Local SEO for a community.

[AESEO]

How would one go about best doing local SEO for a townhome community? It seems to fall in between the traditional imformational SEO and the brick and mortar, G+ page model.

There seems to be no way to attack the NAP, directory and traditional citation model for a certain region they build in.

Any thoughts?

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Jake,

Thanks for the reminder, and I'm so sorry I didn't respond earlier. This had gotten overlooked in my inbox. The delay in response was my fault, not the fault of Miriam.

[AESEO]

Miriam-

Great advice as usual. I've seen quite a few articles about ranking for the one location the builder has thier office in, and competing organically for the other cities with unique content. I've also seen the post on Google's blog NOT to list multiple pages if there is no brick-n-mortar.

The thing I may need a tad more clarity on is G+ Local vs Google Place pages. Places is no longer, but I've read from the Danny Sullivans, and blums of the world not to create a G+ pages just yet and let Google sort our G+ local for a few months. Agree?

Last clarification:

brick n mortar = G+ Local Page for each location + matching local landing page on website

Service based = G+ page with no address and option unchecked + local landing pages on website with unique content

or both

So now the question to create a G+ page or to wait....Also merge old places pages via Google blog instructions or wait?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jake,

I'm sorry I didn't see your question earlier. It didn't make it into my notifications somehow.

So, if I'm understanding correctly, this is a construction business that specializes in townhome construction. For businesses like this, these things are possible:

• Does the business have a unique (not shared) physical address, even if it is a home office, and do they have a dedicated local area phone number? If yes to both, then they are completely right for Local SEO.

• Google will see the business as being chiefly relevant to its city of location. So, if the builder were in San Francisco, his best shot for true local rankings will be for San Francisco-based searches or searches containing the geo term 'san francisco'. He will not be likely to obtain true local rankings for any city but his city of location, nine times out of ten. There are some exceptions.

• With his business name, street address and phone number, this builder is able to list himself in Google Places/Google+ Local, but only one time. He may not create additional listings for his service cities. He is allowed to have only one listing per physical location.

• Because the business serves clients at their locations (unlike a brick-and-mortar store), the business MUST choose the 'hide address' feature when creating the Google listing. Google does not want anything but brick-and-mortar businesses to show their address and it is estimated has penalized thousands of businesses for failing to comply with this rule.

• Again, because the business goes to its clients, it is not eligible at this time for a Google+ Business page. Don't create one. If you already have, Google wants you to delete it.

• The business can then go on to build citations in all of the various local business indexes, but again, only for its city of location...not other service cities. If there are any citations with bad, old, or varying addresses, business names or phone numbers on them, they must be corrected. Consistency of citations is key to rankings.

• On the website, the NAP (name, address, phone number) must be identical to what is published in Google's local index and in citations across the web.

All of the above goes toward getting this business high rankings in the lettered/pinned local results.

For service cities where the business builds townhomes, but where they have no physical office, there are several options the business can pursue in hopes of gaining ORGANIC (not local) rankings.

• Create city landing pages on the website that showcase the builder's work in these other towns.

• Pursue social media campaigns that raise awareness of the company's work in these other town.

• Earn/build links to the city landing pages.

Remember, everything you publish on the site should be unique. Don't duplicate content across the city landing pages. Write up projects, take photos, show videos, display testimonials and other good stuff to make each page unique. Again, the goal of this work is typically to gain organic rankings for the other cities where the builder serves, but isn't located. That being said, it is sometimes possible for this work to achieve local rankings, most typically if the business works in a non-competitive market, in a non-metropolitan region. But, mainly, keep the two goals separate (local rankings for the city of location; organic rankings for service cities).

Be sure to follow all of Google's rules (http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=107528) and keep up with the news on the Google+ front as it is constantly changing.

Hope this answer helps, and again, I'm very sorry you didn't receive the fast reply you should have.

[AESEO]

Any thoughts on this one? Still don't know the best way to approach this for the most effective results.

[AESEO]

Keri-

This is for an established builder that continues to build in new surrounding communities. They have nice traction in a couple older areas, but need to move up in the more competitive areas of town.

This website is focused exclusively on townhomes.

[KeriMorgret]

Could you give us a few more details? Is this for a builder, who is selling homes in a particular community? Or for an established community?

Thanks!