Welcome to the Q&A Forum

As of 2013 Localeze is requiring everyone to pay the $297 to add/update their listing. Phil Rozek documented it. I'd recommend reading his post. http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/17/rip-localeze-free-business-listings/

In the latter half of the year I've noticed some changes with Express Update. When I get to the phone call verification point, everything works fine. The call goes through, I get the code on my screen and input it. However, what I've noticed is that the voice prompt says everything is complete, but on the screen it doesn't go to the dashboard. It loops back to the phone call verification phase.

Every time I've had this issue, which is about 6 - 7 times now, I send an email to Infogroup and they tell me to customer support. Each time they tell me that their system has a bug. Express Update has not worked for almost 6 months now. The person helping me will always ask if I'm an SEO company. If you say yes, they will start pushing a new package.

I'm just checking if anyone else has had this issue. I'm not sure if this is how they are vetting SEO companies. I'd like to make the phone call verification process easier.

Hi Miriam!

Thank you for getting back. I forgot to respond, but I actually reached out to Mike Blumenthal and he offered some good insight. He said that they recently found a bug but Google has been notified and is addressing it.

I added a link to our conversation on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/mblumenthal/status/809859102650335232

Has anyone else noticed this? Does anyone know why the first result has a blue pin as opposed to the normal red pin?

Thanks everyone! I'll check all those resources out.

Are there a lot of overlaps with SEM Rush, Ahrefs and Moz?

Recently, I've launched two websites. I want to make sure I'm doing a good job monitoring our link building efforts. I'm see a lot of tools out there to supplement my use of Open Site Explorer. What I want to know is what tools I should be using to monitor my links? My ultimate goal would be to have the data to track the number of links I'm adding a month so that I can use it for reporting.

There is another layer. Because the sites are new, OSE is actually not reporting any links found. I can only find reported links through Google Search Console. Any advice? Is this something where I will just have to wait for everything to get indexed?

Oh man, thank you so much! I'll go ahead and take a read/look at it all. Thanks again man!

Miriam,

Thorough and as helpful as possible as always. Thank you so much. Right now my strategy is to really work on those reviews. I'm hoping to get that magic 25 reviews because I think that can help us get to the top. All of our competitors don't even come close and are under 10.

So our goal is in that aspect. My client's target base is made up mostly of those over 40 -  50 years of age so their not as prone to review. Our competitors have fitness members of a younger age, so that's where I'm thinking we have a disadvantage. But I'm hoping to work a little more on that end.

Thanks Miriam!

Jason Khoo

Thanks Jordan! I've heard about Screaming Frog but I'm glad to hear from others recommendations.

Deacyde,

Thanks for the response. Would you use this in tandem with SEO for Excel? Or is Screaming Frog pretty stand a lone and easily imported to Excel?

Jason Khoo

The sites I work with all have increasingly published more and more content. In order to maximize the potential and "link juice" of every post and the site, we are linking the post to other relevant internal posts.

What I want to ask though is if the community here has any tips or recommendations as a way to monitor and track this. The reason being that I don't want to just go in guns blazing and link all over the place. I want to keep and maintain link structure, even on a content level.

For now, I've been using pencil and paper and assigning numbers to keep structure. However, with so many posts and so many links within each post, I'm starting to notice that maybe this is a little impractical. Are there any recommendations?

Hi Miriam,

I saw that our prior conversation was continued here. I went back and did some more researching and after reviewing everyting I think I found the issue, it was a Google industry cluster issue. I relooked at Google Maps and typed in "gym in [city]" and I noticed 7 of the 10 listings were all fairly close to the industry centroid designated by Google (which I found through Google MapMaker).

Now that I maybe have identified that issue, I'm wondering if there are any strategies we can to combat this. I don't like to think that our physical location has left us to have to accept lower listings on Google Local Pack. Let me know if you know anything?

As always, thank you!

Jason Khoo

Thanks Matt. Yeah I've had an inkling its all about the consistency of the citations. I'll have to go through and see if I can start cleaning them up.

Thanks Miriam! I'm glad you were able to provide all that info into one post. What I'm thinking is it might be a Citation consistency. But I'll have to investigate more and see what it might be from all the factors you listed.

Quick Question: Because we just changed URL's in the last year, many citations have our old URL listed. Though that old URL is 301 redirected to our new one, would that still count as inconsistency because the URL itself is listed differently?

Thank you for all the help!

I've been working with a local gym for a while now. We successfully got the gym to beat out all its competitor and now it consistently ranks in the 3rd or 4th result for all major local industry keywords. For example "gym in [city]". The only thing above us is Yelp and other directory sites.

The problem I am running into is we do well organically, but when it comes to Google Snack Pack we aren't in the top three or even 10. You have to go deep into the next pages of the map to find our business. I did find that we use to be categorized as health club in Google My Business, but I changed that three months ago.

Some more additional info, the site when I got the account moved to a different url. So many directories and sites that linked to us in the past link to the old url. The old url is 301 redirected to our current url.

I haven't found much info about this topic and am looking for any experience or insight?

Thanks for the response Chris! That's really reassuring. I had a feeling that'd it be okay, but just always want to make sure I get my facts straight from my peers.

I mentioned this to Ria (above) but do you have any experience/ or would you recommend dealing with the big PR sites like PR Web? I've handled Press Releases internally and sent them out personally to organizations/targets personally found. I'm sure there are targeted press release sites as well, but I'd just like to get some feedback on that aspect.

Ria, thanks for the response! I've utilized the strategy you have mentioned before and it is definitely one that has shown some effectiveness for us. Its much more of a manual but controlled method.

Thats why i'm so nervous bout the PR sites, PR sites your just spitting out generally. Have you ever worked with sites like PRWeb and the other big ones?

You bring up a good point Nico. I've had bloggers/reviewers who have no followed link to my clients and it has been a little frustrating to know you did all this communication just to know they didn't give you an equity link.

What your saying is true, if its relevant why would you nofollow it. What i think it might be is that when you link to a site, you are also linking to its domain. The domain may be fine, but in the future it might start engaging in black hat seo and other things that would be detrimental. It kind of sucks to say it, but I feel like its almost like you have to make a call on the site's integrity for the future.

I'm sure there are other cases, but this is what came up to my mind first. Love to hear from other people.

Glad to be of service! Good luck with everything

The general rule is to evaluate the Domain/url you are linking to. If you trust the site and it creates good content, among other factors of a properly optimized site, then you are free to use a follow link.

If you feel that the site is not of the highest quality and can actually be detrimental because you are associating yourself with a bad site, use the nofollow links.

The best quantifiable method is to check Domain Authority, Page Authority, Spam Score. Another way to check is the good ol' eye test. If it feels like a good site then go ahead. If you just feel like there is something fishy, do a little research.

For the last couple years, i believed common knowledge that press releases was NOT the way to go for SEO. So I avoided it like crazy!

Now, I'm doing some research and I realize that some (or alot) companies still create press releases to get the word out so that they can spread the message. I am going to be signing with some clients that are bigger brands and I want to do everything in our power to get the word out. I've done social outreach, commenting and cold emails to influencers before, but now I've been seeing some competitors using press releases with a little success, I want to ask the community, is there a method they recommend of testing efficacy of press releases?

My biggest fear is using press releases then months/years down the line be hit hard by a penalty just for testing different PR sites.