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What are your steps for local businesses?

by hf1664
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello,

I'm just wondering if any of you know, by experience, how long it takes to rank a website for local companies? By local companies I mean the usual ones like lawyer, doctor, hair dresser, restaurant, etc.

How do you know if you can bring the given company to the first page? I guess you check the competition and look for the keyword monthly searches. But how do you know if it's possible or not? That's what I don't understand.

What are your steps to bring a local company to the first page? Let's take for example that a lawyer in London comes to me and says he wants to be on the first page. What do you do?

Here's my guess, but like I said, I would like to know if it's the good way or not:

1- Check the first page for "lawyer london" and see the competition. At this point, what am I supposed to look at? If they have a lot of articles with their keywords? Is there a way to check for their backlinks? What else do I check?

2- Search for the monthly searches of my keyword with that Google tool. So I search for " lawyer london " but what am I supposed to conclude with the number? I guess that if the number is higher, it means that there is a lot of competition and it' going to be hard to rank? But what is the threshold for low/high competition?

3- If I think the competition is too high for "lawyer london", do I go more specific? Like the neighbourhood of the said lawyer? For exemple "lawyer Chelsea London"?

4- Now, if I think I can rank it, do I start by creating a blog section to the site with 40+ articles with the desired keywords? Do I write the articles for the customer, or make him write them and then just add the keywords? Do I also add backlinks? How many backlinks do you think is necessary from your experience?

5- Now that everything is done. I guess I need to post articles every once in a while and add more backlinks? How long does it usually take to get someone ranked like that?

6- Let's say the site is now on page one and you assume the client is getting 10 more clients every month. How do you charge him if you are charging by percentage? How can you be sure that he is not lying? Maybe he is getting 30+ more customers since he is on page one, but he doesn't tell you.

Ok, that's it for now. I hope someone experienced will be able to guide me.

Thanks in advance.

P.S: I hope my question mark button is not broken...
#businesses #local #steps
  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    Answers in bold below.

    Originally Posted by hf1664 View Post

    Hello,

    I'm just wondering if any of you know, by experience, how long it takes to rank a website for local companies?Varies by keyword and your skill, from as soon as Google indexes a page to never. By local companies I mean the usual ones like lawyer, doctor, hair dresser, restaurant, etc.

    How do you know if you can bring the given company to the first page? I guess you check the competition and look for the keyword monthly searches. But how do you know if it's possible or not? That's what I don't understand. You determine if the competition is tougher than you or not.

    What are your steps to bring a local company to the first page? Let's take for example that a lawyer in London comes to me and says he wants to be on the first page. What do you do?

    Here's my guess, but like I said, I would like to know if it's the good way or not:

    1- Check the first page for "lawyer london" and see the competition. At this point, what am I supposed to look at? Is the page in the top position targeting your keyword? If yes, does it do it well (on page optimization is great or not; what kind and how many backlinks they have)? If they have a lot of articles with their keywords? Is there a way to check for their backlinks? www.ahrefs.com; www.majesticseo.com, and many others. What else do I check? Do they have other properties on page 1 for that keyword? What's the rest of the domain like, from an SEO point of view.
    2- Search for the monthly searches of my keyword with that Google tool. So I search for " lawyer london " but what am I supposed to conclude with the number? First, you need to make sure that the keyword is used by the people the client wants to get. I know lawyer Milwaukee would work. If people in London prefer another term, you'd have to go with that. (For instance, ranking # for Remortgages San Francisco is not great as remortgages is a word people from Britain use instead of refinance and there's not that many of them who own a property in the San Francisco area... Of course, if you did rank for it, the few who do would surely see your page and, all else being done, call you.

    If the keyword, IS, indeed, used by the targeted audience, it doesn't matter how many searches Google says there are, your local business owner will want to be #1.

    What you, as an SEO provider do with that number, is figure out if you have enough of a niche to bother with (being #1 for all the keywords in a niche, if they get you only 2 sales a month is different than if they get you 37 or 11045. Basically, it comes down to how much people would be willing to pay to be #1 for that keyword.

    But, you're thinking too narrowly. Think marketing, where SEO is one of many components. Also, think this way: If I were your client, I'd want to be #1 for all the keywords in my industry + the city name (or city name + all the keywords).

    But, what I'm most interested in is making sales. If my website converts, and you get me #1 for a bunch of keywords that do not attract buyers, what do I care?


    If your client is in Chicago or Milwaukee, being number 1 for profession + city is worth it. If in a small city, how do people there look for your client? Do they use the county name, the name of the big city next door?

    I guess that if the number is higher, it means that there is a lot of competition and it' going to be hard to rank? But what is the threshold for low/high competition?
    3- If I think the competition is too high for "lawyer london", do I go more specific? Like the neighbourhood of the said lawyer? For exemple "lawyer Chelsea London"?No matter what you think of competition, you eventually want to be #1 for both, but first you want Chelsea. Of course, your options are wider. Real estate attorney London, Criminal attorney London, DUI attorney London... You're better off going for the specifics... But you have to talk to your client to figure out what services/products they sell.

    Again, an example: a dentist who does not work with adults will really, really want to be ranked for any variation of pediatric dentist/ry; one who is not so specialized, will want to rank for those too (unless they don't want kids)... See?
     4- Now, if I think I can rank it, do I start by creating a blog section to the site with 40+ articles with the desired keywords? Do I write the articles for the customer, or make him write them and then just add the keywords? Do I also add backlinks? How many backlinks do you think is necessary from your experience?As to number of backlinks, 0 to waaay more than you care to create. It is helpful if you have one page for each keyword you target.

    You don't just write them and add keywords, you write them in such a way that the keywords are an integral part... If you're using odd keywords, you can always name an image and get the keyword in there that way.

     5- Now that everything is done. I guess I need to post articles every once in a while and add more backlinks? How long does it usually take to get someone ranked like that?
    As regards how long to rank, see #1.
    As to the rest, you never, ever have to write an article. Stop thinking articles and start thinking content. A page with the image of my left pinky and nothing else on it is still a page. If you put a list of things on a web page, that page has content on it.
     6- Let's say the site is now on page one and you assume the client is getting 10 more clients every month. How do you charge him if you are charging by percentage? How can you be sure that he is not lying? Maybe he is getting 30+ more customers since he is on page one, but he doesn't tell you.You don't charge a percentage unless you can verify. One way of doing that is to use a number that you can track, like a number from www.callfire.com.

    Ok, that's it for now. I hope someone experienced will be able to guide me.

    Thanks in advance.

    P.S: I hope my question mark button is not broken...
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    You can plan all day long but in reality you need to be building pages targeting the keyword and see where they fall on the SERPs.

    Once the SERPs settle down then go back and tweak internal links and/or followed backlinks as needed.

    Some keywords can hit first page simply by doing on-page SEO while more competitive keywords will take every possible SEO tactic you can throw at the webpage/URL.
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  • Profile picture of the author freepricecompare
    I prefer yext scanner for local listing. Only we need to enter business name, phone number and country business is located. Scanner will scan and displays result of local listing websites with listing status. First step for any local business, List website with all required details in local listing sites. UGC (User generated content) like reviews and ratings also plays a vital role in local business promotion.
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  • Profile picture of the author hf1664
    Thanks to both of you!

    1 - I still have some questions regarding the content. I thought that content was the information on the website and I remember reading somewhere that you needed around 40 unique posts/articles of +/-700 words each to have an impact. Is this true or I can just put a few unique sentences on a page to have the same impact?

    2 - I understand that the Google algorithm seems to focus on content and the time spent on the site, so aren't articles the only way to make people reach your site and stay on it to read the various articles?

    3 - Adding random extra pages like a "team" page where you can click on each person and so on. Does that count as content? Cause in most cases I can make a single-page where you scroll for all the information and just add a "blog" section where all the information pages would be posted.

    4 - I've just checked MajesticSeo for a website that is at the bottom of the first page and holy cow, it has 40 000 external backlinks and around 900 indexed urls. Do they just pay for back links or not? And do Social Media(links posted on fb or twitter) count in these backlinks?

    5 - Out of curiosity, I've checked my old site on Majestic. I've noticed it says only 3 indexed urls, but I had at least 20 articles posted on it. Does it mean that I had to manually enter each post url in the Google index tool?

    Thanks in advance. I am still shocked after seeing 40 000 backlinks for a website that is not targeting a common keyword.
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    • Profile picture of the author DABK
      Answers in bold below.
      Originally Posted by hf1664 View Post

      Thanks to both of you!

      1 - I still have some questions regarding the content. I thought that content was the information on the website and I remember reading somewhere that you needed around 40 unique posts/articles of +/-700 words each to have an impact. Is this true or I can just put a few unique sentences on a page to have the same impact?I've ranked for my keywords sites with 5 pages... I've ranked for more / easier when I had many pages. But not because I had many pages but because I linked (intelligently, not randomly) the pages. As far as words in an article, if that were true across board, you'd never find 100 word-long content in the 1st position and 2000-words long content in the 84th, would you? The more words you have, the easier it is to have related keywords/phrases. And that helps a bit.

      2 - I understand that the Google algorithm seems to focus on content and the time spent on the site, so aren't articles the only way to make people reach your site and stay on it to read the various articles?No. And you don't understand correctly. Google has no idea why someone leaves a page. If I were typing this answer at work and worked for a bank, for instance, as soon as my boss showed up, I'd be outta here. If my boss came 2 seconds after I landed on this page, would that mean I left because the content was poor?

      Also, you need content that links to your main pages or ads or telemarketers, you don't need articles. You CAN use articles, but you don't need them. Ever seen a cat photo that went viral? Did you think, What a nice article about a cat?
      3 - Adding random extra pages like a "team" page where you can click on each person and so on. Does that count as content? Cause in most cases I can make a single-page where you scroll for all the information and just add a "blog" section where all the information pages would be posted. Yes, it does count as content. But don't make a single page, make many pages. So you can link between them (silo-style) and have good user experience and go after more keywords.

      4 - I've just checked MajesticSeo for a website that is at the bottom of the first page and holy cow, it has 40 000 external backlinks and around 900 indexed urls. Do they just pay for back links or not? And do Social Media(links posted on fb or twitter) count in these backlinks? 40,000 is not a lot if you've been around a while. They may have paid for them. None of that is relevant. What's relevant is that they don't have many good backlinks (or this is one of the most competitive keywords in the world). Only links that come without rel="nofollow" count as backlinks. They'll get you traffic (if you are persuasive) but nofollow doesn't pass juice or anchor text, said Google.

      5 - Out of curiosity, I've checked my old site on Majestic. I've noticed it says only 3 indexed urls, but I had at least 20 articles posted on it. Does it mean that I had to manually enter each post url in the Google index tool?No. It means majestic takes its sweet time or Google's decided your pages suck. If your pages do not suck, you can just wait. If you don't want to wait, give Google a sitemap. By the way, how many indexed pages does Google show in your Google webmaster dashboard?
      Thanks in advance. I am still shocked after seeing 40 000 backlinks for a website that is not targeting a common keyword.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEONinjaa
    If you are running a local business, then get registered your business on Google places. It will help to increase your visibility on Google and in searches. Local business basically needs promotion such as business listings and classified. You can register your business on different high DA site of Local listings. Post classified ads related to your keywords which you have targeted, in your targeted location.
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  • Profile picture of the author zimbizee
    Oh dear, if you are thinking about charging local biz for this, and you have to come on to a public forum to ask how to do it then i feel very sorry for the potential biz that you are going to contact.

    By not knowing the ins and outs you are going to be doing the client a great disservice
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  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    I am going to be that guy.... The information above is great in terms of general SEO... as for "LOCAL SEO" not so great. There is a separate algorithm for local searches, and because of this things are a bit different.

    Lets start with an example of different. Go to Google and type "Italian Restaurant" no matter where you are the world over at this point, you will find that the listings are LOCAL in nature. Meaning if you live in London or better yet Chelsea, you will not find a listing for an Italian Restaurant in NYC.

    Google uses Geo tagging to determine YOUR ( the searchers ) location and presents local to you results. With google there is what we call the 3 pack, and this is the top section of the listing where there is a map and 3 listings. there is also a more places link at the bottom of the box that displays all of the other non top 3 Business listings. ( to get into this section the business has to have a Google for Business acct set up )

    Below that section you then have the organic local listings. The listings here are not so much driven by geo location as in it is possible for a restaurant 3 towns over to have a listing here based on SEO efforts.

    In an effort to list in multiple end user locations you would want to have pages that target each geographical area. You would not target specifically "London" but rather White City, Kennsington, Pimlico, London, Vauxhall, Chelsea, etc etc etc

    The Google Business listing mentioned above in contrast to this would only target the area around the actual physical location of the business. You can in your listing settings set the potential reach geographically but that is not going to dictate that Google will actually display in all of those areas.

    This is literally the tip of the iceberg in terms of this subject... Local SEO is a different animal. I would suggest looking at www.incomebully.com there are some great articles on the subject there.

    Now lets look at time on site.. This is one of those topics... I don't think there is any doubt that Google does monitor time on site.. and before I get bashed here... It is my thinking that Google monitors be it IP or mac address from the time you click a link on google, to the time you come back to google... IF because your boss walks in and you ditch the site, you would not be returning to google, and therefore that would be null data.

    I also believe in much the same way Google looks at bounce rate.. I want to believe they are a bit smarter about this than just monitoring clicking on a site and clicking back.. not all bounces are created equal. If for example you type widget and click a link, then after looking at the page click the back button, back to the serp and click on another serp link.. this would without question be a bounce. However if you type widget and click a link, and then return to google and then type say pokemon... this would show google that the clicked link obviously has answered the question the user was looking for, and they were moving on. Without question this would not be a bounce.

    Just my 2 cents
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