Free Local Search Marketing Tools You're Using These Days?
-
Hello to our wonderful community here!
I'm updating an old list of free tools to use in a local search marketing campaign. The original list was created before there were quite so many paid tools in our industry, and it definitely needs an update!
I'd like to ask, are there free tools you find yourself using these days in marketing local businesses? These could be related to any aspect of your campaigns.
I'd love it if you'd share your favorites with me, especially if they are things you feel others might not be aware of but which are working really well for you! Thanks for any suggestions you can provide.
-
There's more on my blog
-
Whoa - that's not only a great tool, Igor, but your strategy for how to use it is quite amazing! Thank you so much for the suggestion. Very, very cool!
-
Notify.ly bot for slack to track mentions.
Tracking your brand and your competitors' brands is a must. But..Tracking combinations of competitors' names with words like sucks, sht, fck, bad and so on is one of my favourite hacks.
Depending on your niche and the number of competitors you list, you can get from ten to hundreds leads per month with a very good conversion rate. You'll get an immediate notification when someone who's gone through major part of your competitor's funnel is unhappy, your job is to jump in and provide an alternative. It's manual work, but it's worth it.
TL;DR notify.ly to track mentions in real time.
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 Causes Large Swings in Local Rankings?
I know local rankings are a complicated matter and I'm not looking for a single answer to this question, but I'm curious if any local SEOs have noticed similar issues to what I'm experiencing with trying to rank a multi-location-based business. Overall, the visibility trends for the business are up, but we keep popping into the top three spots (happened 2-3 times over the past year) for some general, particularly high-volume search terms only to fall back out and settle a week later into placements below the first page. This is particularly frustrating because the terms we're seeing this volatility for are the exact dream keywords we're hoping to rank the site for. Has anyone else experienced the same thing and had specific findings about what was at play? Is Google testing us and finding us unworthy? Any and all insights from pros with similar experiences would be helpful!
Local SEO | | formandfunctionagency0 -
"We" or "I" for a small local healthcare enterprise?
Hi all, SEO newb here (or possibly rookie!). I'm a health professional and run a small, new specialised healthcare business targeting a local area (15 miles max). My product as such is the service I provide. There is a grand total of one employee, that of course being me! My SEO goal is phonecalls made and subsequent bookings as opposed to sales. Prior to joining here, I just looked at websites that provide a similar service and blindly assumed that a "We" approach to writing content was the accepted norm for presumed professional appearance. On reflection however, not only are most of these employing a team, most are in areas much more metropolitan than I operate in (I operate in a medium sized town where almost everyone knows everyone else by about 1 degree). In addition, I have run into a few difficulties with this however when writing content/incorporating keywords. Now I am about to re-write my "About Me" section I'm having a real challenge using the aforementioned context while sounding personable and like-able. Does anyone have any advice or experience re the correct context to use, in regards to the difference in CTR's and bounce rates etc in a small one-man enterprise that offers specialised services to the local area? Many thanks!
Local SEO | | UkPod1 -
Usability: Using Letters in Phone Numbers
A manager wants change our 800 phone number to use letters instead of numbers. This would involve changing our toll free number, changing phone number on website/blog/quote forms (different platforms) and changing on Social Media, Local and citations. i.e. 1-800-GoReds1 versus 1-800-555-5555 Is there any research that shows customers appreciate a Brand Named phone number over simple numbers? It seems it would make using the phone number more difficult except on mobile, where it can be clicked. I have looked online but have found nothing, but am not sure I'm searching the correct terms.
Local SEO | | RoxBrock0 -
Local Printing Company Moving to a new IP - Will Our Rankings Change
I operate a local print and direct mail company located in Houston called Catdi Printing (www.catdi.com)We do very well with our local rankings and rank 2 or 3 in our main keywords ( Houston Printing , Direct Mail Houston & eddm Houston ) We are looking to upgrade our online quoting and ordering system. The software is very expensive and the only way we can incorporate this new system is to move our site and redirect our domain. The new hosting provider is located in California and might even be hosted by Google but im not certain on this point. Our current host provider is Hostgator and they are based in Houston so im not this provides any benefit. I guess my main question is will this new change affect our overall regular and local rankings? I would hate to see our positions and ranking fall because of this change. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks CATDI
Local SEO | | ChopperCharlie1 -
My First SEO strategy - What's next?
I have recently embarked on an SEO strategy for my website. I've done a lot of reading and researching here on Moz and on search engine land and have got a good idea of how to build a basic SEO strategy. My own expertise is in PPC, so keyword strategy came easy to me. I rebuilt my website and focused on the on page SEO with every single page, this has brought really great results - instantly. For some of my chosen keywords I have gone from not being ranked to being on Google's first page - within a couple of days of my new website going live, for other's I've gone from being outside the top 50 to being ranked in the top 50, so my on page SEO has really strengthened my position and I now understand how important it is as a ranking factor. I've also started to create content on a regular basis with 2 or 3 new blogs being uploaded each week, the blogs are based around my businesses main target market's - PPC, Web design, digital marketing etc. These blogs have a lot of links out to good websites, EG "to learn about adwords check out the adwords fundamentals course on lynda.com" and useful info like that. I also signed up to whitespark for citation idea's so have started adding my site to all relevant directory suggestions that it gives me. So my question is this, after seeing great early results because of my on page SEO, what are my next steps to increase my rankings? And more specifically how do I use Moz to help increase my ranking? During the week, I've started using Open site explorer to find my competitors backlinks, should I now spend my time trawling through these links to find opportunities to add links for my website where I can. Is this a good thing to be doing at this stage? Anything else that I should be doing now to capitalise on my early results please let me know what it is and please tell me how to take full advantage of Moz to gain a better ranking. I appreciate all insight!
Local SEO | | michealbren0 -
Local SEO same company two different locations
I have a client who has 2 locations approx 20 miles apart. He wants to reach new customers at the second office location. He is an owner of a law firm he practices elder law, in the second location he has an attorney who practices injury law. The second location is in an area where targeting prospects for elder law could also be lucrative. We currently have two separate websites for each area of law. My question is... Would it be suggested to create another elder law website to target the potential clients in this second location. Also for the first location we have put in place a content marketing strategy that has increased revenue considerably. Basically creating content (blog posts) that resonate with the target audience. If a new website is in order can the blog post be posted here too with a canonical referencing the original website. Im thinking a slow redistribution of content on the new site. Advice here is greatly appreciated as this new market for my client could increase revenue even more.
Local SEO | | donsilvernail0 -
Developing a content marketing strategy for a social security disability firm.
I have a client that I've been working with for a little over a year now and I've been struggling to generate new business from his online presence. Initially, I completely re-designed his website with semantically correct html markup, and used all of typical, site level SEO tactics, i.e., keywords in title tags, h tags, paragraphs, correct NAP, etc. We've only seen very low marginal returns off of our efforts. Part of the problem is that my client is not an attorney, but instead he runs a social security disability advocacy firm. He still performs all of the operations that an attorney performs, but due to the fact that he is not an attorney, we cannot optimize his site for search phrases containing "attorney", which is a common keyword that people would generally use to find the services that my client offers. So I've decided to try a different approach. A content marketing approach. The only reason I prolonged avoided this approach for so long is that, to be frank, I had no idea how to target his ideal clients with content. After talking to my client the other day and recommending this new approach, I uncovered some similarities between his previous clients. Most his clients live in rural areas, and they like nascar, hunting, fishing, etc. So I suggested that I create blog for him, and begin finding some freelance writers that can create some killer content about nascar, hunting and fishing. Admittedly, I don't have a much experience with a content marketing approach, but I want to learn everything there is to know about it. I guess I'm a little unsure about this approach that we're getting ready to try, and would love to hear from some people that have been down this path, and might be able to offer any advice. I really want to help my client's business flourish, and it's now very clear to me that solely relying on an old SEO line of thinking is not doing the trick anymore. Any tips, tactics and strategies would be greatly appreciated. Am I on the right track here? How would we get this content in front of his ideal clients, and market it in such a way that he will get a good return on his investment?
Local SEO | | ScottMcPherson0 -
Niche Keyword Opportunities in Canada when US Market Dominates
Hey, I have an interesting question. I am the owner of a Canadian E-Commerce site, and I have been brainstorming ways to find opportunities and niches for Canadian online shoppers in an industry that is dominated by American E-commerce sites. I looked around at another Canadian e-commerce site, and I wanted to get some advice on whether this strategy is sound. Here is an example. Well.ca is a large e-commerce site in Canada. They take a competitive product like a "KONG Goodie Bone" (a dog toy) and include local and intent terms in their title. For example "Buy KONG Goodie Bone from Canada at Well.ca - Free Shipping". If a Canadian shopper searches for "Kong Goodie Bone", they are going to find results for amazon.com, ebay.com, the Kong company website, Petco (which is not in Canada) etc. I would imagine that Canadian shoppers would start to add terms such as Canada, Buy, or online to try to find Canadian sellers. If that is the case, then Well.ca ranks. I guess my question is, if the dominant search terms in my industry are polluted with irrelevant or American companies (even in Canada), is this form of localization a good idea? The terms don't seem to be searched much according to any keyword research tool I've used, but I know that I add "canada" to my search terms in order to find Canadian results? I will also note that our website recently launched, we are using 100% original product page content, we are using videos, and we are really putting a lot of energy into quality content. I am just wondering if patience is the name of the game when you are dealing with sites with incredible domain authority, or if we are better off trying to find niche opportunities. Thoughts?
Local SEO | | evan890