page (no duplicates – check Moz Local)
- Agencies can register here
- Verify ownership
- Fill out everything
- Fill out all attributes
- List your menu/services
- Set hours and special hours
- Answer questions
- Get a 360 tour if it makes sense
- Enter your address or service area
- List all relevant categories, primary listed first
- Use local business URLs (eg. appointments, reservations, bookings)
- If using local business URL using third-party services, fill out this form
- Add reservations/bookings with Google’s approved third-party vendors
- The previous steps can get you showing up in reservations by Google
- Add photos + videos (logo, cover image, storefront, team, inside store, etc)
- Write a description (do not stuff keywords/links as it’s not part of algorithm)
- Get a custom URL
- Start using Google Posts
- Respond to reviews, good and bad
- Make it easy for customers to leave reviews (with a custom link)
- Allow customers to message you – keep that response rate up!
- Flag inappropriate reviews if it’s a legitimate reason (see policies)
- Get your products seen using the product editor + product catalog
- Hotels can add class ratings and amenities
- Move reviews to different listings if necessary
- Follow Google My Business guidelines
6. Moz Local
Since citations are 11% of local SEO, this step will help you create and fix your top 15 citations. Just like you did with Google My Business you will make sure profiles are 100% complete, duplicates are deleted, and ensure consistent information is present. Run your website + zip code through Moz Local and look under “choose the most accurate listing.” Go through each one and see their recommendations. Yes, you will need each profile’s login info.
Correct Incomplete, Inconsistent, Duplicate Citations
Once you click your listing you will see incomplete, inconsistent, and duplicate tabs. Go through each one and fix all items. Incomplete profiles are often fixed by uploading more photos or adding categories. Inconsistencies can be as easy as correcting the www website version or using “st” instead of “street” in the address. Duplicates are fixed by deleting them. Moz Local includes links to your profiles which makes it easy to fix, delete, and report profiles.
Sometimes you will only have 1-2 categories (eg. photographer + wedding photographer) so it’s not always possible to get your profiles 100% complete. Just do everything you can.
7. Whitespark
To conquer those #2, #5, and #14 ranking factors in Google Maps (citation consistency, quantity, and quality), we need to build even more citations. The more competitive your keywords are (eg. Chicago Wedding Photographer) the more citations you should build.
Whitespark has lists of top citations by city, country, and category, or use their citation building service for $4-5 per citation which saves a LOT of time. Google ‘Whitespark Canada‘ and you’ll see they have over 120 reviews with a 4.9 star rating. I’ve invested over $2,000 in their citation building service and have jumped from #8 to #3 in Google Maps. Read my Whitespark citation building review to learn the process, but you basically fill out an intake then wait 2-3 weeks for them to send a report of the new citation URLs and 1 universal login.
Free citations can cause spam emails and sometimes spammy phone calls. They improve rankings, but it’s a tradeoff. Here’s a response I got from Darren Shaw, owner of Whitespark:
@TheDupMan When you build citations, you’re going to get sales emails and calls. No way around it. The listings are free for a reason.
— Darren Shaw (@DarrenShaw_) August 25, 2016
8. Mobile Responsiveness
The best way to check for mobile errors is to setup Google Search Console and use the mobile usability section. This checks for ALL errors on your WordPress site (instead of just 1 page) which is only what Google’s mobile testing tool does. Even if you’re using a responsive WordPress theme you can still have mobile errors! So it’s definitely a good idea to check.
9. Mobile Speed Optimization
Most businesses doing local SEO have a good amount of mobile visitors (you can check in Google Analytics under Audience –> Mobile –> Overview). If you haven’t read my W3 Total Cache tutorial which shows you how to configure the performance tabs, Cloudflare, and MaxCDN, I would start with that. Then you can optimize images and make other optimizations from my WordPress speed guide. This helps you fix items in your GTmetrix report (the speed testing tool I recommend using) and improves page load times for both desktop and mobile.
To make your WordPress site load faster specifically on mobile, you can use AMP pages (accelerated mobile pages) using the AMP plugin and Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP. You can read Yoast’s AMP tutorial but this will basically add an “AMP” sign to your mobile search results…
Hosting
I use SiteGround and have 200ms response times with 100% GTmetrix scores and .4s Pingdom load times. Do a hosting check, run your own tests, or click through my pages to see how fast they load. They were rated the #1 host in 26 Facebook polls and are worlds better than EIG (Bluehost, HostGator), Godaddy, and bad hosts who pack too many people on the same server. They’re recommended by WordPress, do free migrations, and I use their semi-dedicated plan.
10. Reviews
You’ve heard this before so I’m not going to state the obvious. But you should know that Google My Business is usually the best place to get reviews since these appear directly in search results, and you need about 5 of them for the review stars to start showing up…
Avoiding The Yelp Review Filter – Yelp reviews can get filtered even if they’re legitimate. You can avoid this by doing a Google search of “business name Yelp” and sending them that link. If you send them the direct link to your Yelp profile, Yelp will know and could filter it. Ideally you would ask existing Yelpers since they are more likely to get their review posted (another factor is if their profile is filled out and Facebook is connected). You should friend your reviewers too.
11. Local Link Building
You know links are super important for your rankings, and it doesn’t have to be a pain in the ass. But yes, you WILL need to reach out to people to get these links. Here are some tips…
- Ask partners to link to you
- Ask sponsors to link to you
- Ask suppliers to link to you
- Get published by local newspapers
- Get included in list articles (eg. best pizza in Chicago)
- Make sure these articles include a link to your site
- Find business directories and organizations who promote green businesses
- Turn your business relationships into links, that’s what it’s all about
12. Targeting Multiple Locations
Create Multiple Location Pages On Your Site – sometimes you should create 1 page per city (if only 1 keyword is being search in that city), or multiple pages per city (if multiple keywords are being searched). It depends on how many keywords people search and whether you need content about different services (miami dentist vs. miami dental implants is a separate page).
Add Location-Specific Content To These Pages – your Chicago page might have photos of your Chicago office. Or testimonials from your Chicago customers. Or a Google Map showcasing your Chicago location. Avoid creating ‘search and replace’ pages (identical pages only you simply change the city name) since these are duplicate content and will not rank.
If you want to check out a great example of localized landing pages, check out Seda Dental.
Create Citations For Each Location – each location should have it’s own Google My Business page, Yelp, Facebook, and other citation profiles you can use Moz Local and Whitespark to create (see steps 4, 5, and 6). Whitespark’s citation building service will save you a LOT of time. If you do this yourself, list the specific location page (website.com/locations/chicago) when listing your website. Photos and business information should be unique to that location.
13. Measure Keyword Rankings
Google Search Console’s Search Analytics – see keywords (queries) you rank for. This ONLY measures Google’s organic rankings, not Google Maps or other search engines. So if Google Maps appear when you search your keywords, you need to measure those too (see below). You can still get very helpful data in Search Analytics using filters: click-through rates, impressions, top pages, devices used, countries, and compare your rankings to the last 28 previous days.
Whitespark Local Rank Tracker – track rankings in Google Maps, Bing pack, Google organic, Bing organic, etc. Sort by city names across multiple locations. User-friendly design and starts at $20/month for measuring up to 100 local keywords. Easiest way to measure local keywords.
14. Bonus Tips
Google Search Console – I mentioned this a couple times in this WordPress local SEO guide, but you really should take advantage of this tool. My video and Google Search Console tutorial show you how to set it up, submit your Yoast XML sitemap to Google, fix crawl errors (broken URLs), and quite a few other site optimizations. You can use it to test AMP pages, rich snippets, and find indexing, mobile, and security issues. Once signed you will need to wait around 1 week for the data to populate. But definitely revisit it and take advantage of it’s features.
Mobile Click-To-Call Button – if you’re running a website where many people call you (eg. a pizza business), adding a mobile click-to-call plugin can improve conversions but is also a ranking factor if you look at “Behavior/Mobile Signals” in Google’s local ranking factors.
Security – run your site through Sucuri security checker and the security section of Google Search Console to make sure you have no errors. Either way the best 2 things you can do is change the generic “Admin” username in the your WordPress login, then install WordFence.
Social Media – just make sure you’re active on social media, it’s 2.8% of local SEO.
Time To Get To Work
Hopefully this WordPress local SEO guide gives you some ideas! Just remember it’s not all about optimizing your WordPress site – there are many off-page factors that are just as important like Google My Business, citations, and reviews. Start cranking some of this out and within a couple months hopefully your organic searches go up (let me know in the comments)!
Need help? Drop me a line. Looking to hire someone who actually knows what they’re doing? Check out my WordPress SEO consulting services. I love when people read my tutorials so if you have a question about regarding WordPress and local SEO, I’m glad clarify your questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Google's local search ranking factors?
Moz reports Google's local search ranking factors every 2 years. They emphasize geo-targeted pages, directories (citations), links, and reviews.
How do you optimize websites for local SEO?
Research local keywords using tools like Google Autocomplete, create geo-targeted content around those keywords, make your mobile site load fast, get relevant links, and show NAP on localized pages.
What is NAP and why is it important?
NAP stands for business name, address, and phone number. This should be consistent throughout your website and citations. Google uses NAP consistency as a ranking factor.
Where should I build more directories (citations)?
Moz Local analyzes 15 top citations and shows you which ones are incomplete, inconsistent, or duplicates. Whitespark also has lists of top citations for different industries and locations. Google My Busienss, Yelp, and Facebook are some of the most important, but you should built more using Moz Local or Whitespark.
How do I optimize my GMB Page?
Fill out everything including including NAP, categories, descriptions, photos, categories, attributes, hours, menu, services, etc. Verify your page and answer customer questions + respond to reviews. Get a custom URL and post updates on your GMB page.
See Also:
How I Optimized My WordPress Site To Load In .2s (100% GTmetrix/Pingdom Scores)
Cheers,
Tom
Creating excellent content is the key component to successfully optimize your videos. Without that, it’s almost impossible to naturally generate good views & drive traffic to your channel. If your goal is to obtain a substantial amount of views, make sure your content is either engaging, entertaining or informative, & most importantly, shareable.
I wanted to ask that can we rank a listing for some keywords as like we do for webpages?
Which listing are you referring to? Like the Google Pack listings or which type?
Nice stuff. One of the most crucial factors in getting citations from Google is having a correct name, address, and phone number. Citations are listings of your businesses on other websites without the URL link.
Really nice content and complete guide to seo. thanks for sharing
I can’t stop reading your posts, all or your links are working because I’ve been on your site forever. I’ve learned so much, thanks!
Hehe thanks Julie, so glad you’re finding them helpful. If there’s anything I can improve or new articles you would like to see, drop me a line!
Great blog post… just wondering what that dental company did for their keyword count to fall almost to 0… I checked in Ahrefs and it’s not pretty over the last months…. curious what you think.
SEDA Dental, the work was at least 2 years ago. I blog full-time now.
Incredible brother tutorial, I appreciate that you separate everything so that you understand 100%!
I’m a wordpress developer, and I’m really not getting enough money to live on this.
You know my market is “Spanish”.
I only manage to create websites of $ 100 / $ 150, literally when I say $ 200 $ 250, clients do not respond anymore.
I wanted to offer more value, and I think seo is a good option. although I do not know anything about SEO!
Do you think that if I follow these steps I can offer a seo service to local businesses?
Yes, I used to do that… I actually first started in web design and offered SEO as a side-service. But I’ll have to be honest, the best clients I ever got online through my own SEO (because I ranked high for keywords like “Chicago SEO Consultant” and because of that, they believed I knew what I was doing, and they were much easier to sell SEO to).
But most of the stuff you need to know about local SEO is outlined here… most people do not do these things well. Just get really get at GMB, citations, researching local keywords, and creating geo-targeted landing pages. That’s what most people searching for local SEO need :)
Wow, thank you very much!
If I am clear about that, I suppose that the best clients are those who seek you, and not you.
To position yourself as “Chicago seo” (in my case Argentina or Buenos Aires).
Would I create blogs giving SEO value, with keywords, and improve the speed of my website? With that, will you position?
For sure! Yes, the best clients are the ones who find you… so many SEO companires are spamming businesses with cold calls… most owners just hang up. Gotta rank yourself and show you know what you’re doing.
“Chicago SEO” is a really competitive keyword, I didn’t target that because I saw huge SEO companies in Chicago were targeting it. Have to start with small (longer-tail) phrases in Google Autocomplete and look whose already ranking in the top results. That’s why I chose “Chicago SEO Consultant” which showed up in Google Autocomplete, and none of the huge companies were targeting it.
Eventually, working only with WordPress sites, I found phrases like “WordPress SEO Consultant” and “WordPress SEO Expert” which no one was really targeting either. Was able to rank #1 for both, think I still do.
If you’re targeting keywords about your services, they should be pages (showcasing your services, portfolio/work, etc). Speed is just one part of it… content (and selecting long-tail keywords that aren’t TOO competitive) is the biggest thing by far. As you start getting traffic/links, etc and build your domain authority, you can start with more competitive phrases like “Buenos Aires SEO” or whatever the keyword is… start small though and make sure you can rank for those phrases :)
I’m being really stupid but I don’t understand this paragraph.
“Yelp reviews can get filtered even if they’re legitimate. You can avoid this by doing a Google search of “business name Yelp” and sending them that link. If you send them the direct link to your Yelp profile, Yelp will know and could filter it. ”
Sorry, but not sure what you’re referring to here?
If we were to use my company name as the example, I would Google “Online Media Masters Yelp” then use that link to send customers too (instead of my direct Yelp profile).
Thanks blogger for sharing the best article.
This local Seo Wordpress guide is so spot-on.
Question, do you know if showing the address of the business on GMB vs selecting “services performed at customer’s location”?
My question regards my multi-location painting company which does not have a classic storefront.
Showing the address is always better, it’s the whole NAP thing. Not having one can be one of the toughest challenges.
I used to use my old apartment even when I didn’t live there. Definitely better, no PO boxes though.
Hey Tom, fantastic info in this post, especially how you explain the Google ‘auto complete’ for identifying competitive, and less competitive keywords. Many people won’t know about that.
For local I have been using a software tool called Local SEO Pro. Have you heard of it? I use that to find the best sites to get my backlinks and citations from. Been pretty successful with it so far in landing my clients into the Google 3-pack.
Anyway, loved how much content you have shared here for your audience. Anyone paying attention to this will surely see good results in Google.
Tom, this is very helpful article. I w’d like to know what is the importance of structured data to get Local results?
Really enjoyed the way you explained Schema Markup! Nicely covered with lots of supporting information and resources. I appreciate it and learned a lot!
Another great article on Local SEO. I have used some of the techniques and got great results. I appreciate the detailed explanations and images. Thank you
You’re welcome Derek. Happy it’s working for you.
Love this guide. I use it for my Local SEO clients. It is detailed and clear on the techniques and actions to help improve your Local SEO results. Thank you for such a great guide and I am always checking back for updates.
That is the kind of feedback that keeps me going, thanks Derek.
One thing I learned in side hustle entrepreneurship is a healthy mindset can greatly increase your side hustling and affiliate marketing potential. It’s not what happens to you. It’s how you deal with it in turning adversity into opportunity.
Wow, Amazing and fabulas article about SEO. I ,like this article specially because of detailed guide and also you have attach a video in this article.
Subscribing to you and love to read even more from you. Thank you
Thanks for joining and glad you liked the guide :) let me know if you ever have any questions!
That was quite informative article on ranking. Thanks for this. I will surely consider all the factors to rank high.
Glad you enjoyed it Vivek, hit me up if you have any questions.
Thanks tom, really nice guide.
Just a question, did you buy the reviews from company like shopperapproved? just trying to help one of my client and not sure if it helps.
Hey again Dharmendra!
No I didn’t buy any reviews… I would advise against that. People might be able to see it’s not genuine and I have a feeling Google will be cracking down on fake reviews. It’s already a big problem.
Great tutorial.
Very good SEO guide, thank you so much ! Also helpful fot those that are not so good in english like me ! Very good descriptions with video and pictures = PERFECT
Thank you so much !
The issue with wordpress SEO is the websites does not load faster because of plugins and widgets. I like wordpress but I prefer simple html based websites when it come to search engine optimization.
Agreed, static HTML will usually load faster. With WordPress you just have to use the right theme/plugins/hosting… which most people don’t :/
Your content ist awesome as always Tom, i’m sure you helped thousands of people with your guide! Keep up your good work!
Do you already have a feeling what’s gonna be most important for local SEO in 2018?
My best regards,
Dominik
I would guess reviews are going to become an even large ranking factors… Google has been prioritizing “user experience” with bounce rates, avg. time on page, and other metrics to learn what makes “good content.” So reviews especially on GMB are probably going to be even more important.
I am running a local business and looking for how can I optimize my local business and found your guide very impressive and detailed.
Get to know so many new ideas to improve Thank you for the guide.
Peace.
Tom, quick question: Are you using Yoast Local SEO for your tutorial? I have the Premium plug in and I’m considering adding the Local SEO (with configuration) but after browsing your above article I’m considering doing it myself. Thoughts?
When I was going local SEO for clients I would never use that plugin. I think doing it yourself is best, and cheaper :)
A very insightful article about optimizing WP sites efficiently for targeted local market. We have many local seo clients have their websites in WP. Will definitely keep in mind the points that you have mentioned. Thanks for sharing this piece!!
You got it! Glad you liked it :)
Hi,
Search Engine Optimisation is like doing experiments and learning from it.
Thanks for these amazing idea’s
Regards,
Malisa
Tom,
another great article. Congrats and thank you for sharing.
I have a question, though. I am from Brazil and the websites here mostly end in .com.br. And I have a company with an English name, located in one State, and my website ends in .com. But there is another company, located on a different State, with the same name and its website is the same as mine, but ends in .com.br. If a person do a search for the name of the company, the guy’s website shows first, even on Google’s sidebar, with the Google My Business info. So, that being said, is there a way for my company’s to appear first than his, or, in case on the Google My Business widget on the side, appear instead of his?
Thanks a lot!
Hi , Tom Sir, your articles are awesome. I have one question. I have local business listings wordpress website.in this website I ‘ll collect all business contact information..now I need to write 300 words content for each listing ?…suggest me which Seo plugin is best to this listings website….
Thanks in Advance
Thanks :) Yoast and other SEO plugins are just for website optimization, not for creating listings/citations. Use Moz Local/Whitespark for that. For the 300 words I would try to write an original descriptions for important citations (GMB, Yelp, FB) then use a universal one for the other.
It’s the best strategy for full-time bloggers to get organic traffic with or without SEO. I actually don’t concentrate that much on SEO other than catchy titles, giving attention to sections of quality content, and maybe it includes a header or two in the blog post itself.
All you need to notice from this kind of articles is what I & most of the others newbies focusing on the SEO link-building. Internal page structure, internal SEO, link building activities like commenting, blog post, social sharing counts or bookmarking are the essential part of the better SEO techniques. I have seen many bloggers spending time on different ways of SEO link building instead of providing the value to the content and its social promotions. You may call it ignoring the Google, but we all know that the Google bot doesn’t ignore anchored dofollow or nofollow backlinks to calculate your PageRank.
With my experience, about 65% of my traffic comes from search engines, & the rest is from social sites that include referrals & direct traffic. So I don’t entirely rely on Google as I make comments on really useful blogs that have good content. It’s just like going to relevant sites comes under the micro niche site to you and ultimately making you get the direct quality traffic to you. Anyhow, it will then affect our keyword ranking and PageRank according to the Google guidelines. We don’t need to mention it, the Google taking care of these things it just like a default way for Google particularly.
To get higher search rankings, you need not only focus on SEO but other factors to make you drive more attention of readers online. Thanks for this page, that will help to me a lot and for other newbies too…
thank u
very very good
I know I’m going to need you to post a blog about a few things as soon as I get this positive quotes blog up and running. I do have some questions about Yoast SEO plugin and automated WordPress content plugins.
I have a lot of tutorials – let me know if you see one I missed! I am going to be publishing one on Google Analytics / WP Security soon.
Thanks for your instructions for getting higher localised results. I was actually with this. This post will definitely help me.
Great article and very well explained. I believe in professionals so this is a very useful article for everyone. Many thanks for your share.
Excellent post very useful. Thank you!
Anytime :)
It’s a shame I didn’t get to come across this earlier than this, this has been very helpful. I have come to love the auto fill feature on Google and from your points, its can come in very handy.
I have started taking notes out of it and I must say it’s been an awesome journey so far. Thanks for this guide Tom, I have bookmarked this page for further reference.
Awesome Mark, ya Autocomplete is legit especially with the underline. Glad you found it helpful and let me know if you have questions about anything.
Hi Tom!
Thanks for such an informative article. I need to know, is there any tool for making local citations rather than doing them manually?
Thank you
Yext and other automated services have a bad rep and you will likely NOT see results from it. Your best bet is either to hire Whitespark to do it for you ($500 and you can basically forget about it).
Or if you’re doing it yourself, use Whitespark’s lists of top citations. Have all your business information, photos, etc in a spreadsheet/folder. Make sure you use an autofill extension to save time filling out each profile. Then start cranking them out :)
Stellar post as always. Local pack continues to be a very good mover and shaker in our area. Increasing Google Maps correlates directly with organic search results.
Yep they definitely overlap and I also see Google Maps/local pack appearing more and more in search results.
Fantastic, great work, why not polish language ;-) Thx , Cheers
Hi Tom,
This is such a thorough guide to local SEO. Yoast is a great tool, but you’re right, it’s about much more than just turning that little light green. That underscore trick in Google is very useful indeed. We recently wrote a similar article on our blog. Please check it out if you have time, and thank you again for this in-depth study on the topic!
Ya that underscore trick is solid, I use it all the time to get keyword ideas. Anytime :)
#7 and #8 had the biggest impact on ranking for us. Once we updated for mobile we had a significant increase in local traffic and saw a much better map pack placement.
Dear Tom,
I did all these actions but google simply doesn’t show any results on Google Maps or Localized Results on the SERP. Not for my site or for the competitors.
Sometimes google shows the google business page information on the right but never a google map. Is there something I can do about this?
What keyword is it? If it’s a localized keyword they should show localized search results. But in general I would focus on your “localized keyword-targeted content” citations which are large factors.
Sorry for the late reply.
Great guide Tom! Biggest things we see to ensure good local listings is to look at your competition, see what citation work they may have done, and to get make sure you have more/better quality ones. Correct NAP is also important too!
Also a local keyword strategy and implementation is key also!
Thanks Todd! Yep definitely the most important things are what you just listed.
Very practical tips, truly an eye-opener. Search engines are actually giving more priority to local searches as opposed to global searches. One way to leverage this shift is to claim our Google places listing and optimizing it properly. Complete it to the max and one should find it much easier to get a nice spot in the rankings.
Hi Tom,
Awesome post…….Your article is really amazingly informative and helpful for me and other bloggers too because getting a high rank on google maps is not as easy as a cup of tea. But really you have described everything in descriptive, simply yet effective too. You’ve done a great job with this.
Thanks to share this.
Thanks for your kind words Gaurav :)
Wow! Although very lengthy, it was worth the read. I think I should give it a shot.
Thanks :) yes, give it a shot. Let me know if you have any questions.
Dear Tom,
Interesting article. Just some questions:
– let’s say I have created a local Hero targeted landing page: mydomain.com/Keyword-city.
Should the URL in the local citations (Yellow Pages,…) be mydomain.com or mydomain.com/Keyword-city?
If yes, What about multiple locations?
Thx in advance
Arnout
Hey Arnout,
If it’s a single location just use the homepage, for multiple location you want to use each location’s landing page (mydomain.com/Keyword-city).
Wow! Awesome article. All the information I need to know are all here. But please discuss more about #dofollow links and what kind of impact it does.
Thank you
Dofollow = search engines will follow your links and use them to determine relevancy of the topic you’re writing about. Nofollow = don’t follow and won’t pass link juice which is generally only used in affiliate links and links in your blog comments :)
Thanks tom, really nice guide.
Just a question, did you buy the reviews from company like shopperapproved? just trying to help one of my client and not sure if it helps.
Nooo I didn’t buy any reviews they’re all legit. Except now that I write tutorials full-time I have no need for reviews anymore so all my citations, etc are pretty much useless. I would stay clear of paid reviews though, sounds like a recipe for a Google/Yelp penalty.
Tom,
another great article. Congrats and thank you for sharing.
I have a question, though. I am from Brazil and the websites here mostly end in .com.br. And I have a company with an English name, located in one State, and my website ends in .com. But there is another company, located on a different State, with the same name and its website is the same as mine, but ends in .com.br. If a person do a search for the name of the company, the guy’s website shows first, even on Google’s sidebar, with the Google My Business info. So, that being said, is there a way for my company’s to appear first than his, or, in case on the Google My Business widget on the side, appear instead of his?
Thanks a lot!
Thanks Marcelo. I would have to see the keyword and search results but are there warnings with your GMB page, or have you listed a physical street address in GMB? Has it been over 8 weeks since you created your listing? What is the keyword where this happens? It may also be that you need to build your Google My Business authority by getting more reviews, links to it, etc. Let me know… here’s a Moz thread which might help too. Glad your finding my articles helpful!
Awesome article thanks !!!
Best straight forward advice I have read on Local SEO for months.
Ref local pack being triggered for targeted keywords, is it possible for a business to appear in local pack in response to multiple user keyword phrases:
Makeup Artist Bournemouth
Mobile Makeup Artist
Makeup and hair artist
etc…..
What is the procedure for triggering local pack for additional keywords ?
Any advice appreciated
Thanks
Jeff
Jeff
Thanks Jeff, all about that straightforward good stuff!
I found focusing on the core factors are the best way to improve local pack rankings for multiple keywords (reviews, citations, etc). But to actually hone in on 1 specific keyword it should definitely have it’s own landing page, then in citations see if there are any categories for each of those services. In customer reviews it would help if they used the product/service keyword (ranking factor). And if you build citations I know Whitespark asks about keywords… citation profiles sometimes have a “services” section where you can list that specific service (markup art, mobile makeup, etc). In citations Whitespark also recommends uploading photos with descriptive file names which could include the keyword.
Those are the “natural” ways but if the business name actually has the keyword in it then you can take advantage of Product / Service Keyword in GMB Business Title Product / Service Keyword in Domain.
Hope that helps.
Wow, this is a lovely piece of tutorial. The sue of Google autocomplete feature is a awesome, I have put this into practical and I got good result. Thanks for sharing this thought.
wonderful guide to local seo.
thanks
Of course. Going to revamp it soon with even more goods – but the majority is there.
Agree, citation is very important and its justified to use it as nr 1 factor. But also you can find some nice tips on wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_search_(Internet) especially about dependence between keyword density and local seo and on Google official blog https://bit.ly/GoogleLocalSeo how natural backlinks can help your local SEO. So my tips for local seo are:
1. Citations (same as yours)
2. Google My Business
3. Reviews
4. Less generic keywords, more nautral local keywords
What do you mean: Citations (same as yours) ??? regarding what? thx
Nice reference to Wikipedia, I actually haven’t seen that before, though the Google Blog link is def your own site. Kind of misleading/spammy.
A great guide indeed, Tom I have a question for you, is it possible to rank a website for a specific location without adding that location to the keywords i.e. suppose I have a business website located in UK and I want to rank for UK but I don’t want to add UK to my keywords, I have set the target location in GWT but I am not sure if its possible or not, any suggestions please….
It would be pretty difficult and you’d have to get some good links and still make sure the location is in the title tag, meta description, etc. I wouldn’t go that route through – just create a new landing page that targets that location.
What a fantastic guide to local SEO. I think another important addition is to make sure you setup Google authorship. This will ensure your Google profile image shows up next to your search results, helping your site to stand out from the competition and increasing your CTR potential. This can easily be setup through the Yoast Wordpress SEO plugin.
Glad you mentioned that Nathan. I originally wasn’t going to put that in here, but you made me realize it is still very important (for the organic results at least). I did write a post on how to set up Google Authorship through Yoast here: https://onlinemediamasters.com/google-authorship-wordpress/