Local SEO, how much additional information to fill out beyond NAP
-
Hello,
When filling out citations, do you flush out each site with extra profile information like picture, categories, service area, etc or do you just fill out NAP and website link and move on?
I'm concerned about the time factor but I want to do good SEO that lasts into the future.
What do you skip and what do you add?
-
If it's always a planned action then I don't know. If none of the experts have noticed a difference then perhaps it doesn't matter. Maybe something to keep in mind in case one day things change. Thanks Miriam
-
Hi Bob,
A citation campaign is going to generate a lot more than 2-3 duplicate listings. Just a glance at GetListed.org's Local Search Eco-system shows how much data is fed, scraped, shared:
http://getlisted.org/resources/local-search-data-providers.aspx
My point being, it's just baked into the system. Think about when people use a service like Localeze and the distribution that occurs from that. I agree with you that naturalness is generally desirable, but directory inclusion isn't really a spontaneous and natural occurrence (like reviews are supposed to be). It's a planned action on the part of a business. So, I'm just not sure what natural would look like in this scenario. Know what I mean?
Appreciate your reply, Bob!
-
I think I need more information to answer that, Mariam. I would need to know how a quality local company that does no local SEO naturally would gain citation descriptions (if they would at all) to be able to answer that.
Whatever is closest to natural would be my guess to emulate.If it's natural for a company to have very few or no unique descrptions then I'd say we are totally OK using the same ones.
I know they are scraped but five to ten different descriptions scraped is different than one to three. Maybe naturally one to three is normal
I'd be interested to know your thoughts.
-
Will do.
-
Cool. Please follow up if you get a reply, vzPRO.
-
My 2 cents: I don't think this would affect the small business at all. It would be an issue when comparing two internet yellow page aggregators - they're the ones that lose out because the duplicate content makes their page less likely to rank than Yelp or another large IYP that features the same content.
-
I asked this question to Matt Cutts on Google Moderator.
-
Hi Bob,
That is such a good question. Honestly, I've asked myself that very question, too. What about duplicate content? I welcome the opportunity to share my thinking with you on this and hope you'll tell me if this sounds like good horse sense to you:
When you create a listing at one of the major data providers, it is going to automatically create additional listings on the sites it feeds data to. These auto-created listings will be identical in nearly every way, including the description you've provided. There is no way around this except to avoid listing your company on these major providers (which no sane person would want to avoid doing, right?)
So, the way that data is aggregated and shared, you cannot avoid what might be called duplicate content. Every local business with a citation profile has identical descriptions attached to these kinds of listings, and if there was a penalty involved, it would be affecting all of them, right? And I've never seen any indication of a penalty. Now, there's a chance I could be wrong about this, but my guess is that Google would be sophisticated enough to know that this type of duplication is baked into the way data is shared between the various indexes.
What do you think about that? I'd value your feedback. It's something I've wondered about, as I've said, but I've never taken the time to bring it up amongst peers.
-
Thanks Miriam,
One question: If I have descriptions ready wouldn't I run into duplicate content issues? But my original question has completely been answered, very happy with the feedback here.
-
Hey Bob,
I like VZpro's answer on this one. One area I always try to take advantage of is that some directories allow for a much longer business description than others. At the beginning of a citation campaign, I write descriptions of different lengths so that I have them at the ready for using on the different platforms. Those longer description field allow for a very robust (and optimized) description of the business, so that's something I never pass up.
-
Interesting question... If i would be at your place i would have added extra more information about the band the idea behind it is simple like vzPRO said, this submission, you are not going this for search engines only... but you are doing this for REAL people who are going to take a look of it.
I would defiantly say not to add tons and tons of paragraphs of information but at least add the information that is appealing to your targeted audience and help them convert. Images, Video, Payment information, parking info are the things that are usually helpful for people looking for small businesses like restaurants, bars and similar.
-
Agreed with vzPro - It's generally recommended to fill out as much of the extra content as possible. If nothing else, it makes you more likely to be featured on the internal search for those local websites.
Photos, categories, tags, all contact information, and products/services are a must in my book.
-
I happen to like to fill out the "extra" stuff. My philosophy is that you never really know who will be looking at that particular profile. It's not that much extra time to do.
What do you skip and what do you add?
As I mentioned, you never know who will be looking at that particular profile but if time is an issue I like to add at least the images and description as the images can be titled with your keywords and the description is sometimes used as your meta on certain citation sources.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
NAP: Best practices on your website?
My store currently has 2 location and will soon have 3. I was wondering what the best practice for listing your address information on a website. I currently have all 3 listings on one page, but would like to have a separate page for each location (to include managers and specific location info). My question is what is the best practice for listing locations on a website (for SEO)? Should I have a landing page with all 3 and their NAP info then have a link to the specific page with the same NAP info. Would having that info twice be a negative?
Image & Video Optimization | | nat88han0 -
Google+ Local ranking for company with no website
Hi,
Image & Video Optimization | | Ant71
Im about to start helping a small business who has a facebook account but no website. Has anyone got any experience of getting a business ranking locally without a website? Just wandering if NAP details from a facebook / Google+ account helps with local citation building? Or whether a basic website is required? Antony0 -
Checking in on Local
So it's been a few months since my most favorite thread "Local Really?" (http://moz.com/community/q/local-really) and I have worked tirelessly deleting duplicate citations, fixing incorrect NAP, and adding new citations for the two different locations my client works from. I have added a second Google Plus Local page and verified it as well and linked it back to the page for that location on my site. I have added Schema.org markup on each of the pages relating to the locations with the full address and correct NAP. I research with whitespark.ca to find new possibilities and compare with listings ranking highly. I feel like I have worked non-stop at this but unfortunately I have still seen 0 results from my examining everything. The Google listing is still on page 14 / 20 and seems to be stuck there. Is this fairly normal? I'm just at a lost as I have honestly tried to adhere to all the comments and advice given by everyone here (again while seeing the competition doing none of those things.) I think I'm just looking for that little "things look right just give it time and continue" or even "no! you're doing it wrong still" Thanks in advance!
Image & Video Optimization | | jonnyholt0 -
Once you start fixing Local citations with correct NAP, is it normal for your rankings to plunge at first?
I strongly believe that I have received the most solid Local advice I could from these forums and have started (in just a few days) to make the needed corrections. At the same time I'm somewhat excited and optimistic that it will be a long journey but that it's a learning process. About 5 days ago, I set my website up with "City landing pages" and I started plundering through google, fixing and claiming and correcting as many citations as I could with correct NAP. The journey still continues today as I just got my Bing Local card in the mail and verified. I went to check my rankings on Google Maps, just to see if anything had changed and sure enough it had. My listing had been holding strong at page 10 (which drives me nuts) and now after 5 days of solid work its on page 18. I have to assume that because I'm stirring the dust perhaps Google is confused and maybe in a month or so things might start moving the other way? Thoughts?
Image & Video Optimization | | jonnyholt0 -
Any tips for optimising for Local Search/Google Places
I have a client that used to come up on Google Places consistently for some very competitive keywords - when they ranked quite low for them through their normal website - places would see them above all the organic results in normally number 2 position - whereas they would rank between 16 - 26 normally We have optimised the site and have 'A' grade keywords for the ones we are interested in google placing for and just recently we are out of it all together, even though we have improved their optimisation for that word with SEO Someone said that their phone number on the website had to match perfectly with google places and so does their address. Is this true? Is there anything else that will help them keep their position in places ? ie. setting up a Google + page etc., Any advise would be appreciated thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | intermingle0 -
Local Targeting without the city’s name
Here’s an interesting one for you guys: We show up on page 1 for “Edmonton web design,” (our website is http:web3.ca), however when you search for just “web design” in our city, we don’t seem to show up at all. I know Google is now placing a higher percentage or local companies in a search. So my question is: how can we show up better for a local search that is just “web design”? Does this just come down to domain authority & content or are there other key local factors at play?
Image & Video Optimization | | Web3Marketing870 -
Is city name really a no-no in Google+ Local description field?
I know that adding one's city name in the business name and category tags for Google+ Local is a no-no. And Google says so in its quality guidelines. But what about in the business description? I don't see that in Google's guidelines. Can anyone clarify?
Image & Video Optimization | | HammerandHand0 -
Targeting Local Search Terms
I normally advise clients never to optimise around keywords with very low or even zero recorded Google search volumes. However, if the core keyword has decent volumes but the organisation is serviing specific towns/cities/locations would you consider it valid to optimise for : core keyword + focused location (even if this has zero search volumes). The Google Places results are obviously highly relevant but depending on the core keyword you sometimes get the 3-box places at the top but sometimes in the middle of the natural results.
Image & Video Optimization | | bjalc20110