Need an Local SEO's expert opinion regarding a client trying to improve their rankings.
-
I have a business i'm working with right now who wants to improve their rankings in a very competitive legal niche.
Are there any Local SEO gurus out there that would be willing to explain in a paragraph or two what's going wrong?
Let me know if you'd like to help and I'll PM you the domain.
-
You're welcome, Brian, and I hope you'll be able to find a consultant who can offer a second opinion. Sounds like you are trying to save your client a big headache!
-
Thank you Miriam. Those are awesome resources all of which I am familiar with
There are some obvious issues with the backlink profile on this particular site. I've pointed it out to the client as something hazardous and their current SEO is framing it as a difference of opinion when in reality he is putting the client at great risk (in my opinion).
My hope was get a third party to look at this and offer an honest assessment to the client.
Btw, I'm not opposed to paying someone for their time here.
Thanks again!
-
Hey Brian
It's totally understandable when it's not possible to share a client's domain in public. We do have some really talented folks in the Local SEO space here, but if the client is trying break into a competitive legal pack (those can be so tough!), chances are you are going want to do a complete audit of their Local SEO. A paragraph or two may fail to generate the thorough feedback and strategy your client will need. I'm hoping a couple of suggestions will help:
-
Here is our Local SEO Checklist, which you can go through bit by bit to identify any problems that might be holding the client back.
-
Here is our 2015 Local Search Ranking Factors survey, which pools industry knowledge regarding the elements that are believed to have the greatest impact on rank. Your client will need to excel at all of these to compete.
-
Here is our recommended Local SEO companies list. On that list, I know NiftyMarketing to be particularly skilled in the legal industry. In fact, they have a unique business called niftylaw.com that specializes in marketing for the legal industry. You or your client may need to consult with a real heavy-hitter in this area, given the competitiveness of your market.
I hope these resources will prove helpful!
-
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
-
What's the current best practice for URL structure?
We’re really confused about the current best practice of URL structure. For example what would anyone advise to rank for luxury hotel rooms? name.com/luxury-hotel-rooms/
Local Website Optimization | | SolveWebMedia
name.com/hotel/luxury-hotel-rooms/
name.com/hotel/luxury-rooms/
name.com/hotel/luxury/
name.com/luxury-rooms/ Or do we add location? name.com/luxury-hotel-rooms-location/
name.com/hotel/luxury-hotel-rooms-location/ name.com/hotel/luxury-rooms-location/ They also do cottages name.com/cottages/sea-view-holiday-cottages/0 -
Matching page for keyword doesn't show in search
Hello! I'm having an issue with my website Rooms Index, the website is in Hebrew so I'll provide examples in English for better understandings. When I'm searching Rooms by Hour in Haifa, google doesn't show the intended category page which is this, instead it shows my homepage in the results, this happens only for certain areas, while other areas are working well such as Tel aviv. For example if I searched day use in Las Vegas it'd show me the Las Vegas page dayuse.com/las-vegas, but searching for Brooklyn I'd only see dayuse.com. the pages are indexed and I can find them if I search site:roomsindex.co.il what could cause such problem?
Local Website Optimization | | AviramAdar0 -
Client wants to rebrand but insists on keeping their old website live as well...
I am working with a client in the dental space that has an existing (11 year old) website for his practice. His domain is tied to his last name, which he would like to get away from because he plans to sell the practice in the next couple years. Backstory: Prior to taking him on, he was working with an SEO agency out of India that were built him quite an ugly backlink profile. Once we discovered it, we immediately notified him about the risk of a penalty if left alone. He was riding high in Google SERP's so of course, it was of no concern to him. Needless to say about a year ago he was inducted into Google's "manual penalty club" for suspicious links. His site vanished in Google and all! Hooray! But no, not really... We met with him to discuss the options, suggesting we clean up his backlink profile, then submit for reconsideration. Based on the time we told him it could take to make progress and be back up and running, he wasn't very excited about that approach. He said he wanted us to rebuild a new site, with a new domain and start fresh. In addition, he wanted keep his original site live since it is tied to his already thriving practice. To sum it all up, his goal is to keep what he has live since his customers are accustom to using his existing (penalized) website. While building a new brand/website that he can use to build a cleaner backlink profile and rank in Google as well as to sell off down the line without having his name tied to the practice. Question: Being that he has an existing site with the company NAP info throughout and the new site will also have the same NAP (just a different domain/brand), is there a "best way" to approach this? The content on the new site would be completely unique. I understand this approach is iffy but in his situation it makes sense to some extent. Any feedback or ideas on how to best handle having two sites running for the same dental practice? If any part of my question is confusing or you need further details to help make a suggestion, please fire away and I will be happy to give as much detail as possible. Thanks Mozzers!
Local Website Optimization | | Bryan_Loconto1 -
International SEO Difficulty With Hreflang
Hi, It seems that multilingual sites can be very tricky sometimes. This is the second problem we are facing with a client this month... A company which already has a presence in Spain wants to expand now in Portugal, Brazil and Argentina. There are some linguistic differences between Spain Spanish and Argentina Spanish so we will have a slightly different content but same url (check below) We will also cover the linguistic differences between Portuguese and Brazilian but with different urls, so we will have 4 pages serving the same content in 3 ( technically 4 ) different languages: company.com/idioma -> (original Spain Spanish page - url stays the same.) company.com/es-ar/idioma (Argentina url) company.com/pt-pt/idioma (Portugal url) company.com/pt-br/lingua (Brazil url) Normally we know we should use alternate hreflang to all 4 pages, but now that the url changes, e.g between Argentina and Brazil, the case is the same or we can omit it for these two countries? Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | Tz_Seo0 -
URL structure for local SEO
Hi fokes, question; which url structure is best for local rankings. For example: when I want to rank on the keyword: "Plumber Londen". And I dont have plumber in my brand. What is the best url structure: example.com/plumber/londen example.com/plumber-londen
Local Website Optimization | | remkoallertz1 -
Are there any suggestions when you completly redesign your web page keeping the same domain but change the host? I want it to go smoothly and want to avoid the rankings we already have including sub pages.
I am currently having our website completely redone by a design company. Are there any suggestions on this process as to not lose the rankings we currently have for our site? The domain will remain the same however we are planning on changing our host. We also have a good amount of sub domains that the web company will not be changing for us.
Local Website Optimization | | molchman0 -
SEO: .com vs .org vs .travel Domain
Hi there, I am new to MOZ Q&A and first of all I appreciate all the folks here that share their expertise and make everyone understand 'the WWW' a bit better. My question: I have been developing a 'travel guide' site for a city in the U.S. and now its time to choose the right domain name. I put a strong focus on SEO in terms of coding, site performance as well as content and to round things up I'd like to register the _best _domain name in terms of SEO. Let's suppose the city is Atlanta. I have found the following domain names that are available and I was wondering whether you guys could give me some inside on which domain name would perform best. discoveratlanta.org
Local Website Optimization | | kinimod
atlantaguide.org
atlanta.travel
atlantamag.com Looking at the Google Adwords Keyword tool the term that reaches the highest search queries is obviously "Atlanta" itself. Sites that are already ranking high are atlanta.com and atlanta.gov. So basically I am wondering whether I should aim for a new TLD like atlanta.travel or rather go with a .org domain. I had a look around and it seems that .org domains generally work well for city guides (at least a lot of such sites use .org domains). However, I have also seen a major US city that uses .travel and ranks first. On the other hand in New York, nycgo.com ranks well. Is it safe to assume that from the domain names I mentioned it really doesn't matter which one I use since it wouldn't significantly affect my ranking (good or bad)? Or would you still choose one above the other? What do you generally thing about .travel domain names (especially since they are far more expensive then the rest)? I really appreciate your response to my question! Best,
kinimod0 -
Local Rank & Branding Confusion - HELP
I am working with a client now that has two sites that serve two segments of a particular market segment. They have two different URLs which cater to these different target markets BUT the company is known in its local market as a their brand name (of course) which is different than their 2 domain names used on these 2 sites. Confusing eh? This has resulted in confusing Google and their rank has suffered a bit. To provide more color + insight- Let's just say this company is called AtlantaEventsInc and they offer event services for corporate events and let's say weddings. So let's say they have had atlantaeventscorporate.com for 20 years and then they add atlantaeventweddings.com about a year ago since their wedding business is expanding. So they promote their corporate events on one site and their wedding events on another. These 2 sites also currently share one blog, share one Facebook page, one Twitter and have two Google+ pages. Should we keep these two sites totally separate? and even have separate blogs and separate social media accounts? OR since our rank has only suffered with the new wedding site (just a year old) should we retire that site? (i suppose we could still keep separate blogs though for each target market. WOULD LOVE INSIGHT ON THIS! Thanks, Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd1