Local seo strategy for local gardening business ideas?

[HappyOx]

Hi all,

I am just setting up a local organic garden maintenance business in my home town.

I have set up the website, got social media accounts active (FB, Twitter and G+), set up google local listing (currently 5th in the local maps thingy), I have done loads of citations (many more than my competitors, but not a ridiculous amount), I've got 4 customer reviews on google so far, checked my DA against my competitors (mine 1, my comps 8-9), checked my comps links (less than 10) and been writing a blog on my website every couple of days.

I realise the one thing I have against me is that my domain is just less than a month old. How long until google builds a bit of trust in it to see it come up in the serps?

Also, I would love some ideas of what else I can be doing in the mean time. The idea here is to get the site rocking on all cylinders before the gardening season starts again in March. Do-able?

[DonnaDuncan]

Hmm. Sure looks like you're doing everything you should and correctly. You have more citations that your competitors with the exception of Irrigation. You have more reviews.

"Am I wasting my time optimizing for this? "

I'd wait a while longer to see what unfolds. I'd optimize organically. I'd add "garden center" as a local search category in addition to gardener. (I used Blumenthal's category list to find your options, last updated 2/15/14.) I'd continue to accrue as many citations and reviews as possible. I'd publish a KML and GEO sitemap. (Not sure if these are still used by Google, but they can't hurt. Miriam may have an opinion on that.)

I wish there was a clear and definitive answer I could give you but, as you undoubtedly know, it's just not the nature of this beast. Please do give us an update after more time has passed. I am and will be curious.

[HappyOx]

The Witney Gardener

[DonnaDuncan]

What's the name of your business?

[HappyOx]

Thanks for this Donna. Happy New Year by the way!

I am trying to rank for 'garden services witney' and am currently coming in 5th. If you see the map, I am in the actual town and the 4 comp above me are in the next village.

Am I wasting my time optimizing for this?

It's a totally different story for 'Gardener Witney'.

Cheers Donna,

[DonnaDuncan]

According to Google patents. But if I were you, I'd search for the category and town you're trying to rank for and see what Google shows. I don't think it's always as cut and dried as the patents would suggest. It's definitely a possibility though. Your statement "in a village just outside of my town" will have bearing - depending on whether you're trying to rank for the town or the village.

[HappyOx]

This is very interesting. So basically as 4 of my comp are in a village just on the outside of my town that this is the centre?

[DonnaDuncan]

If it's only been a month, it's still early days. It can take 2-6 months for all your citations to propagate throughout the local search ecosystem.

Also bear in mind proximity to the perceived industry center for your city is very important. Your business ideally would be centered in the area where most other garden maintenance businesses are clustered. Mike Blumenthal explains this concept best in Bright Local's free "State of Local Search" recorded webinar (from 2013). Start listening at time stamp 25:30.

[HappyOx]

It's definitely low competition and I have more citations, links and reviews than everyone else. Still sitting in 5th place though.

Will continue with videos

[HappyOx]

Yep got a video up but it sits on page three for its keywords https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tPwy7oO7qs

[DonnaDuncan]

Richard,

Local optimization will help you show up for your specific local search category and town, but often the real value comes in ranking well for long-tail search queries on a well-optimized website. The fact that you're blogging will certainly help that, but don't forget to go to the effort of making sure that content (and the whole site) is organically optimized. You should be optimizing it for your local business category as well as other terms, and making sure your business name, address and phone number is listed on every page of the site. Local schema tagging would definitely help too.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Richard,

It sounds like you are doing the right things, but how quickly you see results is going to be largely dependent on how stiff the local competition is. If it's low, you should see results quite quickly from the type of work you're doing (blogging, building citations, earning reviews) but if it's tough, it could be a matter of many, many months before you can edge out your competitors.

I like Andi's suggestion, in that it's hinting at is doing something your competitors might not be doing. A video or social campaign that puts great stuff out there about your business (in a way your competitors aren't latching onto) could give you a speedy competitive advantage.

[AndiDevlin]

How about posting some youtube videos and cross posting it on your site and the social media sites? Then you have a chance to rank above the local map search results. Same thing with images, but not as powerful. I think video would kick you into high gear.