How I can improve Local SEO in 2018

[martinxm]

Hi. I have already applied this strategy:

1. Capture Your Space on All Local Business Directories.
2. Leverage the Power of Local Link Building
3. Focus on Reviews and Ratings
4. Use Local Structured Data Markup

What could I do to improve my strategy in 2018?

[martinxm]

Last day, MOZ Team publish a post about it.

https://moz.com/blog/how-to-optimize-your-google-my-business-listing

[Casey_Bryan]

And Google also encourages you to respond to all good and bad reviews too

https://support.google.com/business/answer/3474050?hl=en

[MiriamEllis]

Good question! So, replying to reviews doesn't directly correlate with increased rankings, if this is how you define SEO. But, reviews have a massive impact on your reputation and your revenue. And both of those elements then indirectly impact your SEO, in terms of what people are saying about you (and linking to) regarding your brand, and the financial picture you achieve, which enables you to invest more in your SEO. So, think of it as a circle, if you can.

Given the importance of closely managing your reputation, owner responses have become a critical vehicle for contributing to how consumers feel about your company. Negative reviews, in particular, need responses to defend your reputation and revenue, and also, to keep existing customers happy instead of having to spend so much more in replacing them with new customers.

So, owner responses do not = any known, direct ranking benefits.

But, owner responses definitely do = core benefits to the health of your brand.

You might like to read: https://moz.com/blog/mastering-owner-response-quintet-google-my-business-reviews

[martinxm]

Thanks for the reply. I have a question about whether it is important or not to answer the reviews on my business page. How important is this for SEO?

[MiriamEllis]

Good morning!

Great question and good discussion happening here. I have two recommendations for you:

1. Harness all possible features of the Google Knowledge Panel, including description, posts, photos, reviews and review responses, Q&A, etc. Set up UTM tracking wherever you can to assess which particular activities and features are driving traffic and conversions. Google is slowly but surely on a path the replace your website as the interactive level your customers experience for more and more searches. While your website still definitely matters, viewing the Knowledge Panel as a secondary, quite powerful mini-website is appropriate in 2018. Experiment and analyze.

2. Focus on in-store experiences that drive consumer content (reviews) and loyalty. Take advantage of the fact that, for many businesses, Google is still driving new customers their way, basically for free, except in those verticals where free packs are being replaced with paid packs. If Google gives you a customer once, it's up to your in-store staff to turn them into a repeat customer. Emphasize building a loyal consumer base now, while Google leads remain "free", as a preventative measure against the future in which less and less of these leads will be free. What can your business do to create the kind of consumer experiences that win customers for the long term, and prompt word-of-mouth recommendations to their network of family and friends?

Hope these two ideas help!

[martinxm]

Hola elenaglop. Thanks for the link!

[martinxm]

Hola elenaglop. Thanks for the ideas!

[Casey_Bryan]

It sounds like you're on the right track to me.

With regards to business listings, I have found regularly adding posts to GMB listings quite helpful. While it's not a 'ranking factor', there have been a few case studies done which suggest they can be helpful. E.g. https://searchengineland.com/google-posts-impact-ranking-case-study-285668

Since they take about 5-10 minutes to do, it definitely doesn't hurt!

And then yes if you can create more localised blog content that could help too

[elenaglop]

¡Hola!

Something that always works is writing an article for your blog listing the best specialists in your area or city. In your case it would be something like: "Los mejores logopedas Madrid", of course you can include yourself on the list. Usually this kind of article gets to the first page of Google quite fast because it is quality content. With this little trick you will appear in the first positions when somebody searches "logopedas Madrid".

I hope this helps!