Local SEO question

Submit his site in local sites, share good thing on G+, you will get good response by that also. create real profile in social media sites and promote it,

Webatomic,

In answer to your first question, it isn’t necessarily that its more important to rank a Google Plus page but that it helps to rank a website better through social signals, Google Authorship (if applicable), and general profile information. Having a Google places listings is also really powerful for local search.

In answer to your second question, it depends. If you are ranking the Google plus page does it matter if your website is not ranking? If your friend’s goal is to drive people to the site then yes it does matter. If their goal is to drive traffic to the Google Plus profile, then it doesn’t. Many web marketers and SEO’s set up these external properties (i.e. Social profiles like G+ or a Google places listing) in order to generate more exposure for a brand online and also to help drive traffic to a website. In general it is still important to get a website ranking well in search.

So it all depends on your friend’s goals. If their aim is to get people to the plus page, then they don’t have to worry about the site. I would venture a guess that this is not their goal.

Check out this article on how a Plus Page affects SEO,

How does Google Plus Affect SEO?

Hope that answers your questions,

Shawn

webatomic,

The "most important" is dependent on the objective your friend has in mind.

I can only imagine that her goal is to attract as many new potential clients as possible. That said Google+ Local, as you've stated is a great place to start.
(on a side note, I'd like to make sure you understand that Google+ is basically the replacement for Google Places - What happened to Google Places? - Google+ Help - great article to read on that at Google).

However, although Google+ is a great place to start, you want to make sure the website become authoritative.

Lets start with Google+
To get Google+ to rank well you have to start doing everything a small business growing would do. Although I can't go in-depth with everything we do to rank on Google+ I can share a few things with you.
1. Get all your social media profiles in a row and show some activity on them (facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc)
2. Get listed in local review sites and industry oriented directory listings
3. Get your social profiles linked to the website

Now for organic rankings (which are very necessary because it does DIRECTLY impact your local seo campaign...). That is a bit of a different breed. You want to try to
1. Guest blog on similar industry websites
2. Get AUTHORITATIVE backlinks.
I can not stress the work Authoritative enough. Put it this way, crap links will get you crap rankings, good links will get you good rankings.

On a final note, there is a very good way to get your not as authoritative backlinks to become authoritative... that however, is a bit of a secret which I will soon be sharing in a YouTube video so keep posted...

Since you're talking local I'm going to guess you're referring to Google+ Local opposed to just Google+.

If that is your question, then yes, Google+ Local can be a great way to get visibility in the search engines, as it is more or less Googles local directory listings, so it converts eager searchers into phone calls much better then a regular organic listing.

The algorithm on ranking a G+ Local page still relies quite a bit on how well optimized the actual website is, along with several factors for the Google+ Local page, such as video optimization, image optimization, completion level, citation building etc.

Hope that helps you out a bit.

Thanks,

James

First start with submission on Google Place and then your local online yellow pages.

It's not that simple to explain maybe it will help you a little bit:

Here

Do Social book marking,blog commentiing,directory submition, facebook twitter promotion. This complete off page seo for best seo services

Are you wanting social traffic or search engine traffic? If you want to rank the places page simply get citations

G+ is not for all in SEO. SEO is like voting in the internet. How many relationship you have with your niche blog? So this kind of issue, I will suggest you to do andvance quality backlinks and share the backlinks in social media site. Also SEO has some other secret style for backlinking. Thanks

Better to use Classified and submit in local section. Also create an Facebook Page and invite your local friends. Do some Local listing in
AOL, Google, Whitepages,Yellowpages
and many more

He can get 3 spots on the first page quite easily if the term is not that competitive.

1) Register with Google places (Must have physical address).
2) Create a Youtube video.
3) Build a website.

Get links to your youtube video and your website. Should end up with 3 places on the first page for <photographer city> keyword.

Try Google Places! Best thing to do.

Lots of advice given by people that I would re-iterate. I will say though that local takes a few things into account that is not taken into consideration with non-location based keywords.

Address - Google compares the address listed on your website to the "city center" of the city you are trying to rank for. So if you are 2 miles from the city center of Seattle, you are in a good position to rank for keywords with "Seattle" in them. However, at the same time you are 15 miles from the city center of Bellevue, which might be a city that would be tough for you to rank for. Have an address listed on your website (and in all of your directory listings) that is within the city that you are attempting to rank for.

Also have a local phone number on your website, and on any profile pages or directory listings.

Although you should use all of the Google services that you can (Google Local, Google+, Youtube, etc.), it seems like you are overvaluing. You can rank well without a Google+ account. It helps, but is minuscule compared to other factors.

Basically, if you attempt to spoof your location and rank the website for cities outside of your area, your going to have a bad time. Choose the area that she actually services, and make it as plain as day on the website, and in all of your profiles across the web where you are located. The more times that google spiders see your website name alongside the city, address, phone number, or other local keywords that better of a position that you will be in.

Ranking of Google+ page wont be that effective. Since your friend is a photographer, You can submit the images on Pinterest, Flickr, etc. sites They will help you a lot in getting desired traffic to your friend's site. If your friend is a fashion photographer, try sites like Polyvore, Fashiolista to submit the images.

Hi webatomic,

Yep, you're on the right track. Focus on getting reviews to the Google+ page, local directory listings, citations, etc. That info is all readily available.

Much of the advice here is nonsense, eg:

When a Google+ Local result pops up in the SERPs, it displays a link to the website AND the Google+ page. Most people click in the website link and are sent directly there. Ranking your Google+ page can drive plenty of direct website traffic.

That said, you want to be working on ranking both both and Google+. Don't rely on just the Plus page.

I'd say there are two things to focus on:

1. The website

- should have geo-marked keywords in the title, in headings, perhaps in the footer (for example, photographers Newark)
- should be optimized for the right keywords
- should have authority (links, bookmarks, social shares, etc.)
- all images should have alt text tags
- the website should be well-crawlable and without major glitches.

2. Google+ Local listing:

- citations
- reviews and ratings
- should have the same address and phone number as the website
- it's better to provide as much info about the business in it local listing as possible.

Alternatively, your friend may want to tap into the hot-new thing (Google graph), enter her data to Freebase, which doesn't really take long, and see if her biz gets prominently displayed on the right of the results as part of the Knowledge graph.