Getting Schooled in Local by 'Lesser' Brands?

[revisionsolar]

Hi Moz!

First question I've asked here. I've been working on campaign for my company (regional solar installation company in Northeast USA) for close to 7 years, we've always done well in local search but recently have noticed sites that, for lack of a better word, we 'school' in terms of all the usual metrics - better/more consistent local listings, better domain strength, better backlink profile, bigger company (in the real world), brand recognition, etc...

However recently we have started seeing smaller competitors beat us in state-specific rankings, using stuff I would call 'old school' SEO that is no longer really tolerated, in theory - stuffing keywords onto page, keywords in domain, etc... domains of much less strength pulling #1 or #2 terms.

Based on data I don't actually think keywords like "solar + state name" are actually that powerfully but frankly it is bit embarrassing to get crushed by 1-2 person companies when you have a 150+ company with a three-person in-house digital marketing team. My strategy so far has consisted of building a better Google review solicitation process, adding schema markup to our project gallery, and some SEO 101 stuff like reworking keywords and title tags.

I've noticed a strong uptick on our site of leads from outside our territory (like folks from all across the USA who are NOT in our service territory) - I'm almost thinking I've done 'too good' a job of building a nationally relevant website and not enough state-specific options.

Has anyone ever experienced something like this? Any clever strategies beyond the obvious?

Can share more specifics if it'll be helpful.

Cheers,
Fred

[revisionsolar]

To pat myself on the back a bit, one of the cleverest things I think we did was set up a project gallery map that has indexable pages for each town where we've installed a solar project, replete with URL, title, meta tag, etc. e.g. https://www.revisionenergy.com/solar-projects/shelburne-new-hampshire/

These rank well for any of the town name + state searches, for the state level searches we are not as present as we'd like / used to be. We have pages like these to highlight our various locations (a local SEO play) - https://www.revisionenergy.com/locations/brentwood-nh-solar-showroom/

We tried to make state-specific solar guides, e.g. https://www.revisionenergy.com/locations/go-solar-in-new-hampshire/ however these seemed to perform less well (were poorly indexed and don't rank).

[revisionsolar]

Yes, where I think this gets interesting is for players like ourselves let's say 'regional players' who are NOT major brands with massive marketing resources OR the super small 2-person company. In actuality we do actually offer a superior customer experience and resources than the small company has - and we actually probably have installed more local projects than the other company (which is why I recently set up schema metadata markup for Google to index our project map for local projects - perhaps that helps show that we are 'hyper local' even if our physical location is 25 miles away).

We used to completely dominate/crush these rankings but even in organic SERPS - not the local pack - we are being beaten by completely inferior sites I think because they 'read' more local than ours, even though it has a much deeper level of resources and a stronger brand. It's a challenging place to be - smaller than the big companies so not armed with those resources, but with substantially more overhead than the smaller companies and a legitimately superior customer experience.

But in the end as Robert said I think we're going to continue to focus on the key drivers of business (with all this said our web results and traffic are up) so losing a few spots in hyperlocal queries here and there does not stress me out tremendously.

[donsilvernail]

Fred,

I have found that on local search smaller companies have an advantage over larger companies. Why? Local evens the playing field. These smaller companies have a strong presence in their communities and Google knows this. Remember Google's number 1 goal is to produce the most relevant information to its users for any given search.

So if a 2 man solar company is a block away from Bill who is searching for "Free Solar Panels...local city" The 2 man shop is more relevant to the search then the company 50 miles away but services the area in which Bill lives.

I think this is a trend that is going to be deeply rooted into the new mobile first approach. It clearly levels the playing field!

[julie-getonthemap]

I understand your dilemma.

I think Robert's advice is excellent, but it's still worth thinking about why those other firms are beating you in the SERPS.  I find that a tremendous amount of SEO and social media advice is relevant only for Fortune 500 companies.  The only way to find out what works for me, and for my clients, is to take their advice with a grain of salt.  Test what works for me.

What if you tried developing landing pages for your 5 biggest markets using somewhat old school methods? Not black hat but keywords in url, titles, alt tags, etc? See what happens.

[RobertFisher]

Please do. And let them know I have been doing marketing for over 25 years. One thing you might show them is that you are focusing on:

• Keywords that bring the most value to the company

• Business types that bring the most value to the company

• Customer/Client types that bring the most value to the company.

Early in any agency relationship and often before we even agree to engage we ask clients what parts of their businesses are the ones that make them the most money or move their strategy the farthest forward? We regularly find companies caught up in selling product that is well known and costs them $2 to make and that they lose a dollar on every time they sell one. Those same companies have other products that cost them a nickel and take little time or energy or manpower to deliver yet make them a lot of money. I would rather help them sell those!
Best

[revisionsolar]

Ha ha, you know what Robert, that is what I've been trying to tell all the stakeholders who have been quizzing me on this, "Why worry about what they're doing when OUR results are good and we're moving the needle." I'm going to quote you on that if you don't mind

• Fred

[RobertFisher]

Fred,

I enjoyed your query here because it is something we have all faced either ourselves or when doing client work. NOTE: That your query is about Local but you immediately go to a State + KW which is not a Local issue. What you are doing in this respect is very good and keep it up. I will tell you a couple of things that we don't talk about as much that I think are very helpful as well: A quality meta description (please no one tell me about it not being part of the algorithm) helps you in that it brings traffic to the site. I stress with our team that you must always "answer the searcher's query" in the meta desc. Another key item is the URL structure in my opinion. If Solar Installation is important for ranking for you, I am going to do my best to have a URL with that early in the structure. But...

I think you answered yourself a bit when you said, "Based on data I don't actually think keywords like "solar + state name" are actually that powerfully but frankly it is bit embarrassing to get crushed by 1-2 person companies when you have a 150+ company with a three-person in-house digital marketing team." I would say a search for Texas Solar Installation would be worthless in Houston, TX. People don't search that way on the whole.

But the bigger thing is worrying about what the other guy is doing / where they are ranking and how many resources she or he has. I have had clients drive me up the wall because, "XYZ company is ranking above them for these 10 terms... " What is hilarious is the one that stands out the most was a large regional firm that we helped increase traffic, recover from huge Penguin issues, and increase revenues by double digits year over year and they could only focus on rankings for KW's.

I urge you to focus more on what you are doing and what business results you are achieving than worrying over where Bobs Solar truck ranks against you for Michigan Solar Guru.

Best