A lot of local SEO questions from a newbie...

[ChaseCameron]

I've been doing basic SEO for customers for quite awhile now in terms of on-page stuff, but am starting to move into the arena of local SEO services and had a few questions that I hoped you guys could help with.

1.  What services besides Google+ Local do you list customers websites in, such as Yahoo or Bing Local?

2.  When creating accounts at the services listed question #1, do you have to verify the phone number that's listed with the business owner or is there any extra type of verification needed?  How do you deal with getting all that verified for the company?

3.  Do you create all these listings at Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. from the same account?

4.  Does anyone know of a list of the top 50 places to get local citations such as Yelp or YellowPages?

5.  When creating citations do you normally have to verify the phone number or address that you list and how do you deal with that with business owners?

6.  Do you use the same accounts to create all the local citations or are different ones required for each listing?

7.  What companies would you recommend that handle all the above for you, such as a setting up accounts at Google, Yahoo, and Bing - and then also creating around 50 citations for you?  Of course all the login information would also need to be provided for everything they create.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post, I look forward to hearing back from all of you!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Chase,

You've gotten some good answers here to your specific questions, so I'd like to give you some more general advice, seeing that you are just dipping your toes into the big pool of Local SEO:) I hope this will be helpful to you!

1. First, ground yourself in the basics of Local SEO. I recommend you read David Mihm's 2012 Local Search Ranking Factors report. This annual survey has been the premiere local industry publication for many years running. It points out the things that make up local rankings, and therefore, the different things you'll need to study. http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

2. Next, I recommend that you visit the Local Learning Center at GetListed.org and read through some of the tutorials there.

3. Thirdly, one of the main tasks of a Local SEO is to keep on top of updates, because they happen so frequently in Local. There are a ton of great blogs on the topic of Local SEO, and here at SEOmoz, we publish some great local pieces, but I would highly recommend that you become a regular reader of the blog of Local Search Godfather, Mike Blumenthal. blumenthals.com/blog

Hope this helps!

[MoosaHemani]

• Other than just Google+ local there are tons of yellow pages and data aggregation website that allow business to list their business and move from their accordingly... some of the other websites other them Google+local, Yahoo local and Bing local are yell.com, yelp.com, yp.com, truelocal.com and many more...

• Some websites will only allow you to go live once they will verify your business through phone in that case the call will be received on your customer’s business address and upon verification it will give you a code that you can enter to verify your listing. I usually define the process to my client before going on with the process so he knew what is going to happen.

• For most of the website you can use one account but obviously with yahoo and bing you will be needing their own email accounts.

• Here is the top 50 list of local citation for US and UK (http://searchengineland.com/top-50-citation-sources-for-uk-us-local-businesses-104938) if you have a business in Australia then this is the dedicated list of business in AU (http://www.setalks.com/ultimate-list-of-local-citations-for-australian-businesses/)

• You have to talk to business owner and explain the situation and why it is needed for their business before you actually step ahead and start submitting your businesses to local citations.

• Few need a different accounts as mentioned above but mostly it works with a single account

• Brightlocal, Getlisted there can be few more!

  I hope I cover all the answers let me know if there is any new information you want!

[modulusman]

Hey Chase,

Welcome...  I've only been here a few months myself, but this is definitely the place to learn.

Reading over your questions, I've got a couple of places for you to start.

First of all... Search the heck out of the blogs and these forums, if you can't find a specific answer it's still very likely that you'll find something that will point you in the right direction.

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo    <---  When you're just getting started following the advice in here will almost always get you noticeable results right away.

Also,  there is no magic formula.  I run a few different sites, and after a very long period of trial and error I've just started to realize that while there are a few steps that you can take in the beginning to get some results, different situations call for different tactics and tools.

Last...  You've got to be willing to put in the time and do the work.   There are a lot of very tedious tasks that make up SEO and all of the related fields, and many of them are a necessary part of getting to where you want to be.  There's nothing wrong with paying someone else to do the work, it's just a question of where your time and efforts are best spent.  If you don't have time to crank out 50 citations (or search a forum) because you've got customers to deal with, or inventory to catalog, it might not be such a bad idea to hit up an SEO service, but if you're interested in how things work, and the gratification involved with watching your site work it's way up the SERP's or watch your analytics graph jump upwards...  You're in the right place...  Tear it up...  You'll answer every single one of those questions better than I could and walk away with 20 more questions that will lead you to 20 more (in a good way.)