I was wondering if anyone had any advice on Hyperlocal Searches and optimizing for them?
-
We're planning on building our own directory. Does anyone here have any experience with using directories to drive inbound traffic? Any advice in general on Hyperlocal Searches?
-
I'm so glad my answer was helpful, Chris. Best of luck with your venture!
-
Hi Miriam
Thank you so much for such a comprehensive response. You've given me amazing insight with great ideas I can truly progress!
Greetings from Sunny Ireland
-
Hi Chris,
Thanks so much for the detailed response. As you know, the local business directory field is pretty saturated and is dominated by major players (think Yahoo, Yelp, etc.). That being said, at least you are focusing on building a niche directory (for accountants) rather than a general one (for all local businesses). This does cut down the competition, but it is still going to be a massive undertaking trying to get Google to rank your directory pages well if they already have older, larger sources to choose from, in addition to their own delivery of local pack results for searches like 'accountant dublin'.
Here are some suggestions for what you can do to begin building a good directory:
-
Allow accountants to create listings with a significant amount of unique content on them. For example, have a large business description field for each listing, and specify that the content the accountant uploads to it be unique. Also, create fields for things like professional associations and certifications and anything else you can think of that an accountant might list about their services, their policies, their business model, their location, etc.
-
Allow for UGC in the form of reviews on each listing.
-
Be sure you are using Schema properly to markup both the listing data and the reviews.
-
Develop a blog on the directory, perhaps with guest posting opportunities for accountants.
-
I understand that accounting may be one of those dreaded so-called 'boring' industries, but you've got to discover a way to come up with interesting content that has the potential to be shared and bring traffic and links. We had a good YouMoz post on this very topic about a year ago. See: http://moz.com/blog/the-guide-to-developing-a-content-strategy-for-boring-industries
-
Designate a staff member to participate in/speak at relevant industry conferences. If there are conferences accountants attend, your designated member needs to be there, helping at the same time as exposing attending accountants to your brand.
-
Discover which social media platforms your listed members utilize and develop a presence there so that you can participate/offer help in some way.
In my opinion, it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of giving of your time to begin to brand your venture as something accountants need to participate in. The more accounting firm listings users build into your index, the larger it can grow and the more valuable a data source it will become to search engines.
-
-
Hey,
That's great Miriam, thanks for your help. I'll answer your questions below.
- Do you mean you are developing a general local business directory (like Yellow Pages, CitySearch, Best of the Web) or some other type of directory?
**Ans: **What we're looking to do is create awareness of our product (online accounting tool for SME biz) to accountants. People who a search for 'Accountant London', will find a simple landing page (like yelp/google) with the accountants details, map etc. There will be a big contact us button, which will send the contents of that form to the accountant. Remember accountants are pretty poor at this stuff, so it's not like we're trying to take on an SEO rich group.
From a customer point of view, we're giving them what they want 'a list of accountants from London', but also exposing them to the product. Answering questions etc?
- Where do you want to drive inbound traffic to? The directory or something else?
**Ans: **To the directory, from there we'll capture information and use for outbound
- Please define what you mean, exactly, by 'hyperlocal searches'?
**Ans: **People contact us a bit looking for 'a good accountant in dublin, monkstown', so we're looking to capture that search. We have a problem with content in that, if we write about accounting nobody will read them as a result we're losing out on SEO (Although we're working on that, any suggestions welcome)
The more information you can provide, the better answer you will receive from the community. Looking forward to your further details.
**Ans: **Thanks again M, this has been a great help.
Chris
-
Hi Chris,
I think I may need a bit more information to provide a helpful answer. Please, provide answers to these three questions:
-
Do you mean you are developing a general local business directory (like Yellow Pages, CitySearch, Best of the Web) or some other type of directory?
-
Where do you want to drive inbound traffic to? The directory or something else?
-
Please define what you mean, exactly, by 'hyperlocal searches'?
The more information you can provide, the better answer you will receive from the community. Looking forward to your further details.
-
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
-
Why rich snippets have disappeared in Google search results ?
Hello, Few weeks ago, we have implemented a snippets strategy in order to increase our ranking for our blog posts. That was successful and our results were showing up in Google. But today, every single snippet has disappeared. We go back to a simple search result, without snippets for us or for our competitors. It seems that Google has delete rich snippet for specific keywords because for the generic keywords (for exemple "inbound marketing definition" in our case), there is still a snippet result. Do you know if Google has changed snippets parameters for keywords with low search volume ? Thank you !
SERP Trends | | Laure-Nile0 -
Site "Internal" Search Full-Text Indexing vs. Manual Tagging
I’m looking for recommendations on how to power site search in an efficient way. Ideally, I would like to get recommendations on platforms, tools, trends, technology and resources. This discussion does not really refer to SEO or site search optimization. It is more related to the technology used to power site search. I would like to get an idea on the differences between full-text indexing site search and site search that requires manual tagging.
SERP Trends | | burnseo0 -
Does my website need a search bar?
We're redesigning our agency website and during development we noticed our current design doesn't feature a mock up for a search bar. It was a simple oversight, but it got me thinking how valuable it really is. I noticed the Moz blog doesn't have a search bar (unless I'm blind) and was wondering who else has made the decision to get rid of it. We have a blog of almost 400 posts over the course of three years, unsure if that sways the decision in either direction. Is it better to just focus on good SEO instead of relying on a search bar nowadays? Opinions appreciated!
SERP Trends | | BopDesign0 -
How often do you submit to local search/citation sites?
I recently received a Network Solutions spam/offer email regarding their internet marketing packages. One of the "benefits" they cited was that they submit your information to local search/citation sites once a month, to keep it up-to-date. I don't know about you guys, but my clients' information isn't changing on a frequent basis. I remember when it used to be a tactic to submit regularly to the same citation sites, but that seems like overkill now. Does anyone still do this, or is NS just trying to make their product sound good? Do we need to update citation sites frequently, or is it enough to update when there are actual changes to make?
SERP Trends | | ScottImageWorks0 -
Is the search volume insight in Bing more accurate as it is in Google?
Does anybody know if Search volume insight in Bing is more accurate than it is in Google?
SERP Trends | | Seeders
Moz is showing Search Volume insight in Bing now (not sure about the reason, probably Moz has no access to Google? Or is it because it is more accurate?)
For some words I have my doubts about the Google Keyword Tool. I don't know about Bing.
For the first time I compare two words on Bing with Google I found out the ratio in Bing is very different compared with Google. Example:
When you check out the words: espressomachine and koffiemachine
**Google, local search in the Netherlands: **
espressomachine: 6600
koffiemachine: 8100
Bing, local search in the Netherlands:
espressomachine: 549
koffiemachine: 361 So..., are Bing users typical kind of users who uses other search phrases?
Or... is one of these two more accurate? Does anybody know?0 -
Any recommendations for a better internal site search bar for magento enterpise
Looking for recommendations for an internal search bar for magento. I would like to be able to sort the products when searching. I would like to preferably sort by price when a product is searched. And am looking for a better search experience.
SERP Trends | | hfranz0 -
Tool to search for google ads from a competitor
Hello, I wonder if there is a tool where I can insert the webadress or an keyword and get as a result all the ads from the given webadress or keyword, showing up the real keyword, title and promotion text. Does someone has an idea if this kind of toll exist? Thanks for your answer. Kind Regards Mike
SERP Trends | | niceguyseo0 -
YouTube, Closed Captions and Search
Hey team, Just wondering if there's anyone out there that may have dabbled with YouTube closed captions and if having them has any effect at all on search results. My theory (unfounded) is that perhaps these files can be crawled (or viewed) by crawlers and/or given priority in search due to having indexible content which defines the content within the clip - which otherwise wouldn't have been known. Now, I have no evidence that this may be the case but wondering if anyone out there may have seen or read something about it. Seems like kind of a cool thing for SE's to do to help promote accessibility across teh web. Thanks guys.
SERP Trends | | Daylan0