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Ranking New Local Sites

by mrmatt
22 replies
Hey Guys,

Just seeing what you all are experiencing as far as ranking new domains and sites for local businesses.

Personally what I have seen is if it is a local business and the domain has been around for a while I am seeing first page top spot rankings very quickly with good on site SEO and link building. A week or two usually.

If it is a new domain and new site it seem sites are really slow to get good rankings. I have a couple of sites where it seems to be taking forever, months in fact.

Oddly enough I have been creating classified ads and several of those are page 1 within 24 hours. Although they tend to fall off depending on the strength of competition on page 1.

Any tips to speed up rankings for new sites for local businesses?
#local #ranking #sites
  • Profile picture of the author RKCastillo
    For our rankings...High Homepage PR links has been getting really good results really quickly.

    I would test out a couple of those.
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    • Profile picture of the author Matt Lee
      Originally Posted by RKCastillo View Post

      For our rankings...High Homepage PR links has been getting really good results really quickly.

      I would test out a couple of those.
      This is good advice, and exactly what I would do too. Taking it a step further, you should consider buying high PR expired domains. It's the fastest (and safest compared to other forms of linkbuilding) way to boost rankings on new sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
    And you wouldn't want to drop high PR links to the new site too soon. I would wait at least a month to be safe. The best types of links to start off with are links from your own social profiles and business listings / classified ads. You starting throwing down keyword-anchor text links too soon and you're asking for trouble. Too risky in my experience.
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  • Profile picture of the author mrmatt
    I do have many sites in a network and am always adding more. I tend to drip feed the links out. I do drop a handful of links after completing the site but not to all of them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Neison
    I'd say it depends on what you call "really slow". I tell clients to expect pg1 by month 3 and it happens 99% of the time.

    We've been ranking safely with 10-20 HPR links added each month until the rank settles. Blog posts also, to mix it up; no social or old school spam. Make sure on-page isn't over optimized or that'll kill the whole thing.

    This has worked in large cities like Miami, Atlanta and Houston.
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    • Profile picture of the author mrmatt
      Originally Posted by Neison View Post

      I'd say it depends on what you call "really slow". I tell clients to expect pg1 by month 3 and it happens 99% of the time.
      I am in a smaller area but I used to see sites hit the first page within a couple of weeks if not sooner. Now like you said I am seeing it take 2-3 months too. Again this is for new domains and sites.

      If it is an aged domain it is hitting page 1 within a couple of weeks.
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      • Profile picture of the author bluesteele
        Lots of good advice above. Only thing I would add, and I am sure you already thought of this, is to make sure you have as many damn citations live and indexed before you go ahead and activate that listing. As many are aware, should Goog not find anything when they do a pass after creating the listing, you'll very likely be added to the, "not reputable" pile aka back of the bus which can be tricky to make your way out of, especially considering how seldom Google does big local index updates.
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        • Profile picture of the author mrmatt
          Originally Posted by bluesteele View Post

          Lots of good advice above. Only thing I would add, and I am sure you already thought of this, is to make sure you have as many damn citations live and indexed before you go ahead and activate that listing. As many are aware, should Goog not find anything when they do a pass after creating the listing, you'll very likely be added to the, "not reputable" pile aka back of the bus which can be tricky to make your way out of, especially considering how seldom Google does big local index updates.
          That is the first thing I do. Submit to about 130+ directories and run them through an indexer. About 90 of those go live same day of submission, the rest come around after a few weeks. Run all of those through an indexer when they become live.
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          • Profile picture of the author bluesteele
            I could be wrong on this, but my understanding has always been that if you are building citations worth their salt, getting them indexed is not an issue. It will happen quickly, and natural all by itself. I expect if you are submitting to less none, perhaps...hyperlocal directories, then this might be worthwhile.

            Though not super relevant, I am reminded of the way Chad (Google Cash Club) would hammer out blog comment citations, and then come in behind with drip feed blasts (DFB) and building links to each comment. Anyone ever played around with this much?
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            • Profile picture of the author Chad Kimball
              Originally Posted by bluesteele View Post

              I could be wrong on this, but my understanding has always been that if you are building citations worth their salt, getting them indexed is not an issue. It will happen quickly, and natural all by itself. I expect if you are submitting to less none, perhaps...hyperlocal directories, then this might be worthwhile.

              Though not super relevant, I am reminded of the way Chad (Google Cash Club) would hammer out blog comment citations, and then come in behind with drip feed blasts (DFB) and building links to each comment. Anyone ever played around with this much?
              Just to weigh in here, I never heard of anyone getting penalized for too much NAP, no matter where the NAP is.

              now, if you also drop a link on those blog comments, along with your citations, THAT could get you into trouble.
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  • Profile picture of the author jsherloc
    Hey mrmatt,

    Yeah I am seeing a swing towards "domain age" in the SERPs for a lot of local-based queries. In my experiences, the algo seems to fluctuate a lot between favoring age over relevance, and then back to relevance over age (domain age, backlinks age and activity history etc). At least that's what it looks like from someone observing the "shifts" in the big picture for a lot of different types of search queries. Basically trying to find a "sweet spot" or a "balance" sometimes with all of their testing.

    For quick rankings and testing, it is amazing how quick some of those classifieds can show up. I still feel like people overlook different ways to use sites like the popular classified sites and others for lead generation/reputation management/visibility etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author MillionDollarBucks
    Some tips down here:
    Quality Backlink from high PR ebsite,
    Internal linking,
    FB,G+,Twitter and other social media integretion,
    Unique Article.
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  • Profile picture of the author rishi1
    Perfect on page seo, and use unique content, submit article and blog comment directory.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
    Building citations with comments is a bad idea, in my opinion. I've only ever heard of people getting penalized for that sort of action. Totally unnatural and easy to spot by the big G, I'm sure. There are many more legit and clean ways of creating unstructured citations.
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    • Profile picture of the author bluesteele
      This I've got to hear.

      Not that I condone, but please explain to me how you are going to get penalized off a citation, and no link.

      Must be the "unnatural citations" penalty we've all never heard of.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
        Originally Posted by bluesteele View Post

        This I've got to hear.

        Not that I condone, but please explain to me how you are going to get penalized off a citation, and no link.

        Must be the "unnatural citations" penalty we've all never heard of.
        *shrug* Only ever "heard" it. I haven't tested it myself. But I've heard enough of people's map ranking tanking after taking just such an action, so I'm not even going to try it.

        Wouldn't be too hard for Google to see it, though. If tools like Bright Local and Whitespark can find citations, surely Google can. It probably wouldn't be too hard for Google to realize that hundreds of citations are coming from comments. But if you think it's so far out of the realm of possibility, why don't you condone it?
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  • Profile picture of the author John Son
    If you have a budget why not go in for some seo service.
    But placcing your links in high pr sites always help you.
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  • Profile picture of the author jacpacdh
    I do have many sites in a network and am always adding more. I tend to drip feed the links out. I do drop a handful of links after completing the site but not to all of them.
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  • Profile picture of the author bluesteele
    I hardly believe it had anything to do with the citations, and more to do with them linking back with the blog comments, or other stuff they've done. I would guess most who are citation blog commenting are usually up to other "aggressive" stuff.

    I've tested it on a few listings, all still stand strong. I take it back, I don't not condone it. I would just hate to suggest it to someone that doesn't understand what they are doing, and ends up tanking their clients site because they don't think things through.

    What you suggest sounds like a very slippery slope...receiving a penalty for blog comment citations. By that same logic, I could build 1000 structured citations, and that might land me in trouble too. Or, leave my citation at the bottom of 1000 guest blogs - well that surely is going to get me in trouble these days, right? More realistically, I might have the citation on one of my sat sites, in the footer, sitewide x1000 pages. I fail to see the difference.

    If we are throwing around opinions, IMO, you're relatively safe as long as you consider your footprint, sites you choose, citation profile, etc.

    I like to keep an open mind, regardless of what I hear or people tell me. I try not to give opinions until I have properly tested things, and even then I remain understandably sceptical.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sean DeSilva
    I can't imagine a more obvious spam signal than several hundred blog comments that have citations in them. Even if Google doesn't always catch it today, what you think will happen in two years from now when their algorithm will surely adjust for that kind of practice?
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    • Profile picture of the author dunkinbbb
      Curious

      What kind of "classified ads" appear on page one locally.

      I spend lots of time on local pages - and don't recall seeing any except ones like Angie's list or Yelp.

      Is that what you are referring to?

      Thanks,

      Bill
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      • Profile picture of the author midasman09
        Banned
        Being in the "Advertising" biz for many years I've been fortunate to have many clients who....
        1) Respect my opinions and advice
        and....
        2) Contact ME when looking for info

        So....they ALL know I do NOT have anything to do (nowadays) with creating Websites....however, when they hire an (expensive) "Web-Designer" to create a website for them and....pay BIG Bux for SEO....and, their site is still on Page Numero Zipo.....I get a call or email asking if I have any suggestions!

        I always suggest they have someone "RANK a VIDEO on Page "Numero Uno" for them (because it's much easier to Rank a Video (for certain Keywords))....and have Links TO their website from the Video.

        Plus.....the "Full Color THUMBNAIL" is a "Grabber"!

        When I show some of the "Video Thumbnails" I've done for others.....they INSTANTLY can SEE the POWER of having a Color Thumbnail to GRAB potential customers.....that then lead to their "expensive" website.

        So....you guys designing Websites (One outfit in my area charges 10Kfor a website design and MAYBE....in a few mos, the site is on Page 5 for their Keywords)...whereas my 60 sec videos get ranked fast and cause potential customers/clients/patients to FIND THE WEBSITES CREATED BY EXPENSIVE WEB DESIGNERS!

        So....think about the following;
        Find websites sitting on page 2 or lower (for certain Keywords) (It's obvious they WANT more traffic....it's WHY they paid thru the nose for a website) Tell them YOU can bring them MUCH MORE Traffic by ranking a VIDEO on Page 1 for their Keywords. Get a Deposit...then, charge BIG BUX when your Video starts bringing them LOTS MORE biz!

        Don Alm.....marketing guy
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