Local SEO Tricks That Work!

1. If you produce blog posts for your clients, install some analytics and see which posts get the most traction (most popular by views). Whichever post comes out on top, produce a Page with the same title but increase the page content (i.e. to over 1000 words). Then, internally link posts back to that page by using anchor links within the post content.

If you're using Wordpress you can use a free plugin called "WP Auto Affiliate Links". Instead of placing affiliate links in the spaces, replace them with keywords for that page. This works on autopilot whenever you add a new post or page by linking directly to that page.

I'm finding the pages ranking higher than the posts!

2. Make sure they have a Google+ page and then ensure that you've included their website as a contributor.

>> Go to their Google+ page (if you have login details)
>> Click on edit profile
>> Add any websites that are linked to your client under the "contributor tab", this includes twitter, facebook et al.

3. If you're embeding videos on their site, make sure you have a SEPERATE video sitemap. In addition, make sure this is in their Google webmaster account too!

WordPress › Google XML Sitemap for Videos « WordPress Plugins

4. Do a general search under your clients' URL and double check that their office address is the same in all web directories. This will help in the review section of G+ etc. If the address is a different in most of these places, the local listings don't seem to work as well?

I've still got one that won't get into this list, even though I've applied the changes.

5. For some reason (I really don't know why) by setting up a Youtube account under the exact name as the client's URL it shows up second in the list of search results when doing a search (even if there are no videos posted). This probably means Google class this as being nearly as important and relevant as the clients' site possibly? Either way, make sure you set up both a Youtube account for them and also one for the main keyword they're targeting. Be sure to link this back to the clients' URL. Better still, get some videos made and add it to the account.

6. Check the length of their competition's blog post and ensure yours are longer If there's are 400, make yours 600. Add additional relevant pictures and link out to authority sites like wiki (seo 101).

7. I love Fiverr. i think it's great! However, it's too easy for Google to reverse engineer (see who's using these links) these backlink Fiverr gigs. So, be careful which backlinking sources you're using (especially for your client sites). I'm guessing the fallout and loss of rankings would be really difficult to come back from. In most cases, I find adding regular content on a consistent basis enough to rank for good long tail keywords.

8. Videos and pictures can take time to load. Instead of uploading to the site's hosting all the time, consider hosting your videos and pics with a third party. My popular choice is Amazon S3 (I'm sure you've got your favourites).

Google looks at your site metrics with regards to page loading speed and the amount of time clients spend on the site. If the site is really slooooooooooooooooow to load, then prospective clients click away and presumably go to the competitors site

Not only does this hurt the metrics, your client is losing money with every prospective client clicking away with frustration. (added 10.10.12)

9. EMD's - Exact Match Domains still work for local sites. However, consider advising your client to place them on a separate hosting account (just in case Google go deeper with this slap). It's also a way for you to get them to take on a separate hosting account with you $$$. This way, there's no fear in losing rankings by association. (added 10.10.12)

10. Make sure your clients' site has a breadcrumb trail at the top close to the navigation. This allows the reader to keep track, know where they are and better navigate the site. (added 10.10.12)

>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadcrumb_(navigation)

11. When posting pictures on the clients' site and more than 1 picture per page/post. Don't add an "alt tag" to ALL pictures (but if you do, don't make all the tags the same). This screams out SPAM, but there's still a few on this forum that still advise you to do this.

For example, some pages/posts may have anywhere between 1 and 10 pictures displayed. Make sure you vary the "alt tags" and ensure at least 1 of the pictures doesn't have one at all.

Images and Alt Tags Tutorial - HTML code for Alt Tags, Image Alt Tag Text, Alt Tag Instructions, Picture Alt Tags, Alt Text Attribute for Search Engines

This may be considered a strange tip, but I prefer to run in the opposite direction to the herd and make my client sites stand out. I think you can sometimes over optimise websites. Yes we all want them to be perfect, but sometimes perfect isn't always right. (added 12th oct 2012).

12. This is one of my underground, deep down and dirty (nobody does this sh*t plugins). In fact, I was reluctant to post this on here, but what the heck. You won't tell anyone right?

Easy Multiple Pages plugin - This is a bad a** plugin that's so stupidly simple but hyper effective. The idea with this plugin is to get the reader to view as many pages on the site as possible. This basically forces them to click to the next part of the page or post to read the rest of the info.

WordPress › Easy Multiple Pages « WordPress Plugins

It's an oldie but goodie plugin that the big boys use like about.com.

For anyone that knows anything about SEO, the big "G" like readers viewing multiple pages/posts and monitors the time spent on the site.(added 16th Oct 2012)

*****NEWSFLASH****** 13. Getting Started - schema.org - What is this? This is in addition to video sitemaps and Google has just said that they will rank videos in the serps a lot better when you use what we call "markups" from the website above!

"Your web pages have an underlying meaning that people understand when they read the web pages. But search engines have a limited understanding of what is being discussed on those pages. By adding additional tags to the HTML of your web pages--tags that say, "Hey search engine, this information describes this specific movie, or place, or person, or video"--you can help search engines and other applications better understand your content and display it in a useful, relevant way. Microdata is a set of tags, introduced with HTML5, that allows you to do this."

You can read more about it here: About microdata - Webmaster Tools Help

Ok, let's get to work........

1. Go to Getting Started - schema.org to get a feel of what I'm talking about.
2. VideoObject - schema.org
3. scroll to the bottom of the page to see the new code that Google now recognises to populate their listings with videos embeded on your website.
4. If you haven't got a clue in the world what it is I'm blabbing on about, go ahead and go to the programmer section in "warriors for hire" and get them to implement this new microdata that Google is using.

They'll probably be a wordpress plugin/script coming out soon, but why not get the fast mover advantage and start implementing this now!

You know I am :p (added 18th oct 2012)

Can't think of anything else working really well at the moment. However, If I find more I'll subscribe to this thread and add it to the list.

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