Need advice on local search optimization
-
HI all,
I've found myself in a puzzling position and not quite sure which direction to push my current SEO project so if anyone who's done this particular type of SEO can offer some suggestions I'd be eternaly grateful.
I am currently working on a project for a Law Firm based in New Jersey. Lets say the town they are in is Garfield. What I really want to try and achieve is see them appearing in the number one spot whenever anyone within Garfield or the immediate area searches for a lawyer relating to the individuals need. E..g searches like "personal injury lawyers", "real estate lawyer".
The problem is I can see how I can easily make it to the number one position if people are specific and enter garfield in the search term but in reality they wouldn't be doing that.
An additional problem is that peoples ISP's in garfield aren't located in Garfield, in some cases they're as far away as Newark so when they're doing a search for 'real estate lawyer' google is bringing up results for the Newark based firms.
It seems using tools like market samurai to look at the traffic and competition is proving useless as searches like the ones I'm doing for local business are so closely tied to the ISP location I don't really know whether to target broad range searches like "Real Estate Lawyer", or to be really specific and include the town name in my page titles, H1 tags etc...
I hope I put across my dilemma and someone can help me chose which direction to go in..
Thanks
-
Another way to get authentic mentions of other areas without being spammy is to have testimonials from clients that include their city names.
"I had a wonderful experience using Joe Smith as my real estate lawyer. Blah blah blah
- Jane Doe, Nearby City, New Jersey"
You could also talk about how you are members of the greater Newark Chamber of Commerce or Newark Area Real Estate Lawyers who Lunch or how you support the Nearby Town Little League.
-
Hi David,
We're going through old unanswered questions and seeing if people still need help, or if you've gone ahead and implemented something and have anything interesting to report. Could you give us an update, or mark this question as answered? Thanks!
-
Hi thanks for your replies.
I've been adding the county name to my page titles thinking that would potentially bring in more traffic for searches from the outer areas.
Perhaps instead, adding the City name to the 'home' page title should be what I'm doing, but as I said I can't see people in Garfield searching for 'garfield attorney, or garfield lawyer' but if having the city name in in the title will affect the places result and indirectly the organic results then I'll give it a go. Well I'll try and keep the city and state on the title at least.
Last week I had my client pay for directory inclusion into a few of the BIG legal directories which hold a lot of authority so when google finally realises we're indexed on those, hopefully that will have a knock on effect too...
-
Target the actual location on your site. If you can fudge a few other related geographic keywords into your content in a non-spammy way, do so, but focus on building up local search (listings and citations). As your local search rankings take hold, you will start appearing for proximity searches on Google Places.
Newark is a bit out of range - nothing much to be done about that. BUT if they search for "real estate lawyer Garfield" or surrounding towns, you want to show up in that Places map.
Great local search resource: http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml. There was also a WBF on optimizing for local a few months back.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi David,
I would definitely start out with the town name in the targeted keywords. For starters, it will get the ball rolling, and secondly, they're good keywords to optimise for - sure, they won't bring as much traffic as the more general non-geo terms, but they will likely have far less competition and be easier to rank for.
The ISP location targeting isn't really a variable you can influence, so it's best to put majority of your effort into that which you have a good level of control over (geo keywords). Additionally, it would make sense to mention that you are a Garfield firm regardless of whether you are using geo-keywords, so optimising for the geo-keywords really can't hurt.
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
-
Is Google Filling in Search Forms?
Hi Mozers, Is it true that Google will fill in search forms and thus generate potentially thousands of pages by itself? We have a spike in number of pages indexed and it corresponds with the time we added an advanced search form to the site... Thanks for the advice! Yael
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yaelslater0 -
What can we do to optimize / be mobile-friendly for PDFs?
I'm getting a "Your page is not mobile-friendly." notice in the SERPs for all of our PDFs. I check the pdf on the phone and it appears just fine. rFtLq
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | johnnybgunn0 -
Optimize homepage for brand-name or local keyword query for franchisees?
We are launching quasi "microsites" for our franchisees within our main company website. My question is wether to optimize the homepage for the franchisee's business name OR a local keyword query? I know standard practice is to optimize the homepage for your company's brand-name, but in this case, brand awareness isn't strong for these new local businesses. Also, apart from the homepage and service page, there is not much room to create optimize content- other pages are simply reviews, projects and a contact us page. Thanks!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kimberleymeloserpa0 -
Do Local Search Efforts (Citations, NAP, Reviews) have an impact on traditional organic search listings (without the A, B, C mapping icons), but rather the traditional listings?
Are citations, NAP, Reviews, and other local search efforts impact traditional SEO listings? Can one elaborate?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JQC0 -
Page indexed but not showing up at all in search results
I am currently working on the SEO for a roofing company. I have developed GEO targeted pages for both commercial and residential roofing (as well as attic insulation and gutters) and have hundreds of 1st page placements for the GEO targeted keywords. What is baffling me is that they are performing EXTREMELY poorly on the bigger cities, to the point of not evening showing up in the first 5 pages. I also target a page specifically for roof repair in Phoenix and it is not coming up AT ALL. This is not typically the results I get when directly targeting keywords. I'm working on implementing keyword variations as well as adding about 10 or so information pages (@ 700 words) regarding different roofing systems which I plan to cross link on the site, etc. I'm just wondering if there is a simple answer as to why the pages I want to be showing up the most are performing so poorly and what I would need to do to improve their rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dogstarweb0 -
Need help in Title tags
Hi I have word press site and it has 24 pages and the main keywords is Stairlifts there are various kind and type of stairlifts and all the 24 page has the title tag stairslifts , i have tried to make each unique but i cannot avoid using the keyword stairslift. Will that have a negative impact if my main keyword is stairlifts. My target page for stairlifts is the home page. Any suggestions please Many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | conversiontactics0 -
Mission Possible? You have 3 hours to do Local SEO. Which top 5 sites do you go Social Bookmark, Local Search Engine Submit and Directory List.
Mission Possible? Here is a test. Suppose you had 3 hours (okay 7) to go and submit links, etc, on Social Bookmarking, Local Search Engines and Directories, which top 5 or more of each would you do? (Assuming your on-page is already sweetened). I just got 2 more clients and I need to get started on a few things for each. Thankful for all your advice.............
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | greenhornet770 -
Optimizing the HomePage of a WordPress blog
Dearest SEOmozzers, I am creating WordPress blogs and I would like to know from a WordPress expert how to better optimize the homepage of a site. In particular, I'd like to know how to create an SEO-friendly homepage that I want to optimize for certain keywords. Do you think that it is better to show on the homepage the posts that I write, which change constantly, or a static, well-optimized text that will include the keywords I want to rank for? I have been naively using the changing posts, but after an analysis of the competitors I have noticed that most of them use a static text and show only the most recent post at the bottom of the page. I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know the best practice to adopt to optimize the site. Thank you. Sal
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | salvyy0