How worthwhile is schema markup for a local business?
-
One of our clients was told that they need to implement schema on their website, and now they're very concerned that the lack of schema might be holding them back. We could certainly implement it for them, but I'm doubtful how much of a difference it will make. The client is a plastic surgery practice, so their content is fairly straightforward (services, locations, photo galleries, etc.). We're planning to add schema markup to their name, address and phone info in their website footer, but we're not sure if it's worthwhile doing anything beyond that. (I'm assuming schema markup for customer ratings would best be handled by a dedicated review management system like RealPatientRatings.com). What would you recommend for schema implementation?
-
Thanks, Miriam! I'll take a look at those two links.
-
Hi Christopher!
David Deering over at Whitespark just wrote a really super blog post on this topic. I highly recommend:
http://www.whitespark.ca/blog/post/50-how-to-make-your-local-business-schema-better
Is it absolutely necessary for every local business to use Schema? No ... honestly not. But in a competitive market where your client wants to be the best, then yes, clearly structured data may be a competitive difference maker. I think Deering's article will help you assess whether the effort will be worth it for your client, if you weigh it against their level of competition and their need to be on top.
*Also, be sure to check out this Moz thread on the subject of recent changes in Google's stated attitude toward schema and testimonials:
-
Thanks, guys. I'll check what their competitors are doing (I doubt they're doing much, if anything at all). Then we'll implement the NAP markup and maybe call it good there, so we can focus on more productive activities going forward.
-
It's not really holding them back. I would start with the usual, NAP markups on each page of the site since its a local business. Plus the maps markup.
Then dedicate the time to checking what the competitors are doing vs what your client has right now (more citations? etc)
That should stop them from worrying about schema at this point so you can focus on making them improve in rankings.
-
As a ranking factor it's not a huge boost, but it could help with click through rates depending on the presentation of the search results. Richard Baxter did a nice study on this a couple of years back here: http://builtvisible.com/review-snippet-over-saturation-in-google-search-results/, and concluded it was a little over-played in some searches; however, beneficial in others. To better tackle this perhaps do what Richard did and look at results for some of the clients top performing words, then address the page as a whole, so instead of saying, "Hey you're number 2 for this keyword," present the page with a break down of where they appear and what happens if someone clicks on a result that's not them, but a review about them, whether or not review stars look to be a differentiating quality, if they could get into image results that would have an impact, and so on. Cheers!
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
-
No Appreciable Effect of Moz Local?
I've been using Moz Local for over a year and these are the results for $129?! ... https://moz.com/products/local/check-listing?ubrecheckid=152151793&ubrechecktoken=zc2pg9Ic2qkADDYL Please advise.
Local SEO | | ianpritchardphd0 -
English pages given preference over local language
We recently launched a new design of our website and for SEO purposes we decided to have our website both in English and in Dutch. However, when I look at the rankings in MOZ for many of our keywords, it seems the English pages are being preferred over the Dutch ones. That never used to be the case when we had our website in the old design. It mainly is for pages that have an English keyword attached to them, but even then the Dutch page would just rank. I'm trying to figure out why English pages are being preferred now and whether that could actually damage our rankings, as search engines would prefer copy in the local language. An example is this page: https://www.bluebillywig.com/nl/html5-video-player/ for the keywords "HTML5 player" and "HTML5 video player".
Local SEO | | Billywig0 -
How valuable is non-local organic traffic for local business?
Hey friends! I work for a local digital marketing agency in Greenville, SC – serving primarily local small businesses. Over the past six months, we've increased our monthly organic traffic by almost 100%. The majority of this traffic is coming to blogs we've written over the past year on industry topics and trends. I love seeing our traffic increase, but it hasn't necessarily translated to more quality leads. Conversion numbers have largely remained the same. I think one reason is that a lot of this traffic isn't local. Here's my question: as a local business, how valuable is content that ranks well and drives organic traffic, when the traffic isn't local, and from users we would never work with? A lot of this content has earned links and grown our authority, so I suppose we've seen benefit, but I'm struggling to convince myself that it's really that valuable. I know local content is key, but it feels like what we want to educate on isn't searched locally. Would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks!
Local SEO | | brooksmanley3 -
International Versus Local Backlinks?
I'm running a dentist's website and I've been wondering if there is any additional benefit to achieving local backlinks from other medical sites versus larger international ones? For example, if I had a blog article that I wanted another site to link to, would you choose the local medical website within the same city or the international one that has more viewers?
Local SEO | | Undergrnd0 -
Local store (B2B) that produces high quality prints for photographers: are we adopting the right strategy?
Hi, I'd like to know your opinion on the following case and gather new ideas on how to optimise our strategy: Starting situation: local store (B2B) in a bigger city in Europe that produces high quality prints mainly for photographers on paper (or other materials like canvas, aluminium, etc. ). They really take care of your images (e.g. Color Management) and produce printouts that look how they really should look like. Target audience: photographers (pros), museum, exhibitions and hotel people that would like to produce high quality prints of their images. Almost never the ambitioned private photographers (until now). **Actual situation: **its really a local business (people around 30 km). competition: big online stores where you can upload your pictures and get your prints sent home (quality: not bad, but not exceptional, no special requests; more for private customers) Already done (with relatively little results): _AdWords: _very "tight" keyword combinations, not broad at all, targeting area around business location. results: small traffic, small costs: not a lot of conversions. _SEO: _for organic search we now achieve very good positions for tight" keyword combinations, not broad ones. results: little traffic: not a lot of conversions LinkedIn-Ads targeting the above target group: results: little traffic: not a lot of conversions Facebook Remarketing (targeting his newsletter mail-list: results: little traffic: not a lot of conversions Optimized the landingpage (in my opinion far more to the point than before) PROBLEM: Basically we now get to the right people but traffic is really (too) small. At least we don't waste money at all but we don't gain a lot either... If we broaden the "keywords" the private customers will come in and waste our advertising money. Do you ever had a similar situation? What did you do? Any suggestions? Other target groups? Alternative channels? Thanks for your input. Cheers, Cesare
Local SEO | | Cesare.Marchetti0 -
What is the best SEO tool for tracking local rankings
Hi Can anyone recommend what they think the best tool is to track local rankings. I want to manage several small businesses' visibility and I am not sure which one is the best. I have been told that "Bright local" and "SEO PowerSuite" are the best in the business. Is that true? or is there something better out there Thanks
Local SEO | | coolhandluc0 -
Transfer Local SEO rankings to another domain
The question is specifically about local rankings, not the organic ones. My client recently acquired another Law firm. Acquired firm's website is ranking well in Google local and has a decent SEO authority. Its Google mybusiness page is also established and has a lot of positive reviews. Client's main website is comparatively new and doesn't currently rank well in Google local. The Google mybusiness page is sort of incomplete and doesn't have any review. Both businesses are listed in local directories (client's main business is listed in lot less directories and has fewer citations). The client wants to merge the newly acquired website with his main website, without losing Google local rankings the acquired website has. Or in other words, transfer newly acquired website's local rankings to his main site. Client wants to transfer the website to his main website in all cases while minimizing the damage. I'd transfer acquired website's content to main website, properly map the pages and place 301 redirects. Regarding Google my business pages, what would you suggest? I can either update main business NAP and Website address in Acquired business's mybusiness page, or transfer acquired business's mybusiness ratings to main mybusiness page via this form: https://support.google.com/business/contact/business_move_reviews I've also heard that Google support can merge two business page, however not sure about that. I'd also need to update the business listings and citations. Could you please suggest the best way of doing this? And have you practically tested it?
Local SEO | | Woofire0 -
Local Pages for National (Service) Companies
Hi there, I was wanting to know the value of local pages for a service company that operates nationally. They do not have a phone number or address, but they do maintain employees in each of the locations and are thus, keen to emphasize this fact with location pages. The location pages merely explain that they have staff in each of the locations and experience working there, alongside a variety of information that is relevant to the industry/market in that location. None of the location pages are currently ranking well at all - in fact, all of the ones I've looked at so far have had a page authority of 1. Most of the major towns, cities and counties for the entire UK have been covered which means the location pages constitute a significant proportion of all of the pages for the entire site. My questions are: Is a national service company likely to benefit from having location pages? And could it even be something they could be penalised for at some point down the line? Thanks very much, in advance, for your time. Kind Regards, Tom
Local SEO | | National-Homebuyers0