Local SEO and Sites by Order of Opinion?
-
Okay, so we were just having a discussion about which sites/directories are the most important to be listed in for Local SEO.
Ultimately we were looking to 'sort' these by order of importance for the typical local business.
- Google My Business
- Yelp
- Yahoo! Local
- Bing Local
- Foursquare
- YellowPages.com
- SuperPages.com
- CitySearch
- HotFrog
How would you order them? Would you add anything to the list?
Thanks!
-
Thanks William and everyone else too!
-
Agreed!
-
As William said, it's definitely niche dependent. You have to be mindful of other citation sources. However, your generic citation list is pretty close to what you need at the beginning of a campaign.
-
Yelp and Google My Business are musts for just about any industry, but after that, the priority changes depending on the industry. Industry-specific directories can play a significant part.
Here is a great guide where priority is broken down by industry: http://moz.com/learn/local/citations-by-category
-
- Google My Business
- Yelp
- Bing
- Yahoo! Local
- Foursquare
- YellowPages.com
- SuperPages.com
- CitySearch
- HotFrog
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
-
Local Ranking with No Physical Address in New Service Area - How to Rank?
OK, SO, I am a wedding company in Maui, Hawaii and have an established business on one island with a physical address. http://simplemauiwedding.net We have started a new team in Oahu, Hawaii http://simpleoahuwedding.com and we provide service there and have a full team in place. How can I rank for Local Search on that Island with no physical address? I would love to hear some proven strategies. Thank you 🙂
Local Listings | | photoseo10 -
Google Local Changes Randomly & Our Site Keeps Dropping Off Search
I work for a university where we have 2 law schools. We have our one school on the other side of the state that has been around for a very long time, and then a newer school that is right on our main campus that has been around for about 5 - 10 years now. The newer of the 2 schools is having so much trouble being able to claim the name of the school in google search. If you type in the name of the school the other school (the one that has been around longer) was coming up in the google local on the right of the screen and their web URL was never showing up in search. This is a huge problem because the accreditations of the 2 schools are different, and students are showing up at the wrong school for their interviews. Search will only show a domain name that used to be owned by the older school but now gives information for both of the schools. So it'll show up in search results, but only under that other domain and not their own domain that has their name in the domain name. This school has an updated google mybusiness listing, and a google+ page with the correct listing. I've added some schema data around the business address on their site and JSON for the google+ page, and have re-indexed their sitemap a few times after some changes have been made and we are using their name more in the site. This fixed everything for a short while and we were getting the appropriate google local listing and their site was appearing in search results above the site that advertised both schools. Now, after about 3 months, it has reverted. I had the older school showing up in the google local, and the site that advertises both schools is the ONLY domain appearing. I've re-indexed the site after finding out that Drupal's timestamps that they automatically add to sitemaps aren't optimized for how google reads it. This has gotten the local listing back, but I still have the wrong domain appearing, it is the one advertises both schools instead of the domain that has this school's information. I don't mind that the one advertising both shows up, but if a user is searching for that particular school I would really like to get that domain to appear first above the one advertising both schools and the older school. Right now the new school isn't even in search results except for being under the site that advertises both. I wasn't sure if this was something that Moz Local could help me fix by adding the listing across the web, or if there is something else on the sites I can be doing to help them solidify their name in google search/local. Also - is this subdomain that is advertising both of them hurting them or help them? I was thinking about taking that domain down to one page that acts as a direction source to the 2 domains rather than having a ton of information and keywords that take over the results for their name since that domain is older (and used to be associated with the old school only before the new school was built) Thank you for any advice on this issue as I'm still pretty new to SEO and to the university. Thanks again!
Local Listings | | amaray4030 -
Citations, SEO and a skeptical client
What do you say to a client who recently purchased an online business and says 'I don't really care if the phone number or address on a directory is old or incorrect'?I've tried to explain the value from an SEO point of view, but he's not really buying it.Anyone encountered this skepticism before and if so, how did you handle it?
Local Listings | | muzzmoz0 -
How to add details to Google Local Listings
Hello, A website I am working on made it to Google's Local Pack. However, it does not have the website, hours, or location info. What is the best way to add it? I added an image link for context. http://imgur.com/rT3lQ4K Thanks!!
Local Listings | | HectorCortes0 -
Higher Value: Google Local Listing or .edu link?
A client of mine is putting together a partnership with a local university to offer a certain type of medical test through several of its clinics. They are writing up the contract now and asked me if there is anything they should ask for that would benefit us in our listings. Since we do not have an actual local footprint, my first inclination was to ask for them to help us get verified as owners of "practitioner" local listings at their business addresses (as discussed here). We would provide local numbers that would ring our call center. My thinking is that these listings and backlinks would benefit on searches similar to "medical testing in San Antonio". I have a number of concerns with this track but would love to hear from the community on why or why not this might be the way to go. Another potential option is to ask for a link from the university's website outlining the partnership. Something along the lines of "Our labs have partnered with BIZNAME to provide medical testing in San Antonio to our valued patients." I'd obviously love the EDU links, but I'm hesitant after Overstock's penalty a few years ago to try to set something like that up. I'm not sure which (if either) to ask for in the contract. I'm leaning toward the latter since it seems more in line with a long term strategy, and Google seems to change their treatment of the local listings pretty frequently. However, getting that high visibility real estate in the local listings is really appealing to me. What does everyone think?
Local Listings | | Andrew_Mac0 -
Hotel Local Listings Greatly Varying With Date
Searching for accommodation in a local region brings up a local listing block (e.g. http://puu.sh/irEoJ/635140594d.png). When clicking through to the block and changing dates, the order of the listings vary greatly. See attachments for 4 samples. How is Google deciding to order these listing blocks? I initially speculated they are pulling availability rates from Online Travel Agents like Expedia or Booking.com, but doubt this to be the case given a lot of those listings do not have Google Hotel Ads and smaller operators do not have their distribution system hooked up to Google Hotel. tVX816P,8U6RbcP,N6xGEdx,YC4K344#0 tVX816P,8U6RbcP,N6xGEdx,YC4K344#1 tVX816P,8U6RbcP,N6xGEdx,YC4K344#2 tVX816P,8U6RbcP,N6xGEdx,YC4K344#3
Local Listings | | fastrack0 -
Getting Google Local Pack Results
Does anyone know of a good article that lists all the things needed to get good Google local pack results? That would be extremely helpful. Thanks in advance!
Local Listings | | Gavo0 -
Local SEO for a company with 3 sites, for 3 different type of businesses
Hi I've been working for an employment lawyer in Sydney for 3 years now, all good, I built many citations and fixed all ones and the website/blog are ranking fine. Imagine I created the citation using e.g Anton Forester Employment lawyers, name, phone and address. Now the client just launched a website about property with the same name/brand and a different business title e.g Anton Forrester Property Lawyer and another 3rd website about conveyancing with the same name/brand and another business title e.g Anton Forrester Conveyancing law. My question is how do I build citations now that the name is different in the 3 cases, 3 websites but possibly the same phone and address? Thanks a lot Cheers Nico
Local Listings | | niclaus780