Hard to believe it’s already been two months since I’ve been a part of the SEOmoz team! We’ve made some great progress on syncing up our codebase with the SEOmoz development environment. Once that process is complete, the fun part REALLY begins, and we will start to build out additional Local functionality over the course of 2013 and beyond. I can’t wait to write Version Two of this post once we’ve got more of that functionality built.
As an SEOmoz PRO customer since the service launched in February 2007, I thought I’d give a quick little tour of how I’ve used SEOmoz’s existing tools for Local optimization in my consulting role at David Mihm, Inc. over the past six years.
Throughout the last 18 months, I’ve been helping my cousin Tracy with her small business Group Insurance PDX, which I'll use as an example for this post.
Keyword Difficulty Tool
My Goals:
- Determine how realistic it is for an SMB site to rank
- Assess optimization efforts to-date
- Identify SMB competition
- Identify large, fixed objects for “Barnacle SEO
Process:
- Launch the Keyword Difficulty Tool
- Enter the keywords you want to analyze
- View report for each keyword
- Pay attention to Domain Authority
- (Optional) Analyze backlink profiles of SMB Competitors using OpenSiteExplorer
Comments:
The keyword difficulty tool makes competitive research more efficient. Simply run a handful of these reports and, at a glance, you get a sense for who the major players are in your competitive space, and just how dominant they are. I like to pay particular attention to domain authority (rather than page authority) in Local because many small business websites have very few pages, and Google tends to display the homepage for many more terms than you’d typically see in an e-commerce or more national B-to-B space.
As you analyze the list of sites returned for your keywords, keep your eyes peeled for “Barnacle SEO” opportunities -- large, high-authority sites that you might be at a disadvantage to outrank on your own, but offer the opportunity for comments, business listings, or traditional web directory listings. Getting cited or linked to from these bigger guys will give your own site a leg up, and you may be able to get a secondary clickthrough if searchers actually end up on those pages. If it’s your own profile that ranks on those larger players, you may end up with two results on the main SERP.
For the smaller players, check out their backlinks using OpenSiteExplorer simply by clicking the magnifying glass next to their website.
In Tracy’s case, I’m pretty pleased that a relatively young site is competing so favorably in organic SERPs for a lot of her top keywords. The keyword difficulty tool helped identify four of her Local competitors, one IYP where she should consider getting a listing (Dex Knows), and a couple of sites (OregonLive and Examiner) that at the very least she could comment on, and could yield some promising social media relationships.
Clicking through to the Examiner story in particular, the author writes frequently about topics right in Tracy’s wheelhouse, and includes a pretty extensive bio and a prominent Twitter handle. Her following count exceeds her follower count by a 5:1 ratio, which means she’s probably pretty excited about gaining new contacts in social media. This would be a great person for Tracy to get to know.
OpenSiteExplorer
My Goals:
- Identify authoritative local (“Location Prominent”) inbound link and citation sources
- Identify low-hanging inbound link opportunities
- Identify active social networking prospects
Process:
- Enter site to search in URL box (or click magnifying glass next to site in Keyword Difficulty tool)
- Add additional competitors for a high-level overview
- Choose all links, only external, to pages on this root domain
- Sort links returned by Domain Authority for SMB competitors
- Pay attention to high-Domain-Authority links
- Run an Advanced Report for geographic anchor text on SMB competitors
- Run an Advanced Report for product/service anchor text on high-Domain-Authority competitors
- Save links that look promising as potential guest blog, content outreach, or local sponsorship opportunities
Comments:
The OpenSiteExplorer index has never really taken a deep enough dive on traditional citation sources (i.e., Internet Yellow Pages sites), and that’s one thing I’ll be working with the SEOmoz Engineering team on this year. However, it does do an excellent job of surfacing high-value inbound links.
Obviously, every business wants high-value/high-authority inbound links. But they’re particularly important in Local, where one of Google’s many patents regarding PlaceRank references “the highest score of documents referring to a business.” In other words, one extremely high-quality, locally-relevant link or citation can be a difference maker in Local rankings, especially in competitive markets.
As I said above in the Keyword Difficulty section, in Local, Domain Authority tends to exceed Page Authority as a ranking consideration. Because of this, my ears prick up whenever I see a high-ranking small business with one or more of these incoming links. In Tracy’s case, several of her competitors had links from high Domain Authority sources: OregonLive.com (the website of the main newspaper in Portland), the Building Industry Association of Clark County, and two smaller local newspapers (one as a sponsorship, one covering a local neighborhood association meeting).
This exercise yields several link building ideas:
- Establishing a relationship with the OregonLive reporter (more on this in Followerwonk section)
- Creating a dedicated page on her own website for each of her clients, that they can send their employees to for healthcare information
- Sponsoring key local events covered by newspapers
- Inviting newspaper reporters and other local bloggers to key meetings for each of the three groups on which she serves on the Board
Followerwonk
My Goals:
- Start REAL, offline relationships via Twitter
- Identify high-influence social networking prospects
- Identify Twitter users likely to participate in a conversation
- Identify additional marketing/link building opportunities
Process:
- Identify a core group of three popular Twitter accounts to follow. These can be distributors, brands, or manufacturers whose products you sell, competitors, popular neighborhood businesses, etc.
- Visit the Compare Users tab of Followerwonk
- See who follows all three accounts
- Sort them by influence score
- Reverse-sort them by number of followers
- Start following them
- Read their Tweets to understand what makes them tick
- Reach out to them with great content!
Comments:
As you can probably tell from her Tweet stream, Tracy’s like most small business owners. She doesn’t immediately understand Twitter, and unlike those of us who do Internet marketing for a living full-time, she doesn’t have time to monitor her contacts’ streams 24x7 or send out a lot of Tweets herself. She needs a core group of folks to follow and some crib notes of how to interact with them in a way that will lead to some downstream benefit online. It's important for her to figure out who is most likely to:
- Start up a conversation
- Retweet her content
- Lead to additional marketing opportunities like guest columns or interview requests
Tracy is a major extrovert and very active in traditional business groups, including her local Rotary club, local neighborhood association, and local business association. In her case, the goal is just to translate her offline comfort with networking into the Twittersphere.
In this case, I’m looking for people interested in her space, so I chose to compare three of the insurance carriers she represents. Folks who follow all three of them are probably pretty interested in health care for small business owners! I then looked at accounts that were high-authority, but very few followers, to identify those who would most likely pay attention if Tracy were to start up a conversation with them.
Among the group that Followerwonk helped me identify were the healthcare reporter for the Oregonian (whose Twitter bio says “tips welcome”) and Cover Oregon, the statewide health exchange launching later this year (but only has 124 Twitter followers so far). Pretty awesome opportunities to start some productive relationships, wouldn’t you say?
Well, that’s my real-life example. I am sure that among our 18,000+ PRO subscribers, many of you are more actively involved in Local Search at a tactical level and have great input on how you use our tools. I’d love to hear about some of them in the comments! Thanks for reading!
Great one David. Thanks for almost completely unlocking the potential of the OSE and other seomoz tools have in terms of local optimization. I think the acquisition of followerwonk and now getlisted.org the local search optimization giant has now made seomoz a great tool for competitor analysis and helps the marketers in mining out the competitor's data quite easily.
Great post! It's a very simple and working case for any niche kind.
Thanks for sharing your experience)
Great post David Mihm, as it is an excellent "how to" for auditing local centered sites. Very handful (and looking forward the new "local" updates of the Moz products).
Yes, I really second this. I'm very excited to see how the Moz tools become better at Local SEO. Specifically, it's nice to hear that there will be "citation gathering" data.
Hey David - i briefly shook your hand at BGX, stood there awkwardly, then walked away.. maybe we'll get to chat another time.
Thanks for the suggestion. I like what you did with Followerwonk there. Sometimes I'll use it in conjunction with AllMyTweets and Ctr+F if I'm surveying a particular keyword or phrase to see the reception. A peer, Sean Dillon Smith, tweeted about Amplicate yesterday, which seems like a great tool to use to get a real-time feel for consumer reception.
Thanks again, David - keep doing good work
Thanks for that suggestion, Content Muse. Checking out Amplicate right now!
An excellent step-by-step account of the process you followed to help Tracy with her local optimization. I always enjoy reads like this because they both show and tell!
Thanks for this step by step approach. That's a great idea to find local places on twitter. I guess you could do the same thing on Google Plus, too.
Hi Westchester,Yes, this would be great for Plus, if a tool existed that allowed for Circle analysis. Apparently the Google Plus API returns no Circle information (yet?), though. Which makes it much less useful for marketers than Twitter :/
Google + is a little bit more complicated for finding local places than Twitter, but it is doable. I have tried it, and didn't have many success with it. Like /David said, there is no circle information, so it is less usable than Twitter.
You can use Tweetdeck to search for hashtags and mentions for your desired lcoal places which is also a great time saver when it comes to this tactics.
This is a great article. I have been wondering what the full tools will allow and this has shown me what I am missing. Will definitely be signing up.
Thanks for sharing and using a strong example throughout. Looking forward to the local updates!
I like that you take such an analytical approach to local SEO. Too often I see a more haphazard strategy. Good article.
David, very good blog post, and great walkthru. SEOMoz has some amazing tools.
Bookmarked. I've been given the 'task' of helping to launch my wife's new local business so appreciate the local tips on Seomoz.
Hello! Thanks for the article. We use Open Site Explorer a lot but never tried Followerwonk. From your explanation it seems like a good tool to look into creating more online and offline relationships. During your test, were you able to make connections that turns into a lead? or you were using it for Link Building alone?
Excellent post. I've followed similar methodology before, but it's nice to see a straightforward illustrated guide.
I have used the open site explorer for ciation check but not as much clear the whole thong.Your post help me to understand the total thing completely.
David, I'm curious how you would do an analysis on the top 7 maps? Its easy to pull reports for everything below (or above) the maps. You say you are using SEOmoz for local optimization, but cannot currently pull a Keyword Analysis of the top maps listing?
Yep, currently there's not an easy way to do that with the SEOmoz toolset. We are working on a few features to help address that :)
I haven't used the SEOMoz "rank tracking" tool specifically for Local in some time, however, I do remember it having a simplified element of tracking local. This takes the form of a little "pin" checkbox if you have a local result (it's simlar for Video as well).
For specifically tracking Local maps results, Local SEOs have been using specialist local tools to get the job done. The 2 that I currently use are BrightLocal and Places Scout (which is fairly new). The latter is exceptional and deserves all the praise it's getting from Local SEOers. It's going to be exciting to see how the Moz tools develop with Local. I currently benefit from using the Moz tools for the "links/off-page" side of Local SEO, so it will be nice when more local functionality is added to make it more versatile.
Another fantastic post on Local SEO!Link building for local areas, especially niche industries can be hard and tiring, but you've offered some great tips and methods!Thanks for the information
David, I'm curious how you would do an analysis on the top 7 maps? Its easy to pull reports for everything below (or above) the maps. You say you are using SEOmoz for local optimization, but cannot currently pull a Keyword Analysis of the top maps listing?
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This is an interesting post I never really thought of trying this, thanks!
Thanks David :-)
Most people try to do SEO without keyword planning. So their hard work is becoming
valueless. In this case keyword competition and keyword difficulty tool is very important. In
this case, MOZ keyword difficulty tool is valuable to plan and specially thanks for this tool for 30
days free trial. But would you please describe about local SEO optimization?
Hi David,
Comprehensive article.I use most of the SEOmoz tools but this gives a clear overview of how they can work with each other for different purposes.
I've been saying it for months - but I really need to check out Followerwonk further. Looks like a great tool. Love the post (I'm a huge fan of the SEOmoz toolset and use on a daily basis).
One thing fact if you want to get good response for your online business then first of all you should attract local area's customers from where you are working and then you can see how result will come out in favor of you.
It seems that lately in my niches, EMD's are the only thing that really matters. I love open site explorer but can't make sense of the rankings and links a site has.
Thx for the post. I like OSE. Just wish we had the indexes updated sooner. Never heard of Followerwonk will check them out.
Great post, giving some ideas of using seomoz tools. I've not used the keyword difficulty tool, but it looks great.
Fantastic post David and interesting to see how the Moz tools can be used for Local. I've given feedback in the past that the SEOMoz tools are not geared towards Local SEO. However, I've used the tools you've mentioned in a similar way. With the competitive analysis (studying domain authority etc), this can be done "as a quick snapshot" using the mozbar as well.
I think the section on Social is important as well. As you quite rightly mentioned, small business owners need a simple brief plan of action for engaging with social. It's not going to be an ultra comprehensive social campaign.
Nick,Yep, I am sure the MozBar is awesome. For whatever reason I removed it from Firefox way back when to try to improve performance and never added it back once I got a faster CPU. How do you use the Mozbar with your clients?
Well, for any website that you happen to be on, you are getting all the important metrics: Domain Authority, Page Authority, Mozrank. This is great to have "straight away" and when I get a Local SEO enquiry, I can quickly see what shape the website is in by getting these metrics at the top.
Also, if you install SEO Quake toolbar (in addition), you can see things like "age of domain". Very important to understand if you're working with a brand new website.
Another great thing about the Mozbar is showing what links are "follow" and "no-followed" (highlighted on the page). You can see if one of the links from a local source (such as a newspaper story for example) carries as much weight, and is a follow link.
Hope that helps David. I use the Mozbar each day - I love the way things like DA, PA etc are displayed directly next to the SERPs as well.
Great post. I´v waiting for this post since you announced your collaboration. I´m waiting for the follow up for this post! :o)
Hi David,
You're doing great things in your short time here! Thanks for the post, this is a great outline for keyword research. I feel that local KW research often gets overlooked so thank you again.
Great post. Thanks for sharing.
David - I have heard mixed feedback on the followerwonk - you seem to really be using it for the best reason.
Interesting.
Like all the Small Biz posts you write David, this one is fantastic.
Hi David, I have been a big fan for several years (getlisted.org local search ecosystem is one of my all time favorite infographics) and was really excited when you became part of the SEOmoz family. Congrats! I love the step by step instructions with screen shots in the post, using OSE and Followerwonk, 2 of my favorite daily use SEOmoz tools. I look forward to your future posts.
Thanks for this, David. I also have some friends and family members with small businesses and I want to help them in their local markets. Your ideas are going to be a huge help.
I'm really looking forward to see what new local features Moz introduces.
What an incredibly helpful post! I've used a lot of these features similarly--especially Open Site Explorer--but this will help me refine my local SEO audits. Thank you!
@Stone can you share what the difference in your process is? I would love to hear what I can improve upon. Understand if it is a company policy not to disclose, however :)
Very insightful David! I don't personally use SEOmoz since I don't work on client sites any more and only do local SEO training now. So I was never very clear on exactly how the Moz tool set could be used for local. This is super helpful and now I am seeing some good applications. Now that you are on the team, I'm sure we'll soon see lots more local functionality.
Thanks Linda. I am surprised you had never used Moz's tools before -- I have found them, if not *quite* indispensable, super-helpful at making my process more efficient.
Glad to see you around more these days! :)
Thank you for the informative post David. I haven't found a use for Followerwonk until now. I appreciate the step by step walk through and definitely picked up some local optimization tips as well.
Thanks for creating this step by step guide David. Although you do talk about a Twitter strategy for developing relationships with key influencers, one thing that is not mentioned is a plan to build social mentions. While Twitter is a powerful source of building Inbound links we can not discount the value of being mentioned or building reviews on sites like Facebook, Yelp, Google+ and Foursquare just to name a few. Lately I have been seeing that social relevance is playing a major factor in local rankings especially for industries such as restaurants, retailers, and service providers.
Great post David. Thanks for giving my team a workflow for using SEOmoz for local SEO audits. :)
Great work David, Thanks for sharing your experience. I am sure they will help many people out.
Thanks for the walkthrough, about to start a similar project (in terms of local rather than your market). Hopefully we can compare in a follow-up.
David: Very, very helpful. Loved the format of goals, process and then the practical step by step explanation. I think I speak for a lot of small business owners who would love to see more of these kind of "SEOmoz How to Case Studies"
Thanks Kevin! I will definitely try to do more of these going forward, especially once we get a few more of our tools built out.
Great post David,
As more SMB's start to "get" marketing their business online and start looking for people to work with to get it all done, this is great information to provide; locally-focused, highly relevant tips and tricks.
Cheers!
One of the more insightful and helpful posts I've read. Thank you for breaking this down in an easy to follow format.
Thanks for such a great post and the review, I am totally impressed ! Keep stuff like this coming . I got to know for your explanation that SEOMoz has some amazing tools. So thanks again David.
Great post David Mihm, as it is an excellent "how to" for auditing local centered sites. Very handful (and looking forward the new "local" updates of the Moz products).
Thanks
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Thanks Kevin! I will definitely try to do more of these going forward, especially once we get a few more of our tools built out.
Thanks