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We have used lot's of different tactics.  It depends on the the type of business.  A contractor may want to send a thank you card with a $5.00  Starbucks certificate thanking the customer and then asking them to review them on one of the various review sites.

What works better is sending an email to the customer with a LINK  and instructions.  Most sites require they sign up or in to review a company.  Let them know exactly what to expect before they click.  Our emails are several paragraphs with easy instructions.

Good luck!

In general we have found that if a local site has a significantly higher PA or DA  and no Local places account it will rank above the Maps.

We have found doing it in house is more cost effective, and can be very productive.

I'd go for the one with the best DJ passed.

Gareth,  Let me know if you see the same things we do?

We do a lot of Local seo, and have found that Google is just not showing the citations this year that they did last. We also have researched enough of the citations to see that they are not showing up as links either.  Our thought is Google has stopped indexing many of these pages.

Last year we could count on 8-10 local citations on Places using the normal mix.  Since February of this year, only ONE of those directory listings has shown up as a citation or link.

We now use completely different strategies on citations.  We work on getting on local blogs, as well as other small business sites in the city.  The other clear trend we see, is if you want to have a well ranked site in Places the direct causation (after having a places account of course)  is PA of the sites home page.  We looked at ten local categories and the rankings on Google (Places and first page). Simple,  in the VAST majority of cases the rankings fall right in line with PA ranking.

The days of Local rankings being a significantly different system than organic SEO seem to be gone.

The best way to make a press release effective is to have a media or blogger read it, and call you. I would work on establishing relationships with those people via twitter and blogs, and then sending a link to the press release.  One good link on a radio, TV or high level blog is far more valuable than what you are suggesting.

I think the days of using many, many type web tactics to build links are fading.  we need to think like PR people.

I know, this isn't much help.  To answer your question directly, assuming your release has some merit besides links, I would use the sites the pro's use like www.marketwire.com/

None here.  Can you give us a type of site you are seeing problems with?  We had some odd bouncing last week,  but all is calm this week.

Simple answer, Yes.

We all feel your pain. Looking at the local landscape of SEO firms in our market you see a lot of this. Ryan and Dignan99  have it right I think.  Five or six great links will overcome all the spammy stuff.

Look at great content ideas.  Do a day of out of the box thinking about on site content that will draw a crowd. Use the standard content ideas to start  ( Tips, Forums, Contests, Opinion, events).  You need real sites to notice you and real traffic to overcome the less imaginative but prolific 4000 links to a url crowd.

In my experience it takes components of at least three for this type strategy, meaning not just the content, but the distribution of it, and the  promotion of it. All three areas have to be good.  Where throwing together a bunch of low quality sites is a component of one thinking.  Low quality linking and SEO (Like most things I suppose) are symptoms of taking the easy road, and the course of least resistance.

So,  not only can you write some great content ( or have a professional do it)  that will draw some attention, but you can also promote that content through ad words for a short period, and face book ads, with a very targeted campaign to the bloggers and movers and shakers in the Industry.

It's the old my blender can blend an i pad thought process.  I bet if you really find something interesting and unique to demonstrate on the site, promote it well, and distribute the information in a thoughtful targeted manner, you can and will out rank the dark forces.

I would suggest you give  a little more information about the web site and business.  Some SEO's are very strong in certain verticals, while not as much in the others.

Look for a SEO who has proven and verifiable background in your type business. Also look for one that matched your company's culture, There are a lot of highly competent SEO firms on SEOmoz,  so I am sure you will find several that match your requirements.

We have several clients that we took over from other SEO firms in the last 6 months. We are seeing an odd trend.  Links are disappearing from the reports. Not just the SEOmoz reports, but all the back link reports we use.

Also... sites that pre Panda would show up as a citation or link, have not been showing up. Many are these are not Indexed, and are on large common Y.P or other type sites.

Any one think Google is removing pages from the Index on sites based on Panda.

Yours in all curiosity.

PS ( we are not large enough to produce quantity data on this.)

Link wheels in the past have been very effective.  We see them all the time in the link profiles of small SEO firms (or I should say local SEO firms).  Some have built much of their rankings on them.

I am not going to preach here,  we all have strayed no and then into the less "white hat" areas of SEO ( Except us, if Google is reading this ;))

Marcus makes a valid point.  If you are going to be an SEO you have to decide what type of SEO you are going to be. Link wheels are considered cheap and amateur tactics, that have a short self life.  In our research it appears it's like a drug addiction. Once you start, you can not stop or the rankings start to fall.  So you get stuck in the endless cycle of building cheap links to cheap web sites, and then one day you will wake up and Google and Bing will have completely discounted all your work.

Why not look for and express great ideas.  Great content is the starting point. A calculator, a contest, a tips, a cartoon, any thing that will make the clients site more attractive to be bookmarked.

I feel your pain. We have all been there. But do at least consider the more experienced voices on here.

Mine too!

Very common Tactic.  I would say use your resources building great content on your main site, and you will see a better return.  The question you are asking really comes down to a point of view, and then math.

A bunch of sites, with little or no juice, will help a little.  A bunch of links back from Blogs. Sites, and social media will pay off big time if you can create the interesting content. Interesting is:

"something that concerns, involves, draws the attention of, or arouses the curiosity of a person"

So I would ask this question.  What is it you can do with the current web site that will create Interest.

Above my pay grade I think.

I think Google has an almost impossible task, that being to determine the quality of over a trillion web pages (and of course growing) using technology to do it, which is the only possible tactic they could use.

Looking at their recent moves, I think they are trying to get the user communities to help determine the quality of sites through the 1 + button, and the move to recognize social media signals ( and the Chrome browser changes).

I think that Google would like to reflect a non capitalistic, democratic  ranking system, with safe guards for the new and smaller pages.  Like our government was set up to do. And I think they are moving that direction.

The problems with this goes to the human condition.  There are many who will always try and take advantage of a system (because we are capitalists at heart and that brings out the best and the worst in entities) and that Google is trying to find the balance between a capitalistic approach and a democratic approach. I don't think they can.

Ultimately the rankings are, in general today, controlled by money. Those entities that have money to spend on SEO and Internet Marketing are rewarded based on how wisely they spend that money.  The results are not all that different than the old world Yellow page model. Big money, big advertisement,. first page. Limited budget,and you better find other ways to promote your service/product.

Even with the new changes, the 1+ and all that, lots of smart people will still be looking for ways to take advantage of them, and will undoubtedly find a few ways.

So all we can do, is decide what we are individually, and what tactics we will use to

to represent the side of the fence we choose to stand on.

( Bring in theme music here)

We all get to "deal" with these type situations from time to time. Your question is of course impossible to answer, but I would say you are putting all your eggs in the back link basket. If you are faced with a competitor who has a zillion low quality links, you may need to look for other traffic opportunities.  SEO is ultimately about getting quality traffic to your clients site. If your client see's it as nothing more than a rankings competition, you are in deep trouble.

Using the new opportunities in Social media , as well as searching out and finding the best quality links, and building highly creative on site content ( Tips, Calculators, Cartoons, Educational video, Forums , contests)  may go alot further than building links 24 hours a day.

I feel your frustration,  we all do.

We all get to "deal" with these type situations from time to time. Your question is of course impossible to answer, but I would say you are putting all your eggs in the back link basket. If you are faced with a competitor who has a zillion low quality links, you may need to look for other traffic opportunities.  SEO is ultimately about getting quality traffic to your clients site. If your client see's it as nothing more than a rankings competition, you are in deep trouble.

Using the new opportunities in Social media , as well as searching out and finding the best quality links, and building highly creative on site content ( Tips, Calculators, Cartoons, Educational video, Forums , contests)  may go alot further than building links 24 hours a day.

I feel your frustration,  we all do.

Google WMT is a summary of your links, and not all inclusive.  Searching your domain name, Google does not serve up all the results they have indexed.

I would suggest you use multiple back link tools to identify what you have indexed, The tools here are great, and we spot check using Rank Ckecker ( a firefox add on you get at SEObook) ,  back link watch, and Yahoo site explorer.

Hope this helps.

Matt Cutts has referred to "keyword" domain names being an issue they are looking at. ( Missing citation here of exact quotes)

We used city names for a long time, but have moved away from them, as we now have the same results without them. I should note that Bing seems to be highly sensitive to keywords in the domain, and I think the city in the domain is exactly that.

Our research is limited, so take this as my 2 cents only.

Wouldn't life be great if Google Places just had a customer service department?  I think we would all be willing to pay a service fee, just to get someone on the line.

That said.  I agree with Aaron. Before you do, we are seeing problems with residential addresses,  when the places account www is the same as the others.  (Like a franchise main site).  So you may want to look at-

Make sure the address and phone is unique.

Make sure every locations address and phone number is on the URL used in places, and clearly marked.  Home page and contact page are important. You may want to have individual unique pages for each location if you don't.

Add the location city or ID into the name.  Example.  Paul's Shoe Box Aurora

Extreme measures may include developing a individual site for the locations with a unique URL.

Good luck!

It is a tough question.  We have been down this road, and found that in the end, it has to be unique content. It's really challenging to ask a client who is not a writer to write, just as it is difficult to ask a writer to be a dentist.

We use a combination system at times.  We send a q and A sheet to the client on different topics. We then have a professional writer turn it into a page or article.

Good discussions from everyone, thank you!  I had several motives in asking. One was of course to get all of your views, and they did confirm my intrinsic thought process, and the second was the test the assumption that only individuals who where pretty good at all this would answer (this proved to be true) and therefore giving me some insight into feeling more confident when I read your responses on here, and the last was to get more points, because I really like free stuff*.

• the later statement is a a partial truth.

The Citation needed made me laugh out loud for real.

I see a lot of answers to questions in here that I would consider pretty umm, well, not all that great, not that I am one to judge, but when I ask a question I am looking for answers from experienced professionals.

How do you decide which answers to take more seriously?  I check the persons profile and follow it all the way out the their site and blogs (if listed).  Sometimes I see sites that have a SEmoz of 10. How can you give advice when your site has no Ranking?

I know there are going to be exceptions, and that this isn't the one and only indicator, but how do you decide how much confidence you can put in an answer here?

EGOL,

I know how Google values a link.  Leave 1 billion dollars in unmarked bills in the public parks waste basket at 1:00  A.M.  and I will send the exact method to you...

Or...  just pay me $129.00  a month and we will guarantee you the FIRST PAGE of Google.

Good discussion. I have a time crunch, so right to my 2 cents.  Isn't the real point of publishing on E Zine is to have a well written article republished on other sites, and therefore the juice is not from e zines but the sites that pick up the article?

Do you use a word press platform? If so do you use a SEO plug in.  Different plug ins can effect the index time.

Do you use a word press platform? If so do you use a SEO plug in.  Different plug ins can effect the index time.

We have lot's of clients with in home businesses. We either list the home address, and then in the places account request that it is not shown, or we encourage an executive office location if in fact they will use it as a place to do business. Having real contact information is not just important to Google , its important to their customers.

Our company has been using executive offices for 10 years.  They are a great cost savings, and give us a nice environment to meet clients or hold meetings. Most executive or virtually offices also give you an option of renting an individual office on a short term basis, which we have used many times.

Millions of businesses are home based. Google doesn't care if your address is residential or commercial, I think they care that it's listed.  Your client must have an address for  contact for customers that includes email, phone and address on their site.  They should also have it registered with the correct government agencies (the address )  and any valuable business associations in town, like a Better business bureau or Chamber.

Our reports still show 5-06-11, so I assume we are all still waiting.  You can use several free back link tools to see if your links are indexed.  Try link diagnosis.com  ( you need firefox and the plug in) or link back watch.  Links will show up there pretty fast (same day if Google indexed it). Google web master as well of course, and yahoo site explorer.

Great questions.  I am sure many of us are watching how the Panda update is changing linking.

Here is the answer everybody hates (including me at times)  I think the big change in 2011, and 2012 in SEO has to be in building better content on sites, and building better social signals to sites. And for most of us that's a real change in course.

Adding calculators, tips, Forums, FAQ, and funny stuff along with Quality promotion for links. We still use Directories and Articles, but only when we we do it because it makes promotional sense, not just SEO.

This is one of the more difficult challenges.  Here are a few things we have done to help with the Geo challenge on maps.

You may notice that the top ranked sites have huge domain scores, but the third place does not.  Look at that site and the first thing you will notice is the address is the first title.  Add you address on main pages. Maybe on top. It's very difficult to find an actual address on the site.  This is very important.

Encourage your reviewers to use the term Hotel on the Isle of Wright, in the first paragraph or title.

Do you sue the term in your meta title and description?

Do you have a page with that title and URL?

Have you run a keyword report on your home page to grade its optimization grade for that term.

Have you built strong quality citations and links.  You are competing against  of t some well optimized sites.

And last thing for this post. Look at top sites and ask your self, why are these showing up?

We have been successful in overcoming the geo marker challenge, but you do have to stay at it!

Kevin,

I have had more success than failures with report a problem.  Just make sure you are logged in when you report it. And, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Ei Yi Yi.  That is  a mess.

I have delt with many duplicate listing issues.  Here is what I would do in your case. Go to the Google places help forum.  List your issue with as many details as possible and hope you get the attention of a google employee.

Q.  Do you have access to all these accounts? Passwords?  Have you used the  Report a problem feature under the more tab on the places account?  Make sure you are logged into the account when doing so.

Be very detailed when you report the problem in this manner.

Duplicate listing issues are heck.  I hope this help some.

Trying to force a search engine into indexing a page is a losing tactic. Having been down the social media profiles path, in my opinion, (and based on our limited research) it's far better to focus your energy on a few high profile social sites (Twitter, face book, linked in)  and do so from the non SEO approach. Give great information, interact,  and meet interesting people and businesses.  The SEO effect will follow.

Having your clients Face book comments shared is far more important than having 250 social profiles.  Let's face it, if you can buy 100's of social media profiles for $5.00  how valuable can that really be?

One of our major challenges with clients is convincing them that the easy road in SEO  may head up for a while, but always seems to end with a long slow and ugly decline. (a mountain road metaphor)

Go for Quality!  Think like there is no Google or Bing and your SEOo will produce better and longer term results.

While I have seen temporary rating boasts with social profiles,  unless the account is used as intended,  and grown, those ratings disappear pretty fast.

Just a additional thought. We use both, for different topics.  Our on domain Blog will focus on one theme.  and we can wonder around a bit on the word press hosted blog.

Excellent question.  The answer to this (at least for me) is that big statement you hear so often about the most important tactic and principle of SEO. Developing great , interesting and unique content.  Our entire SEO process is evolving to start with a creative approach, using content  and then moving to what I would call traditional SEO tactics.

The gaming concern is one we all share, but can not control.  We are hoping that by helping our clients develop better and more interesting information, 1+ will take care of it self.

We have several clients that need this type reach.  Using an "in your Area" navigation link, and then as stated bt EGOL  and bookworm,  doing a community page for each city works pretty well.  So one page listing the communities, and a page linked to that page with each cities information.

The only other point I would make is you will need to add some serious link's and citations to the site, and the individual pages will need some attention as well.  Reviews from customers noting the city are very helpful as well.

"Trying to improve my Google Places page".  Not sure if you are trying to improve the places accounts rankings, or the look and feel of the page itself?

You can add up to ten photos on the places page, I would utilize as many as possible.  You can also add you tube videos, and those can be very effective.

As for rankings, I would encouage customers to review the business directly on the Google places account, and add an Angie's list business account, as these show up on the places listing and can help rankings.

Hope this is helpful.

We have utilized "top 10" badges for certain categories.  As long as there is real value in the badge, as both of the other responses refer to, you can have pretty good success.  The badges all had clear information available on why it was on the site, and why it meant something to the person seeing it.

Would need additional information about the badge and value to help much.

We have noticed that Google is looking much deeper into the reviews the  places account has.  Of the 6 positive reviews for this company , 5 are from users who only submitted one review,  that being the one on this company.

I think Google has a grading system on reviews, and it can go positive or negative.  I would encourage the client to get a lot  more reviews from customers, and also spread them around to sites like City Search, insider pages, yelp, Angie's list, Yahoo.... Make sure they have set up their company profile on those pages.  The profiles also can also act as a citation once people review the company.

Our number one fix for rankings problem for a local company is get real reviews on multiple review sites.

Not sure this is it.. but I don't see anything else that could be causing it, unless the places account is relatively new.

I guess I could ask this question in a different way.

If we continue to spend 100% of our efforts on the home page popularity ( meaning linking, and all other related SEO type tactics) will we see greater returns on all 5 , (assume all 5 have equal value) than if we spend 100% of our time on the service anchor pages, regardless of the order.

Great questions, and yes. We have each service prioritized by both profitability and marketability

Like all of us of course, they want them all!  .

We have been watching this for a while. In our research we have tried linking to the citation sites, and have had little success. There is no doubt that the principles of places ranking are related to, but not the same as normal organic.

Reviews are very helpful, and next to the normal important areas (profile completeness, address and others) I would put reviews as top priority. Not only on Places, but Yahoo, Insider pages, city search, yelp, Angies, and even customer lobby. I am sure there are more.  Recently Places started displaying reviews from the Places accounts owners web site. Seems if you use reviews or testimonial in the URL  they may pick that up. This may be an attempt on Google's part, to slow down the number of duplicate reviews. (Those with ears , let them hear). <- not sure what I mean, but I have only had one cup of coffee so far.

Look at the simple fact, that you will rarely find a places account on the 2nd or 3rd page of results that have a significant amount of reviews.

We have stopped using the "usually suspects" for citations, as in the last 5 months they seem to have little value. What we do see working is citations on other "local"  sites.  Not directories, but  related local sites. Much harder work, but Google likes it when we work hard for a citation or link... right?

PS-  We are not all that large in SEO, just do local clients , so our research is very limited.

We have a client that provides 5 different services all under one brand and one site.  The challenge is getting good web popularity to each major brand.  It looks like this:

Brand ( No real Internet traffic to Brand keywords)

Service A

Service B

Service C

Service D

Service E

All the services are displayed on the home page.  The SEOmoz scores are now (in general) as high or higher than the competition in the service keywords, but, of course, we are only ranking on the top for one of the services.  It's a local business.

We are just finishing a re-design of the site so that each service has an internal "micro site" within the domain.  Each of the services is linked from the home page to its micro sites Anchor page.  The anchor page is linked to 2 to 4 other pages all directly related to that services information.

SO my question is,  should we continue to work on building the home page popularity, or focus a mix between the Home page (Brand)  and the Micro sites Anchor pages. or just go

for popularity of the Internal Anchor pages for the services?

Hope this makes sense.  And thanks in advance for your thoughts.