Local SEO
-
Would like to read articles on local SEO that have been recently published in the past few months. Has anyone come across good articles on this topic?
-
Hi Brett,
To be honest I think I learned most by really taking the time to read through David Mihm's "Local Search Ranking Factors" for 2011 and 2012.
This information compiles the industry's expertise, resulting in quite a good hypothesis as to what one should do in order to rank with guidelines as to your website, Google+ Local page (even though introduced after the 2012 survey), citations, link-building, etc.Lock yourself away for an hour or two... an open plan office is not ideal to chew through all the info
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors-2011.shtml
Hope this helps?
Cheers
Greg
-
We're looking a Local SEO expert who can assist us.
Please feel free to get in touch.
-
My pleasure, Brett. Happy reading!
-
thanks Miriam, a great list
-
Hi Brett,
You've gotten some excellent replies here. Let me give you a list of my go-to sources for excellent reportage on this topic, some of which have already been mentioned. Put these in your feedreader and you will have a blow by blow account of the constant changes going on daily in Local:
Mike Blumenthal's Blog
Mike is considered by most Local SEOs to be the godfather of the industry. He is also a Google Top Contributor (in the Google and Your Business Forum). If you read nothing else, read Mike's blog religiously.
Nyagoslav Zhekov's Blog
http://www.ngsmarketing.com/blog/
Also a Google Top Contributor. Extremely smart guy with very important, factual blog posts.
Linda Buquet's Blog
http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/
Another Google TC. Linda's blog is very active and she is also now running her Local Search Forum. Expect lots of breaking news here.
David Mihm's Blog
http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/
David doesn't blog as often as the above 3 bloggers, but when he does, his stuff is must-read. Also, as the founder of GetListed.org and the annual Local Search Ranking Factors report, David is definitely and industry leader...as well as being a really nice guy!
Greg Sterling's Blog
An extremely intellectual man who gives best-in-industry commentary on industry news in Local (who just bought who, what is this new technology, etc.). Greg brings a unique perspective to Local.
Matt McGee's Blog
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/
Matt is a marketing veteran and is the Executive News Editor at Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. He often blogs about local issues and I always really enjoy his commentary on the review aspect of Local. Matt's writing style is truly lay-person-friendly and I value his voice.
Andrew Shotland's Blog
Andrew is a no-nonsense local blogger with a gift for irony and a ton of experience. He's very respected in Local and while his blog isn't updated daily, what he writes is well worth reading. Another very smart fellow.
Search Engine Land
http://www.searchengineland.com
Regularly publishes good local news, often from some of the bloggers listed above.
Google and Your Business Blog
http://googleandyourbusiness.blogspot.com/
This is where Google tends to make most of their announcements about Local issues, so definitely be aware of this.
We also publish some great Local articles here at SEOmoz from time to time, and in our YouMoz section as well. You're welcome to check out my blog at http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/ but I confess that, of late, being busy has kept me from blogging half as much as I'd like to. There are many other talented bloggers in Local, but what I've listed here are my most-visited sources.
I hope these resources will be just what you're looking for, Brett!
Miriam
-
Andrew Shotland is my local info go-to guy - http://www.localseoguide.com
-
thanks Marie. An interesting forum and lots of changes at the local search level
-
Linda Buquet who is well know in the Local SEO field just started a thriving new forum: http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/
-
thanks Gyi
-
thanks Roberto. A great resource and it also answered an unrelated question on google place pages
-
Not specific articles, but some great local search sources:
-
This is the guys I follow. He is very informative and always on top of any changes. I highly recommend him. http://blumenthals.com/blog/
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
-
SEO benefits of terms used in Alt-tag, image name, page title
On our website, we have products that come in different colours, and we have created a different SKU for each one .e.g. our Acacia Evening Dress comes in 3 different colours (black, blue and red) - Acacia Evening Dress Black (J7048BLK), Acacia Evening Dress Blue (J7048RB), Acacia Evening Dress Red (J7048R). Would it be beneficial for SEO if on the image Alt-tag we used the terms 'Jadore J7048 Red Acacia dress', 'Jadore J7048 Black Acacia dress' and 'Jadore J7048 Blue Acacia dress', because 'Acacia' is the internal name we have given to this dress, not the name provided by the label, Jadore, as more customers would search for terms such as 'black dress' or 'Jadore J7048'? Can we use the same terms in the Alt-tag on the image and the page title? How important is the Alt-tag in searching?
Image & Video Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
An SEO Strategy (need review)
I work in the real estate vertical. My clients possess significant content. Though it's not written. They have tons of images and plenty of videos. They have content in the form of descriptions of homes etc... They don't have written content that would be valuable in an attempt to rank. Most traffic in real estate vertical is [city] real estate and [city] homes for sale. Agents rarely ever use those phrases. Certainly not when doing what they do, promoting their listings. I am thinking I need to build a link building strategy around their videos and photos. There are tons of high domain sources to get links from. With video I could do youtube, vimeo, veoh, daily motion, hulu, etc... All of these sites are DA 90+. None of the links are follow. They would all be no follow. I could have a profile back link, and a back link on each video. So one video distributed to 10 sites would be worth 10 back links. So a client would build hundreds of backlinks a year. All of value. I could deep link all the back links to appropriate subdivision landing pages (long tail). The same strategy is applicable with photos. There are dozens of high DA sites that syndicate images. All would result in a lot of links that are high DA with no-follow. Please discuss this strategy. Also, if you can think of another strategy to build back links for real estate then please share it. I want to discuss real ground level back link building. Not "just build content and they will come." I need the sites to rank. I don't know if no-follows will even help them rank for long tail keywords.
Image & Video Optimization | | AFW11790 -
Internal pages targeted for local keywords
Hello, Simple question: how do you target local SEO with internal pages, where the home page may or may not be local?
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Google+ Local City Centroid Bias
It's well-known that Google has a bias towards businesses located closest to the center of the city being searched in. How can you tell where exactly Google considers to be the center of the city? I think that the way is to just search the city name on Google Maps and the marker will appear at where they consider the center of the city to be but just wanted to double check on that first.
Image & Video Optimization | | ChaseCameron0 -
Should You Geotag Pages For Local SEO?
If so can where do I insert the geo tag? I want to do this for a landing page in a different city, and i've simply put the Geo tag in this landing page. Is this right? Help, NEWBIE!!!
Image & Video Optimization | | Buzzwords0 -
Google local question - over optimization?
I run a law firm with multiple practice areas (bankruptcy, probate, estate planning, personal injury). I have a google places page with those categories listed. I recently spoke with an seo company (that cold called me...) that told me that it was "black hat" to try to optimize a local campaign for more than one of those practice areas. That doesn't seem right to me. Any thoughts?
Image & Video Optimization | | richardslaw0 -
Local SEO: What is the largest Google Places bulk upload you have ever done?
Hi All, One of my clients recently requested my team at our agency to do a bulk up load of business locations. We did the bulk upload and it came to around 652 or so locations in the form. I have done some serious bulk uploads in the past around 500 locations but never this high. My question is to SEO moz what is the largest bulk upload or single upload you have done on Google Places?
Image & Video Optimization | | JamesNorquay0 -
As a whitehat SEO how do you manage in a highly competative market?
I have a competator that has literally hundreds of sites like this: http://www.wire-shelf.com/tag/cleaning/ that don't have a huge amount of page authority, but he is getting citations out of all of them. The site is obviously useless, and just a place for some SEO company to keep adding more links to their various clients, and creating google citations for them at the same time. Once you have filled out your information on every single local database and obtained all the legit citations you can, your competitors are still beating you by having more citations, from various sites like the one above. Is there any way to stay whitehat and actually succeed? or should i just follow suit, and make 100 crappy websites full of crap and put links in them. seems silly, but it seems like the only way to compete these days.
Image & Video Optimization | | adriandg0