Category: Local SEO

• 

  How can I personalize content based on a state/region? Is it possible?
  

  I'm getting a lot of traffic from different regions throughout the US. I need to personalize the content in my website or on a certain landing page based on the users state/region. Is it possible? For example, forwarding a user that lands on page "x" to page "y" if he's from California and to page "z" if he's from South Carolina. And of course, can this somehow affect my rankings in Google? Thanks!!

  | OrendaLtd

  0
• 

  Does the physical location of a server effect the local rankings of a site?
  

  I've just been running a report on a site and noticed that while they have a .co.uk domain it is hosted on a server in the United States and just wondered if anyone was aware, if the physical location of a server mattered to search engines for ranking purposes especially with local search?

  | ben_dpp

  0
• 

  Benefits of Several Backlinks from same Web 2.0?
  

  If I get several backlinks from same web 2.0 (wordpress, tumblr or so on) will it be beneficial as 1 ? or each backlink will equal? if you say, "will count as 1 cause from same domain" then why don't google give you credit for getting link from 96 DA site? (wordpress)

  | Jubaer96

  1
• 

  Is it worth tracking both "keyword" and "keyword near me" for a nation-wide directory?
  

  We're a directory of industry-specific services, so a lot of people find their way to our site by searching something like "tire repair near me." For every keyword we rank for, ("tire repair"), we also rank for the "near me" version, ("tire repair near me"). I'm looking for opinions on if is worth spending ~50% of the keywords included in my plan to track these "near me" keywords, or if we would be better off tracking some of the most important "near me" keywords, and some of those same base keywords on a local basis for major population centres, (for example "tire repair nyc"). What does the forum think?

  | 4RS_John

  0
• 

  Is using emoji's in meta descriptions a good or bad idea ? - I haven't seen it used much hence my query
  

  Hello Mozzers, We need to redo some of our meta descriptions as our CTR's are not to good. I've noticed one of my competitors using emoji's which I personally think looks pretty good. They are using the Phone icon and ticks - as calls to action etc However, I can't see hardly anyone else using them on general serps ...so I am wondering , is it a bad idea ? thanks Pete

  | PeteC12

  0
• 

  How to find best local websites?
  

  For example, I'd like to type in a zipcode and get the highest ranking websites by DA/whatever metric the software uses, within a 25 mile radius? Does that type of service exist? I'm looking to build up our local links, but most of the websites have extremely low authority. I'm trying to find some good ones without having to manually check each one. Thanks, Ruben

  | KempRugeLawGroup

  1
• 

  Usability: Using Letters in Phone Numbers
  

  A manager wants change our 800 phone number to use letters instead of numbers. This would involve changing our toll free number, changing phone number on website/blog/quote forms (different platforms) and changing on Social Media, Local and citations. i.e. 1-800-GoReds1   versus 1-800-555-5555 Is there any research that shows customers appreciate a Brand Named phone number over simple numbers? It seems it would make using the phone number more difficult except on mobile, where it can be clicked. I have looked online but have found nothing, but am not sure I'm searching the correct terms.

  | RoxBrock

  0
• 

  What can I do to rank higher than low-quality low-content sites?
  

  We lost our site in an actual meltdown at our hosting provider in January, and decided to do a new site instead of bring back a dated backup. So we've only been "active" at our URL since about May. That said, I have not seen any irregular or unexpected penalties. Not showing up is natural if you have literally nothing to show. We have had a site since then, though, and while it isn't going to win any award, we've built it with best practices using sites like this, trying to use natural, helpful, actual language to convey what we do and why we do it (we're web developers for small business making WordPress sites). Paying attention to titles, keyword frequency and variability, alt tags, etc. Always erring on the conservative side. While we build sites for people across the country (and a few in places like the UK), we just moved into an actual office space in our hometown so it's never been more important to push our visibility locally. We've just come back on the scene, in relative terms, so there's no expectation we'll crack the top five or ten; they all have teams of people and bags of capital and have been around many, many years, plus they link to the dozens upon dozens of sites they have done and promote their appearances in press releases and such. Their content is not bad, and most of it is good and not spammy. They are being genuine. That said, we're in the late 40s to late 50s right now. Happy to show up at all, but after that first group of legitimate sites, there are automatically generated webpages (which I thought couldn't even be listed...one is an MP3 download site that mentions one of the top companies in the page title, and just has a random video on the page) local companies touting themselves as SEO "experts" that say things like "Here at Company X, we work hard to bring you the best Rochester, NY web design in the hopes that when you make your Rochester, NY web design decisions, you'll think of us first Rochester, NY web design." I changed the company name and the location, but that's an actual line from their site job listings from places like Craigslist and Indeed hair stylists dentists (?!) Our code validates, we've incorporated Schema for our addresses, our site is usually fast (650ms to 1.3s in Pingdom from Dallas). We don't do any redirecting, our metas likes everyone else's don't count for ranking but are thoughtfully produced, we pay attention to using concise and accurate URLs without stop words, etc. There are also very very few resources loaded on a given page. That said, there's not a lot on the blog that's new and all told we have I think 13 total pages including a few posts. Is it even possible to get close to the actual pack if we, for example, posted more regularly? I was just reading here about how we shouldn't put our links in the site footers of our clients (which we don't always anyway), so I have them only as branded links, only on the homepages, and only on sites that, when crawled, didn't have nonzero spam scores (everyone else has a nofollow link in our portfolio). I realize this is a super generic question but I wasn't quite sure how to search out this particular use case given that our aspirations are so basic...just trying to figure out if there's something obvious we're missing and shooting ourselves in the foot over. A thousand pledges of gratitude! (if this is too common and I just didn't see a duplicate, let me know and I will delete it or ask for it to be deleted....also, I don't want to appear spammy so I am not linking to my site unless it's absolutely necessary...not sure what protocol is...I'm pretty self-aware so I do believe everything I've said above is true).

  | eaglenestmedia

  1
• 

  Local Search - Google Mobile Results (Web&App)
  

  Hi, I have a client with multiple locations. One of the locations manager is searching for branded and non-branded keywords on his mobile phone and not able to locate the business (within the parking lot of the location). Our ranking reports via a local search platform and manual checks indicate the location is actually ranking well. and we're seeing progress in GA. Has anyone deal with something like this before? This is a location that recently opened to the public. The concern is around mobile web and app results. I'm looking for some guidance around how to approach the situation. I'm sorry I cannot provide more details on the client.

  | burnseo

  0
• 

  Two websites, same business name, same NAP
  

  Hi, A client of mine offers loft conversions and wants to make a go of it. So he has a website dedicated to loft conversions. He is also a joiner/carpenter and has another old website which offers general joinery work and insurance work. Both websites have the same business name and same address and phone number. There is only one Google place page for the loft conversions website. The loft conversions website is not ranking as well as we would like locally. Could it be due to the same NAP? What are the best options? Redirect the old website to the loft conversions one (he might not like that idea) Change the address and phone number on one website?(and all subsequent citations?) Would love some help on this!

  | AL123al

  0
• 

  Click to view phone number
  

  Well hello there! We run a local directory site for a specific vertical and use several thousand call tracking numbers (one per listing) to track calls to the local business and report on those metrics (number of calls, appointment set, etc). We are familiar with dynamic phone number insertion to be able to track phone calls back to the type of traffic or campaign sending it.  If we wanted to implement this, it would require an exorbitant amount of call tracking numbers as we already start out with several thousand numbers to begin with. We are toying with the idea to hide the phone number in the directory listing and require the user to click to show the full phone number. We know this is an additional action required by the user, but we assume that this would then help us see the folks who are more serious about calling the number of the local business. We could then use that click metric to then tie out all the goals within GA to look at how effective a given medium is and even look at what content is sending traffic that clicks on the phone number. Two areas for comments: Any input on others who use this metric?  Any input on if anyone thinks this is a good/bad metric?  Anyone have a better idea/technique? Do you think that the search engines would see this technique as a negative? If so, why or why not? Thanks!

  | HeaHea

  0
• 

  Is it ok to delete and repost to YouTube?
  

  Client has rebranded and has a new url. They have a lot of great video content on YouTube that has old branding on it. Bad phone numbers, old url, old company name. I was planning to download, rebrand, then re-upload... But some of the videos have 200 - 2000 views and I prefer not to loose that traction. I assume responses will be along the lines of "you have to weigh which is more important - the brand or the current video rank". Where I'm stuck is how valuable is 200 - 2000 views on 15-20 videos. Not at all I guess, if they are sending people to the wrong place. I guess I'm just thinking out loud, but would love to hear some thoughts other than my own!

  | vernonmack

  0
• 

  Has anyone any experience of Google pulling through random meta descriptions.
  

  If you search "venn digital" then the correct meta description is pulled through, but if you search "venndigital" then it pulls through our twitter feed from the bottom of the page. My only suggestion is that it is doing it because there is no mention of " Venn Digital" in the body of the copy, so it is going to the twitter feed at the bottom of the page where Venn Digital is mentioned to pull this info through.

  | AndrewAkesson

  0
• 

  Whitespark or Moz Local
  

  Hello all, We can't use Moz Local as we're in the UK. Tempted to use Whitespark, but not quite sure what the differences are between the two. Also, can a website design / digital marketing agency be considered to be a local business - in Googles eyes? Thanks!
  William

  | wseabrook

  1
• 

  Google My Business Locations Query- Do I need unqiue Picture File Names for every location
  

  Hello All, I am just in the process of updating all my google business locations for each of my depots. I have been uploading photos but I am wondering if the file names of the photo's need to be unique for every location ? I know I need to describe the picture in the filename so it's good use of keywords but I am wondering if google will see it as spaming if I upload the same product pictures etc to ever google business location ? thanks Pete

  | PeteC12

  0
• 

  I am ranking for local broad terms, but I am not ranking when geo-modifier is included.
  

  I have noticed that my rankings for broad terms have dramatically improved in the area I service. But, when I put the broad term in my search query with a geo-modifier I notice I am still not ranking even though my domain authority and page authority is higher than the competitor who is ranking. Why might this be? I am not penalized, or have a manual action. I am also featured in more hyperlocal niche directories.

  | Ideas-Money-Art

  0
• 

  PPC keywords and locations help
  

  Hi. I have a client who is looking to target locations. In their PPC campaigns they have generic keywords such as web design but the campaigns are location based so Surrey, Kent etc... Would they be better to target UK wide but use localised keywords such as Web design surrey? Also in your view, is the Display Network worth it for a small business competing against cheaper/bigger services/companies? Any views be great. Thanks

  | YNWA

  0
• 

  Home page with no content
  

  Hi, I just want to know if there are any impact on seo ranking if my home page has no or less content, for example I only have a slider with my logo, slogan, navigation and my company info schema? Advance thanks for the help!

  | bchilders22

  0
• 

  Significant organic traffic increase from outside of my service area
  

  I run a local service based business. About 6 months ago, I updated my homepage title tag to incorporate the phrase "near me" (I performed other optimizations as well). Over the last few months, I've noticed increased traffic, calls and online bookings from different areas around the country. I was perplexed, I thought I may have mis-targeted my ppc campaign. After some digging, I found out that my home page ranks #2 in the organic listings for a couple core service keywords with the "near me" phrase added. Of course, my bounce rate, from these visitors outside of my local area, is pretty high (65%). Also, the majority of these visitors are using mobile devices. I see an opportunity here to possibly provide relevant information to the searchers, based on their geographic area. The problem is that, I can't risk modifying my website for the sake of this "out of area" traffic. If I were to provide a page to a visitor based on their ip, could that be considered a black hat tactic? I don't want to do anything that will compromise my core business. Any advice will be welcomed.

  | CWG7575

  0
• 

  2 websites or one .ca and .com
  

  Hi I have a client with a lighting business in Canada but ship to all US- they have ecommerce web site .ca and .com the .ca has always brought more traffic. (they have a store in Canada) they are now redoing the site and trying to decide should they have just one site and the other redirected to it or should they have two and which one the main one- they would like to sell to the us but are obviously stronger in Canada- don't want to lose on both sides.. Appreciate any help!

  | maryk92

  0
• 

  How to remove countries viewing my website
  

  Hi All, I operate from the UK only. How can I exclude select countries from viewing both my organic website and Google Adwords listing. Organic Website
  Are the any free online services that give you a simple click + download/view script to cut & paste into a .htaccess file. Google Adwords
  Ditto as above with the exception to paste the IP list into Campaign | Setting Tab | Advanced settings - IP exclusions Thanks Mark

  | Mark_Ch

  0