The craft that is your business navigates the local waterways. Whether yours is an independently owned natural foods store or a medical enterprise with hundreds of locations, it can be easy to get lost cresting all of the little waves that hit our industry, week by week, year after year.
Google endorses review kiosks and then outlaws them. They pop your dental practice into a carousel and then disband this whole display for your industry. You need to be schema-encoded, socially active, mobile-friendly, voice-ready… it’s a lot to take in. So let’s weigh anchor for a few minutes, in the midst of these never-ending eddies, to evaluate whether all of the developments of the past few years add up to a disjointed jumble of events or represent a genuine sea change in our industry. Let’s see which way the wind is really blowing in local search marketing.
The organic SEO journey is now our own
If you’ve only been working in SEO for a couple of years, you may think I’m telling you a fishy yarn when I say there was a time not long ago when this otherwise brilliant industry was swamped with forum discussions about how much you could move the ranking needle by listing 300 terms in a meta keywords tag, putting hidden text on website pages, buying 5,000 links from directories that never saw the light of day in the SERPs and praying to the idol of PageRank.
I’m not kidding — it was really like this, but even back then, the best in the business were arguing against building a marketing strategy largely based on exploiting search engines’ weaknesses or by pinning your brand to iffy, spammy or obsolete practices. The discourse surrounding early SEO was certainly lively!
Then came Panda, Penguin, and all of the other updates that not only targeted poor SEO practices, but more importantly, established a teaching model from which all digital marketers could learn to visualize Google’s interpretation of relevance. There were many updates before these big ones, but I mention them because, along with Hummingbird, they combine to set much of the stage for where the SEO industry is at today, after 17 years of signals from Google schooling us in their worldview of search. If I could sum up what Google has taught us in 3 points, they would be:
- Market to humans, and let that rule how you write, earn links, design pages and otherwise promote your business
- Have a technician handy to avoid technical missteps that thwart growth
- Your brand will live or die by the total reputation it builds, both in terms of search engines and the public
Most of what I see being written across the SEO industry today relates to these three concepts which form a really sane picture of a modern marketing discipline — a far cry from stuffed footers and doorway pages, right? Yes, I’m still getting emails promising me #1 Google rankings, but by and large, it’s been inspirational watching the SEO industry evolve to earn a serious place in the wide world of marketing.
Now, how does all this relate to local SEO?
There are two obvious reasons why the traditional SEO industry’s journey relates to our own:
- Organic strength impacts local rankings
- Local businesses need organic (sometimes called local-organic) rankings, too
This means that for our agencies’ clients, we’ve got to deliver the goods just the way an organic SEO company would. I’d bet a nickel there isn’t a week that goes by that you don’t find yourself explaining to an SAB owner that you’re unlikely to earn him local rankings for his service cities where he lacks a physical location, but you are going to get him every bit of organic visibility you can via his website’s service city landing pages and supporting marketing. And for your brick-and-mortar clients, you are filling the first few pages of Google with both company website and third-party content that creates the consumer picture we call “reputation.”
It’s organic SEO that populates your clients’ most important organic search results with the data that speak most highly of them, even if this SEO is being done by Yelp or TripAdvisor. Because of this, I advocate studying the history of Google’s updates and how it has impacted the organic SEO community’s understanding of Google’s increasingly obvious emphasis on trust and relevance.
And, I will go one further than this. You are going to need real SEO tools to manage the local search marketing for your clients in the most competitive geo-industries. Consider that with the release of the Local Search Ranking Factors 2017 study, experts have cited that:
- 5 of the top 20 local pack/finder factors relate to links
- Quality/authority of inbound links to domain was chosen as the #1 local-organic ranking factor.
Add to this the top placement of factors like domain authority of website and the varieties of appropriate keyword usage.
In other words, for your client who owns a bakery in rural Iowa, you’ll likely need basic organic SEO skills to get them all the visibility they need, but for your attorney in Los Angeles, your statewide medical practice and your national restaurant chain with 600 locations, having organic SEO tools at the professional level of something like Moz Pro in your marketing kit is what will enable you to grab that competitive edge your bigger clients absolutely have to have, and to hold onto it for them over time.
The organic river is definitely feeding the local one, and your ability to evaluate links, analyze SERPs, and professionally optimize pages is part of your journey now.
The offline PR journey is now our own
I sometimes wonder if my fellow local SEOs feel humbled, as I do, when talking to local business owners who have been doing their own marketing for 20, 30, or even 40 years. Pre-Internet, these laudable survivors have been responsible for deciding everything from how to decorate the storefront for a Memorial Day sale, to mastering customer service, to squeezing ROI instead of bankruptcy out of advertising in newspapers, phone directories, coupon books, radio, billboards and local TV. I call to mind the owner of a family business I consulted with who even sang his own jingle in an effort to build his local brand in his community. Small business owners, in particular, really put it all on the line in their consumer appeals, because their survival is at stake.
By contrast, our local SEO industry is still taking baby steps on a path forged by the likes of Wayside Inn (est. 1797), Macy’s (est. 1858), and the Fuller Brush Man, (est. 1906). These stalwarts of selling to local consumers have seen it all (and tried much of it) in the search for visibility, from Burma-Shave billboards to “crazy” local car dealer ads.
In the 1960’s, Pillsbury VP Robert Keith published an anecdotal article which promoted, in part, a consumer-centric model for marketing, and though his work has been criticized, some of his concepts resemble the mindset we see being espoused by today’s best marketers.
Very often, being consumer-centric is nearly analogous to being honest. Just as the organic SEO world has been taught by Google that “tricking” Internet users and search engines with inauthentic signals doesn’t pay off in the long run, making false claims on your offline packaging or TV ads is likely to be quickly caught and widely publicized to consumers in the digital age. If your tacos don’t really contain seasoned beef, your 12-packs of soda aren’t really priced at $3.00, and your chewing gum doesn’t really kill germs, can your brand stand the backlash when these deceptions are debunked?
And even for famous brands like Macy’s that have successfully served the public for decades, the simple failure to continuously create an engaging in-store experience or to compete adeptly in a changing market can contribute to serious losses, including store closures. Offline marketing is truly tough.
And, how does all this relate to local SEO?
Yes, the “three grumpy woman” price gouging and doing “the dodgy”, the desk clerk who screams when asked about wi-fi, and the unmanaged but widely publicized wrong hours of operation — they say local business owners fear negative reviews, but local SEOs are the ones who walk into these situations with incoming clients and say, “My gosh, just what have these people been doing? How do I fix this?”
The forces of organic SEO (high visibility) and offline marketing (consumer-centricity) face off on our playing field, and often, the first intimation we get of our clients’ management of the in-store experience comes from reading the online reputation they’ve built on the first few pages of Google. Sometimes we applaud what we discover, sometimes we quake in our boots. It’s become increasingly apparent that, as local SEOs, we aren’t just going to be able to concentrate on optimizing title tags or managing citations, because the offline world we work to build the online mirror image of will reflect all of the following attributes pertaining to our clients:
- Consumer guarantee policies
- Staff hiring and training practices
- Cleanliness
- Quality
- Pricing
- Convenience
- Perception of fairness/honesty
- Personality of owner/management/staff
This list has nothing to do with online technical work, but everything to do with the company culture of the businesses we serve.
Because of this, local SEOs who lack a basic understanding of how customer service works in the offline world won’t be fully equipped to consult with clients who may need as much help defining the USP of their business as they do managing its local promotion. Predominantly, we work remotely and can’t walk into our client’s hotel or medical practice. We glean clues from what we see online (just like consumers) and if we can build our knowledge of the history of traditional marketing, we’ll have more authority to bring to consultations that address in-store problems in honest, gutsy ways while also maximizing overlooked opportunities.
I once walked into a small, quaint bakery selling dainty little cakes and expensive beverages, decorated in a cozy floral scheme; a place my auntie might have liked to take tea with a friend. The in-store music in this haven of ladylike repose? Heavy metal so loud it hurt my ears, despite being popular with the two kids left to man the shop while the owner was nowhere in evidence. The place was gone within a year.
As local SEOs, we can’t fix owners who aren’t determined to succeed, but our study of traditional marketing principles and consumer behavior can help us integrate the offline stream into the local, online one, making us better advisors. Likely you are already teaching the art of the offline review-ask. Whether your agency builds on this to begin managing billboards and print mailers directly for clients, or you are only in on meetings about these forms of outreach, the more you know, the better your chances at running successful campaigns.
It’s all local now, plus....
In communities across the US, townsfolk have long carried out the tradition of gathering on sidewalks for the pageantry of the annual parade in which the hallmarks of local life stream by them in procession. Local school marching bands, the hardware store’s float made entirely out of gardening tools, the church group in homemade Biblical costumes, the animal shelter with dogs in tow, and the Moose Club riding in an open car, waving to the crowd.
This is where we step in, leading the the local parade to march it past the eyes of digital consumers. We bring the NAP, citations, locally optimized content and review management into the stream, teaching clients how to be noticed by the crowd. And, we do this on the shoulders of the organic SEO and offline marketing communities’ constantly improving sense of the importance of truth in advertising.
In other words, everything that is offline, everything that is organic is now our own. We are simply adding the digital location data layer and a clear sense of direction to bring it all together. And, just to clarify, it’s not that the organic and offline streams weren’t feeding our particular river in the past — they always have been. It’s just that it has become increasingly obvious that a multi-disciplinary understanding does really belong to the work we do as local SEOs.
Manning a yare local SEO boat & charting a savvy course for the future
In the lingo of old salts at sea, a “yare” ship is one that is that is quick, agile and lively, and that’s exactly what your business or agency needs to be to handle the small but constant changes that impact the local SEO industry.
From the annals of local SEO history, you can find record after record of some of the top practitioners stating after each new update, filter or guideline change that their clients were only minorly affected instead of sunk deep. How do they achieve this enviable position? I’ve concluded that it’s because they have:
- Become expert at seeing the holistic picture of marketing
- Base their practices on this, sticking to basic guidelines and seeing human connections as the end goal of all marketing efforts
It’s by building up a sturdy base of intelligent, homocentric marketing materials (website, citations, social contributions, in-store, print, radio, etc.) that businesses can stand firm when there’s a slight change in the weather. It doesn’t matter whether Google hides or shows review stars, hammers down on thin content or on suspicious links because the bulk of the efforts being made by the business and its marketers aren’t tied to the minutiae of search engines’ whims — they’re tied to consumers.
It’s because of this dedicated consumer tie that enough that is good has been built to protect the business against massive losses with each new update or rule. Even a few bad reviews are really no problem. Consumers are still finding the business. Revenue is still coming in. Because of this sturdy base, the business can be yare, making quick, agile adjustments to fix problems and maximize the benefits of new opportunities which arise with each small change, rather than having to bail themselves out on a ship that has been sunk due to lack of broader marketing vision.
Let’s sum it up by saying that to chart a good course for future success, your company must know the technical aspects and historical tenets of local, organic, and offline marketing — but above all else, you must know consumers and have a business heart dedicated to their service. A mature heart is one that wisely balances the needs of self with the needs of others. I, for one, find my own heart all-in participating in this exciting and necessary maturation of our industry.
Outstanding blog article Miriam! Our agency works primarily with local based businesses and the balance between their SEO, online reputation, and offline reputation definitely work together (for better or worse). When it comes to SEO, you not only want people to find your business, but find good reviews/articles/etc. about your business as well, especially if the business has a longer sales cycle, where their client would be more encouraged to do research and ask around before buying. Very insightful read and thank you for sharing!
Hi LureCreative!
Excellent points in your comment about not just needing to be found, but needing to be found with a sterling reputation that persuades searchers of the value of the business. Sounds to me like your agency is doing good work out there! Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know this article matches your experience.
And how do you achieve that the information found was good reviews / articles / etc.? How do you control the issues that are not in your web site?
Hi Luis, I run a small freelance writing service specific to the Home Improvement & Design industry (www.PetersonMediaDesign.com). Reviews and testimonials are a hugely important part of these companies marketing strategies.
That said, it is Not possible to control what people say about your company or website on outside (or even internal) review sites. People can, and do, say whatever they want. If they say nice things, Win! That is a powerful, organic testimonial almost stronger than one you solicit and post on your website.
However, when they give a poor review or say something inaccurate, it is the perfect opportunity to provide excellent customer service. They have spelled out, in their own words they're too afraid to say directly to you, what made them unhappy about your service. Don't panic! And don't get defensive, or retaliate, or worse, ignore them! Apologize, and fix it!
It's difficult to give examples of how that could be accomplished without a specific situation, but it could be as simple as offering a special discount on a new purchase, or complicated and expensive like cleaning or replacing carpet after a messy construction mistake. How far you're willing to go to help a customer after a poor experience is up to you.
But know this, a satisfactory recovery from a bad situation is pure gold. Everyone knows things happen. But not every business proves their integrity by responding quickly and professionally. And customers love knowing they're in good hands with a company they can trust.
Hope that helps!
Lea Ann
What to do when a small business is 20-25km out of the nearest city, but still wants to compete for the city name, rather than their rather small suburb? I feel that the rankings are being affected by that distance. Their clientele will be searching for "<particular service> <city name>". Do you "cheat" and get a virtual office in the city?
Hi Brendon,
Great question! This is one of those instances in which our job as marketers is so important, because it's up to us to set client expectations correctly by teaching them the rules of the game. In the scenario you're describing (which is a very common one) the game is being run by Google, and what needs to be taught to the client is that Google's local results are biased towards physical location. Because of this, unless the business is in a very rural area or an industry with little or no competition, they are only likely to rank in the local packs for searches that either stem from devices in their city of location or include their city of location in the search term. They are not likely to rank in the local packs for any city in which the business lacks a physical location. In other words, if your office is in Dallas, you can hope to rank locally for Dallas searches, but if it's in Sugar Land, you should not expect to rank locally for Dallas searches. This is just how Google works, with few exceptions.
Because of this, what the business can do is seek local rankings for their physical location, and seek supplementary organic rankings for any other nearby city they are targeting. These organic rankings must typically be earned via a combination of extremely competitive content + the links that content earns. This is not easy to achieve, but it is possible, whereas going after local rankings for this scenario is often not possible at all.
Where this fails (as in cases in which the organic competition proves to be too stiff for you to get your content into the mix), the business may have to rely on PPC and Social outreach for cities in which the business lacks a physical location.
Virtual offices, on the other hand, would not be something a savvy marketer would recommend to a client as they violate Google's guidelines and can lead to hard suspensions of the fake Google My Business listings. In other words, they risk wasting the investments of the business and can end up associating their brand with spammy practices. So, those should be avoided.
Hope this helps!
Great question, Brendon. And such a valuable response, Miriam!
Now that local search (and the local pack) is based so much on the proximity to the user, do you think it's still valuable to be building out personalized geo-pages for all the cities that you want to rank for? Or it it more beneficial to really try to dominate in the area where the business is located and place more importance on that?
Hey there, Blue Corona,
I'm not quite sure of the definition of "personalized" you reference, but believe you are talking about city landing pages. If I've understood your question correctly, then, yes, it's absolutely still important to develop these, and is, in fact, critical in many cases. Proximity matters - you're so right about that, but there are some searches where it appears not to matter at all. For example, if I'm in San Diego and I'm looking for a contractor in Santa Fe to fix my auntie's roof there, proximity doesn't really come into the scenario as I'm too far away. It's also so important for multi-location businesses to get store locators and their associated landing pages right, or they may simply not be surfaced well at all for local searches.
So, basically, yes, regardless of the proximity factor, our websites still need to "deliver the goods", letting both consumers and search engines know our areas of specialization so that both groups can fully understand to which types of searches our businesses are relevant. Thanks for asking a good question!
Hi Brendon, I followed that strategy of getting a virtual office until I could get an office for my team, and it worked fine. It's a small amount of money for getting an address near your customers.
Miriam—thank you for putting together such an insightful post! I think people greatly underestimate how important of a role organic plays when it comes to local SEO, Everyone just always assumes they need to fine-tune off-site.
Thanks again—I will definitely be giving this another read through to make sure I fully absorb all the helpful info!
I'm so pleased you enjoyed this. Thank you!
Hey Miriam Ellis,
Great stuffs indeed!
Here I discover the fundamentals of offline organic local SEO. I appreciate you with crucial points that offline and organic are the two rivers that feed modern local SEO.
No doubt, local seo is the key opportunity in the modern digital world.
You did a great job dude. Just filtering how did you do that!
Love the way you work. Keep it up!
Thanks,
Hi Shakoat. Glad you found this one useful.
Contém- seo local esta cada vez mais requisitado por media e pequenas empresas, principalmente aquelas que dependem exclusivamente de esrarem bem posicionadas nos buscadores
Lamento que eu não falo Português, mas obrigado pelo seu comentário, Lukareze.
This is a great article. In essence creating a business focused on ethical principals is the first step to any successful SEO practices. My question is related to businesses that have no physical location. For example my brother-in-law runs a financial advisory business out of his home. Everything is online - although sometimes he will meet with clients if they are local. How would you recommend using Local SEO with his company? Use his home address?
Hey Jules!
Provided that your relative meets with his clients face-to-face, then his business model is, indeed, local, and he can stick to listing himself on those local business listing platforms that enable the user to enter the address (his home address) but have it hidden. Phil Rozek of Local Visibility system has written several articles on this that you'll find if you look up "phil rozek hidden address directories". That should be a good place for your brother-in-law to start planning is local search marketing campaign. Hope this helps!
Great article.
Sometimes, I feel old fashion in the new digital world. Kids today are tech savvy and ready to spin a fantastic web of vague promises in wrapped in fleeting uncertainty. It's good to see articles like this tout the value of hard work, honesty, personal commitment and follow through. No matter how flashy the sales pitch goes, in the end it's people talking and working with people.
Good for you, ColemanConcierge! You've really reflected here a point I strongly wanted to make - we're not reinventing the wheel on the web. We're standing on the shoulders of centuries of businesses and their traditional practices to serve customers and market themselves. Hard work and honesty will never go out of style! That's the heart of good business. I really enjoyed your comment!
This is so true, the shift toward local has completely changed our business, not to mention our customers businesses. We are looking for a local consultant to help us with this shift.
I have seen the moz list: https://moz.com/learn/local/trusted-providers has anyone got any experience working with anyone in particular that they would recommend ?
Hi Jason,
If you're looking for a good, single consultant on that list, you might like to contact Phil Rozek whose company, Local Visibility System, is featured there. Phil is very respected in our industry and also quite a nice guy. He knows Local SEO backwards and forwards. Hope this suggestion helps. All of the companies listed are ones Moz recommends, but for a single consultant, Phil would be a great person for you to chat with.
Both are very important, I do not think that it is possible to carry out a website using only one of the two. Anyway, great post.
A great read. Thank you, once again!
I really like the holistic SEO message in the article. It's something i really believe in.
Glade tips On some other occasions to meemp learn seo open easy problem therefore I need much information about seo..your thanks already share
Thank you for writing this!
I have been saying for years that we do not sell SEO services. We're in the business of consulting with our clients with the goal of improving their bottom line. One of the ways we do this is by improving their online visibility but that involves so much more than 3 small letters (SEO). A holistic approach is necessary and I stress that offline activities can have a greater impact on your online rankings than us simply changing the title tag of a web page. I am thankful you articulated what I have been thinking and feeling for a while now. I will be sharing this article with my team and my clients.
Excellent comment, Kevin. I definitely think this is the way the industry is heading, and what you've been feeling about this is a mark of good marketing insight. Keep up the smart work!
Really, really great article
I think this will help to get organic local result, thanks !!!
Outstanding article Miriam thanks for providing your insight and the detail I like.
Your point about a holistic approach really resonates.
Many business owners and even some marketers are still thinking in terms of "tricks" but as we know the search engines have improved way beyond that.
We encourage clients to genuinely focus on customer delivery and make "better businesses" so that we can optimize marketing delivery.
My thanks, Ben, for the kind words! So glad to you're advocating a consumer-centric approach to your clients. Nice!
Thanks for the post! It really pays off to focus on the customer service in terms of local SEO. I think soon or later, there will be a new job as "Internet Reputation Specialist" for full time capacity utilization.
Hi Martin,
Exactly - it definitely does pay to focus on customer service, because what happens in the store will definitely be reflected on the web :)
Local Seo is now very important for small businesses. Thank you
When providing marketing direction to a small business, it's essential to approach their situation holistically (or what might be called strategically) using integrated promotions, not just tactically. That's what marketers do and have always done. So I was very happy to read this, "It’s just that it has become increasingly obvious that a multi-disciplinary understanding does really belong to the work we do as local SEOs."
Hi Robbin,
Glad this post matches with your experience and what you've learned works. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your own tip.
Awesome post Miriam! This will really help a lot to get organic local result.
Wow, great insights here. Local is SO important to small businesses, and many owners wont climb out of the dark ages and hire an SEO to get them ranking!
Hi Eugene,
I think the challenge many small businesses face (from my experience consulting with them) is budgetary. The owner has to get to the point where he or she views hiring an expert as an investment rather than a cost. For example, if the business invests $500 a month in professional consulting and starts making $2000 a month in new sales because of this relationship, the owner can realize that they are experiencing ROI rather than a drain on their funding. Or, if the website needs a total overhaul, the one-time cost of that can parlay into several years of increased conversions that will basically make the website pay for itself, and everything beyond that is pure gravy.
But, it's true - many business owners are still not at the point where they can envision bringing a pro aboard to take them to a new level. In that case, their best bet is to teach themselves everything they can. Happily, our industry is literally loaded with free information, and if they can learn to recognize the good stuff, they can invest their time, rather than their money, in getting as far as they can on their own. Some of the best Local SEOs I know started out this way - promoting their own businesses, and they got so good at it, they became consultants :) !
These algorithms can be applauded regarding the number of people who were posting nothing but ads. SEO tools are necessary for CONSISTENT high-ranking. These tools can become a juggernaut for potential clients to better optimize their website.
You are absolutely right about the consistent part though. One bad review and your ranking go downhill. There are many businesses who want quick success and maximum ROI without understanding the core values on which SEO is based upon.
Thank for sharing Miriam.
Hi Miriam great article!
My question is regarding companies that want to compete on national level. What if you are an energy provider with headquarter in the capital city only but you want and can provide your services all over the country? How such companies can be found and can position themselves organically on google?
Thanks!
Hi Gabrio,
Interesting question, as where I live, the main energy provider has local offices in a variety of cities and makes in-person contact with customers (coming to check and upgrade meters, replying to emergency calls, etc.). There are also offices where you can go to pay a bill - not in every city in my state, but in many of them. Because of these elements, the local energy company is eligible for local listings in the cities in which they are physically located. Is your business model 100% virtual (no face-to-face contact with customers) and does it have only a single office? Please, feel free to provide further details.
Local is key in this day in age of SEO you are correct. Thank you for this blog Miriam!
I have performed on Local SEO activities when I had some hospitality industry's clients. Follow below things, you'll definitely get the result within a month:
1. Use the combination of Keywords + Location for Title, Meta Description, H1 and page content.
2. Use schema properly for the location address.
3. Updated the local event calendar regularly.
4. Use the combination of Keywords + Location for FAQ pages.
5. Show - off the business content with images of local places, events, etc.
6. Maintain NAP consistency in Social Media and Business listing pages.
7. Build high quality links from local domain.
8. Optimise the Google My Business Page with proper pictures and business details.
9. Don't ignore to read and replay reviews.
10. Focus Offline Marketing with participate in Local events as much as possible.
I guess that's enough!