Searches without adding my city

[twoacejr]

Hi all,

I have a small IT business and run it out of my home. My main keywords are: "Computer Repair Services".

I have been optimising my site for awhile now. I am in Douglasville GA.  If I search:

"Computer Repair Services Douglasville" I am on pages 1-3 at any given time. I also show in maps on page 1 at times.

If I only search "Computer Repair Services" I am nowhere to be found. I see other companies in my town listed but not me. I am missing out on opportunities from everyone outside my small town who does not include the city in the search. Also from all nearby towns. I know I do not have many backlinks and I need more Domain authority.

I have run Open Site Explore on a competitor and his site has less authority and links than mine. He is always listed on page 1 without the city in the search.

Can someone explain how I can be found without using my city in the search.

Thanks

[twoacejr]

Great!

Will definitely take all your advice along with others that posted here.

Thank you and everyone who responded.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey There!

Yes, if your Douglasville-related efforts are done correctly, users based in that town should be able to find you for your product/service terms without having to include the city name in their searches. Google definitely works this way.

Unfortunately, without a formal audit of your business and competitive analysis of your competitors, we'll just have to speculate here as to why you are being outranked by competitors who you feel aren't as strong as you are. There are so many reasons for this including the age of their sites vs. yours, the spread of their data vs. yours around the web, etc.

You could look for a good Local SEO company to perform this type of analysis, or, if you are on a bit of tight budget right now, you could get going with all of those steps I've outlined in my earlier reply, then give it a few months and see how far all of it gets you. Chances are, you should start to see a positive difference.

[twoacejr]

Wow a lot to take in!

Thanks for the information. I need to read and re-read all this.

If done properly, will I be found in my town/area for my keywords typed in without users having to type my city in the search?

I see my competitors are found without using the city in the search. And I have run Moz tools and see theirs sites "seem" to me have lower Domain and page authority, fewer backlinks, as thin if not thinner information on Web pages than I have. Yet they are on page 1 without any mention of city in the search. I am on page 2 and sometimes page 1 with the same search but only if I add "Douglasville" on my search. This is where I get confused. Why don't I see the difference using tools to investigate some of their sites?

Thanks

[MiriamEllis]

Hey There,

You've received some really nice feedback from Patrick, so I'm just going to add a bit of my own here.

Foundational Understanding

It's vital to understand that, despite the fact that Douglasville is a small town, it is the town Google will see you as most relevant to once you've got your Local SEO basics in place. You have to anchor yourself to Douglasville, taking care of it first and then building out from there.

Your basics are:

1. The most helpful, fast and professional website you can produce, properly optimized for the core Douglasville term with abundant focus on contact information.

2. Adherence to the Google quality guidelines in the creation of your Google+ Local page (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en)

3. Clean, consistent citations on a variety of other platforms (http://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-us)

4. Beginning your acquisition of reviews on any of the above platforms that feature reviews.

All of the above is primarily geared toward your prominence in Douglasville.

Next Steps

Now, moving on from the basics with the foundational understanding that search engine rankings are going to be different for each user, given that the user has become a major centroid of search, your second set of tasks moves out from here and includes these:

1. Develop a publishing plan to cover on your website all of the cities that you serve. Each city that you serve will be treated to a unique page of content on your website (no thin, duplicate pages). This is a major creative effort, worth your very best effort. The point of this effort is to gain organic (not local pack) visibility for the cities that you serve.

2. Develop a publishing plan for ongoing content development on your website or website-based blog that continues to showcase your expertise as it relates to both your services and service cities.

3. Assess your social opportunities, in terms of the places customers already hang out where your outreach could be useful. Participate on an on-going basis on those platforms.

4. Look for additional city-or-industry specific platforms where you can earn citations. This might be things like Douglasville's Chamber of Commerce, or the website of computer repair association or club.

5. Look for competitive difference makers, wherever you can find them. For example, are your competitors doing video marketing? If not, there's something for you to consider doing which they aren't. Are your competitors doing PPC, radio or TV advertising, supporting a local sports team, hosting workshops, writing a column for the local newspaper, offering specials or holding contests? Anything that your competitors either aren't doing at all or aren't doing very well is an opportunity for you to surpass them with a superior effort. Competitive difference makers will be different for every industry/geography/individual company.

In Sum

Whether you accomplish all of the above solo or end up hiring a Local SEO agency or other marketers to assist you, the hoped-for result of this work will be:

1. Increased conversions (phones ringing, forms being filled out) as a result of:

2. Better local pack visibility for Douglasville-related searches

3. Better organic visibility for your service city-related searches

4. Broader visibility on both on and off-line platforms

Knowing how well you are doing on all of the above tasks is going to be based either on your own education about Local Search Marketing or on the savvy of the marketers you hire. Just remember, rankings are not the end goal here - conversions are. Good luck to you and hope this helps!

[PatrickDelehanty]

No problem! Let me know if I can be of assistance going forward - good luck!

[twoacejr]

Got it.

Lots of work ahead.  Thank you very much for this info. Excited to get started.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

If that is the name of your business, then use that, and like you said, keep it consistent for all listings. You'll find this is especially important for Moz Local.

Read this as well: Advanced Local Citation Audit & Clean Up: Achieve Consistent Data & Higher Rankings (Moz)

Lots of great information in there!

[twoacejr]

Once again great info.  Thanks. I will begin to research and start the process you described.

Another confusing factor I can not seem to find an answer to is:

My official company name is:  Creative Technology Solutions Inc.

I am listed on Google places (maps) as: Creative Technology Solutions

Should I change it in Google places to:  Creative Technology Solutions Inc. and as I add my listings to these new sites use **Creative Technology Solutions Inc. **which will match up with google places? I read the information must be exact. I am just not sure if the company's official names should be used or it doesn't matter.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi again

I see that Atlanta is the closest major city to you (correct me if I am wrong). What I would do is search for any industry related business listing opportunities to that area, as well as any networking opportunities there may be.

Here are a few I found just with a quick search:**
BizJournals
Atlanta.com
Metro Atlanta Chamber
Yellowbook
City of Atlanta

I do not endorse these listings as "you should obtain these" - that's upto you, as the business owner, to decide

I would also look into Whitespark, as they have niche listing packages, as well as local packages.

Also - if there are any certification opportunities in your field to obtain, go for those! Most of the time certification services list where their partners are by city and state, which can help you at the local level as well. This is also great for trust signals to users and search engines, as it's relevant to your industry.

But remember - build listings if they are relevant, consistent, and accurate to the services you provide and the areas you serve. Do NOT just build citations to build citations.

Let me know if this helps! Good luck.

[twoacejr]

Will review Moz local.

How do I build citations in other cities?

[PatrickDelehanty]

I see - try looking into Moz Local and also building citations in cities around you, but always make sure your address and service areas are consistent.

Don't just build citations for the sake of building citations in areas around you if you don't serve them.

[twoacejr]

Will do.

There are so many nearby cities here and Douglasville is really small. That is why I want other people from nearby cities to also find me.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi again

Here's what I would say - while you want to be found without users putting in your city, you're a small business that serves a local area. With so much revolving around personalization of search and there being no guarantee of you showing up in SERPs sometimes, the best thing you can do is focus on building the best possible web experience you can and optimizing for local as much as you can. Remember - your focus is local, so make sure you're doing everything you can to appear, and again, provide a stellar web experience and presence for your users.

One thing I completely forgot to mention - look into Mobile SEO. Run your site through Google's Mobile Friendly Test and take their advice on optimizing your website from a mobile aspect. This is a big deal considering the algorithm that just rolled out.

Hope this helps!

[twoacejr]

No worries of anything said. I know the site needs much work. I am definitely not a writer but will try to build better content and take all your suggestions.

I have been in business since 2002 and feel it's time for more presence with a website. I have a home office and usually service businesses on their site. I recently added my real home address on google maps business page, hoping that might help. What are your thoughts on this?

I just want to found without users needing to enter my city in their searches.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hey there

I can't give a direct answer to that. What I would say right now is that your focus should be on enhancing your website and providing a great experience for your users.

The address / local information will definitely benefit you. Like I said, having this information will help not only search engine crawlers, but users in understanding where you are. Right now, I wouldn't trust giving your site information because I have no frame of reference of if you're site represents a real business, or if it's just a facade site. Not trying to sound at all mean, I am just saying that things like this can scare away users, and search engines are trying to view sites more like the users they are serving.

I would also take a look at your backlink profile for potential issues with Majestic and that your sitemap is properly uploaded to Webmaster Tools.

Like I said, this will take some time to research, but the payoffs will be huge.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

[twoacejr]

Thanks great info.  I will begin working on these issues.

Do you think not having my address is a main reason I have to add my city to the keyword search?

Have you looked at my competitors site? His content is very weak also.

Why do you think his site is found without adding the city to the keyword search?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

First, there is no mention of Douglasville of your site, or your address. You need this information on your site. The only place I found it was on the title tag of the homepage, and even then, it's not telling me much.

I would work on your title tags. I am personally a fan of:

"Page Title | Branding" or "Page Title | Category | Branding"

I would also work on the content of your site - you're not providing any real value at the moment. Just a couple of paragraphs per page. Here are some opportunities:

• How are you different?
• What warranties do you offer?
• Do you have testimonials?
• What's your experience?
• Do you have any offers or any sales?
• Do you have any input on new technologies or computer updates? Blog opportunity
• Do you have frequently asked questions?
• Do you have any certifications?

You also take content directly from Wikipedia on your Virus Removal page. That's fine, I guess, since you cite it - but I can just goto Wikipedia and read that information. I am on your site to read what YOU can do with virus removal, not Wikipedia. This is a perfect opportunity to be a thought leader and differentiate yourselves.

Also, your robots.txt seems to be blocking some important pages - I would fix it. You can look at that here.

There a lot of opportunities here. Check out the links I posted above - those will be immensely helpful!

[twoacejr]

Hi thanks for the info. I will review each of the links.

I know I need work on my site but it does rank some with my city attach to my keyword. I am comparing to a few sites but this one in particular.

Mine: https://www.creative-technology-solutions.com

Theirs: http://fontainescomputergroup.com

Keyword search: Computer Repair Services and Computer Repair Services Douglasville

Searching from my town (Douglasville GA) I am nowhere without adding my city to the search.

My competitor is either way. I can't find out why his site is ranking without the city on the keyword search.

I understand why other competitors are ahead of me. Better links, Domain and page authority, better content.... but this site does not seem to have that and is always on page 1.

Can you check to see what I am talking about?

Thanks

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

This is kind of a difficult question to ask without a link, can you provide a URL?

Here are some things I would look into:
Local SEO (Moz)
On-Site SEO (Moz)
Moz Academy (Moz)
How to Do a Content Audit (Moz)
Competitor Analysis (Moz - resources to check out other angles of your competitor's sites)
Google My Business (look into this and get started)

The reason I am posting all of this - it sounds like your site isn't optimized for the searches you are wanting it to be appearing for. You need to focus on elements of all of the above to enhance your visibility in search. Take a minute to read all of the above with your website open up. Open up a couple competitor's sites as well:

• What are they doing that you're not?
• How is their site different?
• Do they have a better local presence that you?
• Do they have better content or a better social strategy?

Keep in mind - you are NOT doing competitive analysis to copycat - your site and audience is different, and should be treated as such. You are doing it to see what search engines may find valuable about your competitors where they outrank you. How can you put your own unique twist on this, or add value?

Again, it just sounds like you're potentially missing some optimization opportunities. Stress test your site.

Hope this helps! Good luck!