Local seo strategy for local gardening business ideas?
-
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?
-
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.
-
The Witney Gardener
-
What's the name of your business?
-
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,
-
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.
-
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?
-
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.
-
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
-
Yep got a video up but it sits on page three for its keywords https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tPwy7oO7qs
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
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
-
Product Videos and SEO
We sell high end products and we try to educate the consumer as much as possible. Since the attention span is short, we try and break up the features/functions into 5-6 videos. We post everything to Youtube and we have been adding it to our blog as well. I am currently tasked with rebuilding our blog from the ground up. This means getting rid of all the thin content, updating content, etc. We have many videos up there and Just trying to figure out what the best practice should be. The blog is wordpress based and I have the videos now set up in a category structure. Should I just add each video as a video custom post type? Should I have each video posted with a transcript? Or should I post each video with sub background text of the video? We have about 120 videos in all and adding more, but making them longer to reduce the amount of videos per product going forward. Thank you.
Image & Video Optimization | | RevCom0 -
Local SEO Question: Domain Wide Vs Specific Page
Hey Moz Community, Question about Local SEO authority and how it applies to a domain vs. landing page. Let me elaborate... Company is launching a new local out reach sales channel and merging it with our inbound sales channel under one brand. The plan thus far is to create a targeted landing page for local customers/leads. I have been tasked with creating the written content and making sure we are optimized as much as possible for this landing page to show up for our city. Funny enough for a lot of relevant terms we are already in the top 10 with little optimization (Also due to low competition for most of these terms) Two questions: 1. Should the whole site be optimized for local - appropriate schema markup, G+ business local set up, contact page with correct address formatting, building citations/local links etc.? To accompany our targeted page? 2. Will taking a local first initiative hurt reaching our non-local target market? If so will a very targeted landing page for local customers do the trick minus rest of local optimizations ? I guess what the question really boils down to is will optimizing for local hurt our broader inbound search reach/ranks in the long run? I want to be sure we are competitive to our broader audience and local audience on the same site with trying to get into sub-domains or considering re branding what is essentially the same department but for local purposes. Responses and sharing previous experience would be greatly appreciated 🙂
Image & Video Optimization | | paul-bold0 -
Local SEO NAP issue
Hello, All of my citations addresses have the street address 913 S. Latah Street except there are other businesses in this building with the same address. Should I have included "Room H"? Also, is "S." different than "South"? Is "St." different than Street? Looking for correct consistent citations.
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Trying to Merge Google + Local and Google Business Page _ How to?
Hi I have been reading so many posts about merging Google Plus + (Places) accounts and the new Google + Business Pages. I am working with a business who has a verified account in both. How ( and in fact should we try and merge). The old Places page has a review the newly create Business Page does not but is better optimized. Any help would be gratefully received as my head is spinning/ PS based in New Zealand
Image & Video Optimization | | AllieMc0 -
New to SEO
Hi, I'm new to SEO and was wondering if I could get some pointers on how to earn back links for a relatively new site. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Image & Video Optimization | | greenfoxone0 -
Does anyone have experience with ecinity.com as a vehicle for populating local search directories? If yes, how would you rank it as a competitor to Localeze and UBL?
I've been approached by the company to use their tool. It has functionality beyond just populating local data sources which I'm not concerned with. I just want to know how it ranks in terms of local directory coverage. They claim 85% of the local directories will be populated.
Image & Video Optimization | | DonnaDuncan0 -
Local citations | Local search
What is the best way to find local resources to gain reviews and citations from to help with strengthening your position in Google Places?
Image & Video Optimization | | echo10