Need an Local SEO's expert opinion regarding a client trying to improve their rankings.
-
I have a business i'm working with right now who wants to improve their rankings in a very competitive legal niche.
Are there any Local SEO gurus out there that would be willing to explain in a paragraph or two what's going wrong?
Let me know if you'd like to help and I'll PM you the domain.
-
You're welcome, Brian, and I hope you'll be able to find a consultant who can offer a second opinion. Sounds like you are trying to save your client a big headache!
-
Thank you Miriam. Those are awesome resources all of which I am familiar with
There are some obvious issues with the backlink profile on this particular site. I've pointed it out to the client as something hazardous and their current SEO is framing it as a difference of opinion when in reality he is putting the client at great risk (in my opinion).
My hope was get a third party to look at this and offer an honest assessment to the client.
Btw, I'm not opposed to paying someone for their time here.
Thanks again!
-
Hey Brian
It's totally understandable when it's not possible to share a client's domain in public. We do have some really talented folks in the Local SEO space here, but if the client is trying break into a competitive legal pack (those can be so tough!), chances are you are going want to do a complete audit of their Local SEO. A paragraph or two may fail to generate the thorough feedback and strategy your client will need. I'm hoping a couple of suggestions will help:
-
Here is our Local SEO Checklist, which you can go through bit by bit to identify any problems that might be holding the client back.
-
Here is our 2015 Local Search Ranking Factors survey, which pools industry knowledge regarding the elements that are believed to have the greatest impact on rank. Your client will need to excel at all of these to compete.
-
Here is our recommended Local SEO companies list. On that list, I know NiftyMarketing to be particularly skilled in the legal industry. In fact, they have a unique business called niftylaw.com that specializes in marketing for the legal industry. You or your client may need to consult with a real heavy-hitter in this area, given the competitiveness of your market.
I hope these resources will prove helpful!
-
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
-
International subdirectory without localized content - best practice / need advice
Hi there, Our site uses a subdirectory for regional and multilingual sites as show below for 200+ countries.
Local Website Optimization | | erinfalwell
EX: /en_US/ All sites have ~the same content & are in English. We have hreflang tags but still have crawl issues. Is there another URL structure you would recommend? Are there any other ways to avoid the duplicate page & crawl budget issues outside of the hreflang tag? Appreciate it!0 -
Matching page for keyword doesn't show in search
Hello! I'm having an issue with my website Rooms Index, the website is in Hebrew so I'll provide examples in English for better understandings. When I'm searching Rooms by Hour in Haifa, google doesn't show the intended category page which is this, instead it shows my homepage in the results, this happens only for certain areas, while other areas are working well such as Tel aviv. For example if I searched day use in Las Vegas it'd show me the Las Vegas page dayuse.com/las-vegas, but searching for Brooklyn I'd only see dayuse.com. the pages are indexed and I can find them if I search site:roomsindex.co.il what could cause such problem?
Local Website Optimization | | AviramAdar0 -
Improving SEO with no blog
I have a client who understands the value of content for SEO - however getting them to provide some content has proven an impossible task. I've tried every way to make it easy for them. I've offered to come over to their office myself and see if I can just take 15 minutes of their time and record their answers to a few questions. The response is that's a great idea, we'll set up a time...and no time is ever good. So I've thought, what can I do without them? Unfortunately, their industry is so technical and so niche I'd need to have a law degree to even begin to understand exactly what they do, and as they are in law it's probably better to have no content than content with something even slightly incorrect in it. For now, all I can do is summarize and share news from a government website to their social media accounts. It's not highly effective. Their on-page SEO for the main site is completely optimized. I've placed them in every free listing I can possibly find - both industry and local sites. I have them update me on any local events, conferences and/or trade shows they attend for possible backlinks. What else can I do? I suppose I fear that if I can't provide them any additional results, they will stop seeing the value in SEO services, and I'd have a hard time disagreeing as I can't think of what else to do for them. Thanks for any help!
Local Website Optimization | | everestagency1 -
How to improve your CTR?
Yesterday I started analyzing some of my keywords (Search Queries in Google Webmasters) and I'm not happy with some results. Some of them are doing pretty good and some just suck! For example avg position 1.0 and a brand name keyword gets me 98% CTR - Awesome. Would be happy with 80%. Another keyword which is pretty important for us, avg position 1.2 gets only 8% CTR. What the **** ? Is Google Adwords killing my results? This keyword is very competitive. I believe that meta description is pretty good compared to another results from the organic search. Some keywords that rank on average 3.5 gets better CTR but are not getting so many search queries. The keywords are in Lithuanian, so I don't see the reason to post them here. All tips are appreciated! Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | FCRMediaLietuva0 -
Had SEO Firm tell me to Start Over - pros and cons help please
Hi So I have quotes of 1250 to 2500 a month to run my website, seo wise. What I am told is they will do all facebook postings, 4 blog posts each month, some citations, and site optimization. Those amounts due seem like a lot. Yet I was last to start all over. Basically I was told that because of some bad backlinks, which only a few remain, that you can never recover from an algorithm penalty. And with a Disavow, its like telling Google - penalize me please So the plan was this: $3000 for a new site, and new domain, and then it has no penalties, and I will be ranking in no time. The problem is I am branded. My domain and business name is Bernese Of The Rockies. People know us and we are very respected. So if we create a new site like example.com, I do not want to mislead people. Or if there is a penalty for say a landing page or site, where I am sending people to my main site for more info type of thing. Just looking for your input if this is a common issue, where if you have a non manual, but algo penalty that you must restart? Thank you so much for your thoughts and suggestions.
Local Website Optimization | | Berner0 -
Local Rank & Branding Confusion - HELP
I am working with a client now that has two sites that serve two segments of a particular market segment. They have two different URLs which cater to these different target markets BUT the company is known in its local market as a their brand name (of course) which is different than their 2 domain names used on these 2 sites. Confusing eh? This has resulted in confusing Google and their rank has suffered a bit. To provide more color + insight- Let's just say this company is called AtlantaEventsInc and they offer event services for corporate events and let's say weddings. So let's say they have had atlantaeventscorporate.com for 20 years and then they add atlantaeventweddings.com about a year ago since their wedding business is expanding. So they promote their corporate events on one site and their wedding events on another. These 2 sites also currently share one blog, share one Facebook page, one Twitter and have two Google+ pages. Should we keep these two sites totally separate? and even have separate blogs and separate social media accounts? OR since our rank has only suffered with the new wedding site (just a year old) should we retire that site? (i suppose we could still keep separate blogs though for each target market. WOULD LOVE INSIGHT ON THIS! Thanks, Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd1 -
Local Rank riddle
Here is a very odd scenario which to me makes very little sense. How can a site rank on Page #1 of Google for let's say "Boston party planner" yet on Page#2 for "party planner Boston"?? Would love some insight on this one. thanks, Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd0 -
What's the best way to add phrase keywords to the URL?
Hi, Our keywords are all our service + a list of towns (for example, "carpet cleaning St. Louis"). The issue I'm having is that one particular site could be targeting "carpet cleaning St. Louis", "carpet cleaning Manchester", "carpet cleaning Ballwin", "carpet cleaning Kirkwood", etc. etc. etc... up to maybe 15 different towns. Is there a way to effectively add these keywords into the URL without making it look spammy? I'm having the same issue with adding the exact keywords to the page title, img alt tag, etc. Thanks for any advice/input!
Local Website Optimization | | nataliefwc0