Editor's note: Since the publication of this post, Google has undergone a number of changes, rendering some past techniques for research and marketing obsolete.
Another year in search has passed. It's now 2015 and we have seen some major changes in local ranking factors since 2014, which I also expect to change greatly throughout 2015. For some a new year means a fresh starting point and yet for others it's a time of reflection to analyze how successful your campaign has been. Whatever boat you're in, make sure to sit down and read this guide.
In this guide we will cover how you can have a successful local SEO campaign in 2015 starting with the basics and getting down to five action items you should focus on now. This is not limited to Google My Business and also includes localized organic results.
Now the question is where do you start?
Since Pigeon has now rolled out to the US, UK, Australia, and Canada it's important to make sure your strategies are in line with this no matter what part of the world you're in. A successful local SEO Campaign in 2015 will be much more successful if you put more work into it. Don't be fooled though. More work by itself isn't going to get you where you need to be. You need to work smarter towards the goals which are going to fuel your conversions.
For some industries that might mean more localized content, for others it may mean more social interaction in your local area. Whatever it ends up being, the root of it should be the same for most. You need to get more conversions for your website or your client's website. So with this in mind let's make sure we're on the same page as far as our goals are concerned.
Things you need to know first
Focus on the right goals
Recently I had a conversation with a client who wanted to really nail in the point that he was not interested in traffic. He was interested in the conversions he could track. He was also interested to see how all of these content resource pieces I recommended would help. He was tired of the silly graphs from other agencies that showed great rankings on a variety of keywords when he was more interested to see which efforts brought him the most value. Instead, he wanted to see how his campaign was bringing him conversions or meaningful traffic. I really appreciated this statement and I felt like he really got it.
Still, however, far too often I have to talk to potential clients and explain to them why their sexy looking traffic reports aren't actually helping them. You can have all of the traffic in the world but if it doesn't meet one of your goals of conversions or education then it's probably not helping. Even if you make the client happy with your snazzy reports for a few months, eventually they're going to want to know their return on investment (ROI).
It's 2015. If your clients aren't tracking conversions properly, give them the help they need. Record their contacts in a CRM and track the source of each of these contacts. Track them all the way through the sales funnel.
That's a simple and basic marketing example but as SEOs your role has transformed. If you can show this type of actual value and develop a plan accordingly, you will be unstoppable.
Second, don't get tunnel vision
You may wonder why I started a little more basic than normal in this post. The fact is that in this industry there is not a full formal training program that covers all aspects of what we do.
We all come from different walks of life and experience which makes it easy for us to get tunnel vision. You probably opened this article with the idea of "How Can I Dominate My Google Local Rankings?" While we cover some actionable tips you should be using, you need to think outside of the box as well. Your website is not the only online property you need to be concerned about.
Mike Ramsey from Nifty Marketing put out a great study on measuring the click-through rates from the new local stack. In this study he measured click-through rates of users conducting several different searches like "Salt Lake City Hotel" in the example below. With so many different options look where the users are clicking:
They're really clicking all over the place! While it's cool to be number one, it's much better if you get clicks from your paid ad, organic result, local result, and barnacle SEO efforts (which we'll talk about a little later).
If you combine your conversion marketing data with your biggest priorities, you can put together a plan to tackle the most important areas for your industry. Don't assume it's a one-size-fits-all approach.
Third, some spam still works. Don't do it and rise above it.
There's no doubt that some spammy tactics are still working. Google gets better everyday but you still see crap like this example below show up in the SERPs.
While it sucks to see that kind of stuff, remember that in time it disappears (just as it did before this article was published). If you take shortcuts, you're going to get caught and it's not worth it for the client or the heartache on your site. Maintain the course and do things the right way.
Now let's get tactical and prepare for 2015
Now it's time for some practical and tactical takeaways you can use to dominate your local search campaign in 2015.
Practical tip 1: start with an audit
Over the years, one of the best lessons I have learned is it's OK to say "I don't know" when you don't have the answer. Consulting with industry experts or people with more experience than you is not a bad thing and will likely only lead to you to enhance your knowledge and get a different perspective. It can be humbling but the experience is amazing. It can open your mind.
Last year, I had the opportunity to work with over ten of the industry's best minds and retained them for site audits on different matters.
The perspective this gives is absolutely incredible and I believe it's a great way to learn. Everyone in this industry has come from a different background and seen different things over the years. Combining that knowledge is invaluable to the success of your clients' projects. Don't be afraid to do it and learn from it. This is also a good idea if you feel like your project has reached a stalemate. Getting more advice, identifying potential problems, and having a fresh perspective will do wonders for your success.
As many of the experts have confirmed, ever since the Pigeon update, organic and local ranking factors have been more tied together than ever. Since they started going this direction in a big way, I would not expect it to stop.
This means that you really do need to worry about things like site speed, content, penalties, mobile compatibility, site structure, and more. On a side note, guess what will happen to your organic results if you keep this as a top priority? They will flourish and you will thank me.
If you don't have the budget or resources to get a third party opinion, you can also conduct an independent audit.
Do it yourself local SEO audit resources:
- How To Preform Ultimate Local SEO Audit by Casey Meraz
- Local SEO Audit Template by Dan Leibson
- Local SEO Diagnostics by Phil Rozek
Do it yourself organic SEO audit resources:
Alternatively if you're more in the organic boat you should also check out this guide by Steve Webb on How To Perform The World's Greatest SEO Audit.
Whatever your situation is, it's worth the time to have this perspective yearly or even a couple times a year if possible.
Practical tip 2: consider behavioral signals and optimize accordingly
I remember having a conversation with Darren Shaw, the founder of Whitespark, at MozCon 2013 about his thoughts on user behavior affecting local results. At the time I didn't do too much testing around it. However just this year, Darren had a mind-blowing presentation at the Dallas State of Search where he threw in the behavioral signals curve ball. Phil Rozek also spoke about behavioral signals and provided a great slide deck with actionable items (included below).
We have always speculated on behavioral signals but between his tests and some of Rand's IMEC Lab tests, I became more of a believer last year. Now, before we go too deep on this remember that your local campaign is NOT only focused on just your local pack results. If user behavior can have an impact on search results, we should definitely be optimizing for our users.
You can view Phil Rozek's presentation below:
User Behavior Affects Local Rankings. Now What? from Phil Rozek
Don't just optimize for the engines, optimize for the humans. One day when Skynet is around this may not be an issue, but for now you need to do it.
So how can you optimize for behavioral signals?
There is a dark side and a light side path to this question. If you ask me I will always say follow the light side as it will be effective and you don't have to worry about being penalized. That's a serious issue and it's unethical for you to put your clients in that position.
Local SEO: how to optimize for behavioral signals
Do you remember the click-through study we looked at a bit earlier from Nifty Marketing? Do you remember where the users clicked? If you look again or just analyze user and shopper behavior, you might notice that many of the results with the most reviews got clicks. We know that reviews are hard to get so here are two quick ways that I use and recommend to my clients:
1. Solicit your Gmail clients for reviews
If you have a list of happy Gmail clients you can simply send them an email with a direct link to your Google My Business Page. Just get the URL of your local page by pulling up your URL and copying and pasting it. A URL will look like the one below:
Once you have this URL, simply remove the /posts and replace it with:
/?hl=en&review=1
It will look like this:
If your clients click on this link via their logged-in Gmail, they will automatically be taken to the review page which will open up the box to leave a review which looks like the example below. It doesn't get much more simple than that.
2. Check out a service like Mike Blumenthal's Get Five Stars for reviews
I recently used this with a client and got a lot of great feedback and several reviews.
Remember that these reviews will also help on third-party sites and can help your Google My Business ranking positions as well as click-through rates. You can check out Get Five Stars Here.
Another way outside of getting reviews is to optimize the appearance of your Google My Business Page.
3. Optimize your local photos
Your Google My Business page includes photos. Don't use generic photos. Use high quality photos so when the users hover over your listing they get an accurate representation of what they're looking for. Doing this will increase your click-through rate.
Organic SEO: Optimize for Behavioral Signals
The optimization for click-through rates on organic results typically focus on three areas. While you're likely very familiar with the first two, you should not ignore them.
1. Title tags: optimize them for the user and engine
Optimize your meta title tags to increase click-through rates. Each page should have a unique title tag and should help the viewer with their query. The example below (although fabricated) is a good example of what NOT to do.
2. Meta descriptions: optimize them for the user
Optimize your meta description to get the user to click on the search result. If you're not doing this just because Google may or may not pull it, you're missing opportunities and clicks.
3. Review Schema markup: add this to appropriate pages
Reviewing Schema markup is still a very overlooked opportunity. Like we talked about above in the local section, if you don't have reviews coded in Schema, you could be missing out on getting the orange stars in organic results.
Practical tip 3: don't ignore barnacle SEO
I firmly believe that most people are not taking advantage of barnacle SEO still to this day and I'm a big fan. When I first heard Will Scott introduce this term at Pubcon I thought it was spot on. According to Will Scott's website Search Influence, barnacle SEO is "attaching oneself to a large fixed object and waiting for the customers to float by in the current." In a nutshell, we know that if you're trying to rank on page one of Google you will find others that you may be able to attach to. If Yelp results come up for a lot of your search terms you might identify that as an opportunity. But there are three main ways you can take advantage of this.
1. You can try to have the most visible profile on that third party page
If Yelp is ranking for LA Personal Injury Attorneys, it would suit you to figure out how the top users are showing up there. Maybe your customers are headed there and then doing some shopping and making a selection. Or maybe they're using it for a research platform and then will visit your website. If your profile looks great and shows up high on the list, you just gave yourself a better chance at getting a conversion.
2. You can try to get your page to rank
Hey, just because you don't own Yelp.com or whatever similar site you've found, doesn't mean you shouldn't put in the effort to have it rank. If Google is already showing you that they trust a third party site by ranking it, you can use similar organic ranking techniques that you would use on your own site to make your profile page stronger. Over time you might add this to your bio on interviews or other websites to earn links. If you increase the visibility of your profile on search engines and they see your website on the same page you might increase conversions.
3. You can help your Google My Business
If the site you're using passes link juice and you earn links to the third party profile page, you will start to see some strong results. Links are a big factor in local since Pigeon this year and it's an opportunity that should not be missed.
So how can you use this advice?
Start by finding a list of potential barnacle SEO partners for your industry. As an example, I did a search for "Personal Injury Attorneys" in Los Angeles. In addition to the law firms that showed up in the results on the first page, I also identified four additional places I may be able to show up on.
- Yelp
- Thumbtack
- Avvo
- Wikipedia
If you were attorney, it would be worth your while to explore these and see if any make sense for you to contribute to.
Practical tip 4: earn some good links
Most people get too carried away with link building. I know because I used to do it. The key with link building is to change your approach to understand that it's always better to get fewer high quality links than hundreds or thousands of low quality links.
For example, a link like this one that one of our clients earned is what I'm talking about.
If you want to increase your local rankings you can do so by earning these links to your associated Google My Business landing page.
Do you know the URL you entered in your Google My Business page when you set it up? That's the one I'm talking about. In most cases this will be linked to either a local landing page for that location or the home page. It's essential to your success that you earn solid links to this page.
Simple resources for link building
- 33 Links and How to Get Them by Justin Briggs
- Event Link Building - Build links by hosting an event.
- HARO - Help reporters with their inquires. Get interviews and earn links.
Practical tip 5: have consistent citations and remove duplicates
Identifying and correcting incorrect or duplicate citations has been getting easier and easier over the years. Even if you don't want to pay someone to do it, you can sign up for some great do-it-yourself tools. Your goal with any citation cleanup program is this:
- Ensure there are no duplicate citations
- Ensure there are no incorrect citations with wrong phone numbers, old addresses, etc.
You can ignore small differences and inconsistencies like St vs. Street. I believe the importance of citations has been greatly reduced over the past year. At the same time, you still want to be the least imperfect and provide your customers with accurate information if they're looking on third party websites.
Let's do good things in 2015
2014 was a tough year in search altogether. We had ups like Penguin refreshes and we had downs like the removal of authorship. I'm guessing 2015 will be no different. Staying on the roller coaster and keeping with the idea of having the "least imperfect" site is the best way to ring out the new year and march on moving forward. If you had a tough year in local search, keep your head up high, fix any existing issues, and sprint through this year by making positive changes to your site.
I'm always surprised by how many sites aren't utilizing the meta description tag. It's best practice to write one for every page. The description should encourage people to click.
Absolutely - it's your shop window. Put anything in there that is going to differentiate yourself from your competitor: free shipping, 24 hour support, free training.
Get them to you and start the acquisition journey.
Put anything in there that fits with today's pixel count (essentially a 140 character tweet)...
Yep I completely agree!
Exactly, and while the description doesn't directly affect SERPs, it indirectly boosts SEO by helping you get more clicks.
Great post!! I personally Like this one as well
https://moz.com/blog/free-local-seo-education-for-b...
It's also from Moz!
This might be unfair, and I'm probably being a jerk here, but don't you think it could be considered spammy to do guest posts with the anchor text "lawyer seo marketing" in the author box? And I know that's the company's name, but come on. That sounds like a company named purely for the anchor text.
This is a really thorough post and I applaud you for it, but you're dropping some other guest posts about local SEO around the web that are fairly thin. And I wouldn't single you out for that if weren't for the righteous "rise above" advice here. We all pay lip service to rising above spammy tactics (or what is ostensibly spammy according to Google's guidelines/Matt Cutt's proclamations) without actually committing to it. Practice what you preach, you know?
After hanging around the industry for a handful of years, including some Moz-approved agencies, I can tell you the difference between what's spam and what's legitimate is almost often in the eye of the beholder. Virtually every agency says don't spam, but in practice... we might not be so eager to let go of some of that stuff.
It doesn't seem all that "TAGFEE" to me to keep using low end tactics and act like we don't. It would be better if we all just embraced our warts in SEO and addressed the borderline stuff we all do and actually documented its dwindling or continued effectiveness rather than repeatedly saying "write great content!"
And I know this has been fairly hotly debated here after the whole guest post debacle earlier this year, but that dude was doing some similar stuff to you—namely, acting like it was reasonable to call his company "seo photographer for weddings website designer" or whatever it was.
Garfield_disliker,
I don't think its unfair to call that out at all although I would disagree with your opinions. Using the Lawyer SEO Marketing brand was a simple approach for us to define what we do at first glance. Typically when crediting the companies I run I'll include a backlink with the brand name. If I was truly interested in taking that to a spam level I would diversify it greatly with money keywords such as "lawyer marketing services", "Attorney Marketing", etc., (which we don't do). If using that website is spammy based off just the domain name then we probably have different views of spam (which is of course common in the industry). So while it wasn't my intention to do so I see where you're coming from on this. I presume that if the company name were Ethical Legal Marketing, in line with our main brand, then there would not be an issue?
I'm also a bit confused about the thin content piece. I never really write very thin pieces or at least what I would consider thin. I'm trying to keep the user in mind and I aim to make helpful resources when I create these and they take a long time to create. If you have suggestions for improvements please let me know. I take feedback seriously and like to learn from every interaction.
I understand your comment "We all pay lip service to rising above spammy tactics" and we're big fans of practicing what we preach whether its for us or our clients. I'm not saying that Iv'e never participated in it, but at the same time Iv'e learned those lessons throughout the years and I can tell you that I don't mess with it. Additionally it's hard to know the full picture of any website without diving deep. Another reason I bring that up is negative SEO. We have been targeted for the past 1.5 years aggressively under a negative SEO campaign.
Having seen the worst things spam can do to a website I'm a very strong advocate and totally against it. I try to make that pretty clear in most of my writing & speaking. It's not worth the potential damage you can cause in any way shape or form.
I really like how you said "It would be better if we all just embraced our warts in SEO and addressed the borderline stuff we all do and actually documented its dwindling or continued effectiveness rather than repeatedly saying "write great content!". I agree with that 100% and it's something iv'e struggled with a lot. I always want to provide practical advice when writing so I think there is a better way to include address this. I'm going to think about that.
Casey, thanks for the thoughtful response. It sounds like we're generally on the same page here. You're basically getting at what I mentioned in my initial comment, which is that "the difference between what's spam and what's legitimate is almost [always] in the eye of the beholder."
As far as the brand name goes, I see where you're coming from, but giving your company a near literal description of your service is a very SEO-centric perspective.
It's not something major brands do for the most part, so it always comes off as fishy to me, which might or might not be fair. E.g., McDonald's isn't called "Cheap American Food Restaurant" and Nike isn't called "Athletic Apparel for Consumers." It just seems like only SEO agencies name their brands so literally. But maybe that's not a cheap tactic so much as that's just how our brains think after doing keyword research for years.
And as far as the "thin" content piece—I'll cop to being unfair with that. You're right about keeping the user/reader in mind. My standard is usually, "did I learn anything from this post?" If I didn't, it's thin to me. And that's a limited perspective—readers are of course at all levels of experience in the industry. So I'll retract that accusation!
Generally, the whole industry writes way too much and that's why everything comes across as thin to me, but hey, people read it, so whatever.
Lots of good tips here. I can't say enough how important a site audit is. And really, this is just you going back through all your pages or posts and sprucing and dusting and fixing things up. And don't be afraid to look into Adsense too - I wish I would have coordinated my site audit with inserting new ads. Often older posts I thought nothing of are still getting decent traffic months later, and getting a little more on the daily take isn't a bad idea.
thank you Casey for this useful post
In most cases the early bird gets the worm but in the case of Local SEO, ya gotta snooze to get the prize: NAP NAP NAP. :) Great post, Casey!
Thanks Brian!
Haha Brian, I'm stealing that line! :-)
Indeed a very useful information Casey! I've listed the tips that I have yet started doing, Right now Im working on how to increase the user engagement. Getting more reviews would be really helpful :)
Awesome post Casey! Can't wait to share.
That LA Personal Injury example was an especially bad one. Tons of us reported it. Then I went direct to Google management and they were taken down in about a week. However, over the Holidays I noticed one of them was back so just told Google again last week and this time it was taken down the same day. So FYI now they are both gone.
So the best part is, now there are 2 other LA attorneys in the pack that were previously locked out. Getting violators removed can take perseverance, and multiple tries, but it's worth it.
Thanks Linda! As you know that' one of my favorite examples and it keeps coming back from the dead lol! Thanks for continuing to report the spam listings like that and all of the work you do.
I've had to do that myself several times in Dallas local with spammers... In my experience it's ALWAYS faster if you just have Google call you.
Scott, do you recommend reporting as spam and then requesting a call from Google? Or just trying the call straight away? In my experience they usually tell me to go to the page and report it manually anyways. Also, if you have any experience with manual spam reports, does it usually take reports from quite a few different accounts to get a listing taken down?
Fantastic post for 2015. I want more!! ;)
Thanks Ivan!
Nice tip with Solicit your Gmail clients for reviews.
But I still wonder why Google Maps/Places for Business team don't want to let users embed reviews and ratings box on their websites.
Have you tried to iFrame the G+ page onto your site? (I haven't, btw --- just thought of it in response to your statement) ~~ might not work due to security & login issues.
It doesn't work. :(
Great stuff, Casey.
We just happen to be taking on some new local clients and you better believe I will be referring back to this post for tips and pointers to improve my game. Given the number of factors and the detail required in our industry, it can be overwhelming but your "cover the basics" approach makes it easy for Mozzers of all skill levels to follow your process. You have made what could be a very complicated topic extremely accessible.
Great job and I look forward to future work (and of course sharing this with my team).
Rob
Really a Great & Informative Article.
Great post Casey, we work on a lot of local campaigns for our clients, its great to see more great posts backing up the work that's being done. NAP all the way.
Thank you mate, very helpful.
Awesome, Informative Stuff for 2015 SEO Strategies...! Thanks for Sharing. :)
Oh, thank for your great post.
Such an interesting article. Thank you a lot for such helpful post!
informative and organized examples, example of a good post
Hi all,
Great article. I have a couple questions on which I would pretty much appreciate any of you guys feedback.
I'm managing a website of an educational institution that has multiple campuses locations. There's is a dedicated page for each location with the correct content, metadata and NAP information.
Example: mysite.com/london mysite.com/dublin
At the same time, at mysite.com I also have courses which are lectured on these same different locations.
Example: mysite.com/course is taught in London and Dublin.
My question is, when optimising the course pages, should I add locations to Titles?
Example: "Learn SEO with our advanced course in London or Dublin"
I'm not adding NAP or keyword focus content on locations to these pages but rather to the Course itself lectured but the course is in fact lectured on these locations which could be an opportunity to deliver relevant information. Would really appreciate your feedback on this because at the moment I have locations mostly everywhere on my title tags.
Thank you in advance,
Pedro
I have an event booking business in which I book artists for events throughout cities in the US. Is it possible to get ranking in each local market without have an actual address? Would either Google Business Local, or Google Brands be the best way to get ranking for my business in multiple local markets without having an actual address? Can a database of cities throughout the US be added in bulk via a spreadsheet to Google Brands?
Thanks
Excellent post Casey!!!
Thank you so much for write this blog and share with us...
Hello,
I've a CCTLD website or domain, that ends up with .ae for Google.ae or Google UAE search engine, since a year my most of keywords are not showing up in the first 30 page of Google.ae!! although they are showing up in the first or second page for other google search engines like google.com or .fr or any local google search engine, how could I troubleshoot this problem in ranking for Google.ae? it seems that my site is penalized on Google.ae only? is it ablack hat attack??
any answer could help
thanks
Great post Casey ! Local SEO is a part that I still have not mastered very well.
Some real good tips here. And yeah never get into the spamy things, unethical SEO will be the bigger threat than ever in 2015.
Interesting post but I am confused about one thing; in the section on 'Spam still works' you highlight two websites and say "you still see crap like this example below show up in the SERPs". One of the sites highlighted is www.avvo.com. Then at the end of the post in 'Practical tip 3: don't ignore barnacle SEO' you identify 'Avvo' as one of "four additional places I may be able to show up on". Can you clarify or correct that? Thanks.
The spam I was referring to is a common tactic used by spammers to put a website in their Google My Business listing that is not their own. In this case they were linking to a generic category page that also had a strong organic presence and they were piggybacking off of the domain authority of Avvo.com
I'm not saying AVVO is SPAM, I'm saying the way that they used a different domain with a stronger domain authority to rank higher is shady, especially since they change it back and forth.
Let me know if that clarifies things.
Great stuff Casey. The Nifty study really shed some insights on the new "Carousel".
Great post. I actually never cared about building links to the 3rd party pages since i always thought they already have some solid authority in them. And yeah, about duplicate citation i always take care about them. I focus mainly with consistent Business Name, Phone Number and Address. I read it some where not to focus too much on the street addresses.
I will definitely take care of what i have learned so far in this post !! Thanks again :)
Another great article, always learning something from these articles.
Thanks Casey
Really useful post Casey,
I really like the idea of filtering your emails to get customers who have a gmail account and sending them the direct link to your page. This is a really quick way of finding people with a Google account to give you a review.
Thanks Jonathan. Iv'e had better success with that then other methods.
I really liked what you said about finding top ranking third party sites. We were just using a template for all clients and working through the sites in that order. We had the higher impact sites first. However, for those low budget clients, finding the top ranking third party sites and making sure the listings were on those sites is brilliant. This way you can make make the most of your time. After that you can start making your way through the rest of the sites. This is a great tactic. An effective local citation takes times and effort. You have to be consistently maintaining. It is often difficult for clients to understand, but being able to identify the most important sites may help you see results a little sooner.
Making sure you are keeping up with other factors of SEO is important as well. I am glad you mentioned this. It is easy to think one area is more important and forget to work on the others. We all have to remember it is a joint effort. All areas are working together to get the best results possible.
Some really great insights here. I really liked the "barnacle SEO" part. Are there specific markups that can be done within the big data aggregators (yelp etc.), that can improve upon this even further?
Also, I have a question about Video and SEO. I have looked for a week straight for any info on the following question and can't find an answer for the life of me. Do you, or any professionals you know, have any data on the amount of searches done in Google that use the video tab as opposed to the general SERP?
Gerry,
Regarding your question about video SEO I am not sure about. I normally focus on just the standard SERPs.
With Barnacle SEO and the data aggregators you can sometimes add links to additional profiles like Yelp, Facebook, etc. depending on the data source. Whenever they ask for these links its a good idea to provide them. The more signals you can send towards your brand and the more links you get to your brand pages naturally the better.
Casey, this is great advice on the additional sources to show up on I was not aware of...will check them out! thanks
Hi Casey,
Most of the tips were really awesome. But one tips which I am still not able to add to marketing arsenal is the "Barnacle SEO". I still cannot figure out to do that. One more thing I wanted to add here is is the significance of NAP consistency across local directories and sites and also building a good circle on Google local for improved brand visibility. What are your thoughts on this?
Amit,
What industries or verticals do you work in? There is pretty much always a chance to compete with barnacle SEO. Of course NAP consistency is very important and should not be overlooked, especially on the top citation sources as I mentioned.
With building your Google Circles there are a lot of added benefits to this. Let's say that you're a Los Angeles based business and you worked on growing your circles with Los Angeles residents. Or maybe you took it a step further and started trying to get potential customers (those who hang out where people who commonly purchase your products hang out) in your circles. When you make Google Plus updates they will see these in their search results if they're logged in and typed in a relevant query.
Thanks for feedback Casey!! We work across all verticals and Health, Fashion, Home related are the prominent ones. How do you relate the Barnacle SEO term to these verticals and what should be ones job to grab those benefits.
Hi Amit,
It is important to apply the Barnacle tactic with great creativity. I believe that you should check out the following link (https://moz.com/blog/barnacle-seo-whiteboard-friday). The great takeaways on how to do Barnacle SEO from this video that you might find useful is: Finding opportunities to create a reference, add missing quotes, offers updates or videos and suggest links to your clients' Social Media profiles. Hope this helps.
Liked the tags part, its not just about placing keywords in meta title anymore. If you need some CTR you need to make it really attractive.
The most important is to offer something that moves visitors to return. I have a question: how to define a target for the traffic? That's impossible. There is no method assumes that correctly predict organic traffic.
Hey Casey,
Thanks for the useful post, you highlighted some great aspects of local SEO in 2015. I just have few questions in my mind and hope that you gonna entertain them,
Looking forward for your thoughts. :)
Umar
Umar,
Thanks for your feedback. If a client is looking to get conversions and traffic from a specific geographic area then they should focus their marketing efforts in that geographic area. Really you should never get a link from somewhere just for the link itself if its not relevant in any other way.
Regarding multiple sites I'm always a fan of one website and laser focusing your efforts there.
Thanks for the feedback, Casey. Looking forward for more great reads in future.
Umar asked a general question which Most of the SEOers facing for their website promotional. Thanks Casey to resolve my problem also, irrelevant links does't work.
Great article. Nothing crazy new but excellent one stop shop for everything you need to get started on a successful 2015.
NAP NAP NAP....& a great post here Casey!
Google is Skynet.
~Don't forget to optimize your Google+ page description! This field has followed links from Google, should you choose to put them in... Google loves its own product... 'Nuff said.
'Google is Skynet.' lol very true!
It is the end as we know it :(
Hello gusy, I am ne to this website.
I also agree that a map is very important for local SEO campaign and helps a lot achieve high rank in the search engines.
nice post. thanks for sharing the tips
This is also a very good stuff which I really enjoyed reading and I have you marked to check out new stuff......Thanks for sharing informative information with us!!!
The first great and useful article in 2015:)
I read your blog; this is very nice and helpful blog. Thank s for sharing this kind blog and I want more....
1. Build and Maintain a Strong Site Architecture
2. Craft Holistic, Key Phase related Content
3. Develop a User-Based Approach to Site Design
This Things are also necessary.
Hi Casey !!!
Very interesting post!
I have followed some of your advice and the truth is that it is working quite well.
On the images, as comets, SEO has achieved that images are important in web design, this has made it mandatory. They have a special weight and this makes you a good position. It seems very important, among other things ...
Thank you very much for your advice.
Regards,
Really a Great & Informative Article.
Thanks Casey for sharing this wonderful blog with us. I am going to implement these strategies on my projects.
Yes I agree with you :)
Local phone number is very important, not mobile.
Yes, is more important local phone!