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He may have literally covered every question that could have been asked

Thanks for reaching back out and sharing the article!

Mike over at Nifty makes a remark similar to the remarks made in the links you provided me above (reference question #21).  Not only does he say that it will probably only help your map listing rank higher for your brand name, but he also flat out says: "The type of links that help your map listing rank higher are ones that point at your website."

http://moz.com/blog/40-important-local-search-questions-answered

Thank you for the resources above I think in a weird way they validated what I am seeing with my small, single client lol.  At a certain point, there are only so many "quality, niche, location-based" (all or either) directories that you can submit to, and if links to the G+ page are superfluous, then it becomes a matter local links/local unstructured citations for your website, and reviews for your G+ (along with any centroid bias you may be benefiting from, or having to overcome).

This is what I have observed, granted that this is one client in one region, and not nearly enough data to make a strong statement regarding the validity of this claim:  I did all the NAP stuff, I submitted to all the directories, I optimized the website, I did all the stuff that we are supposed to do.  Once all that was done, I told the client to adjust their business in order to easily facilitate reviews.  They already had reviews, but they were kind of just stagnate in the local results.  Each review they received after I was done doing my stuff gave them at LEAST 4 slot bumps, each time.  They are now in the middle of page two of maps, and they have shown no slowing down in movement upward with each review (I assumed the shifts upward would slow down the closer to the top we got).

Now, we are competing against people that have one or two GOOD local links/ local unstructured citations, which appear to have been earned from good old fashion marketing.

I think this may be where things slow down a bit, but I have my local NAP targets and I will keep this thread up to date with what happens moving forward.

Thank you both for providing me great resources I hope to see you guys at MozCon! (I already mentioned that above but I'm just really excited.  If my summer school financial issue didn't occur I would not have been able to go!)

Robert,

Thank you very much for the response.  Yes, I agree that it is indeed its own animal.  I also feel as though the ranking factors are very inconsistant, as you mentioned.  I am going to follow those people, definitely.  Thanks again!

One last thought, as I am just a little unclear.  Do you think that Google authorship plays a role in the local SEO game (or "publishership")?

Has anyone found value in building links to Google+ profile for local seo rankings?  My gut tells me that it will, but I am not 100% sure.

If it does, then does that mean that all the traditional SEO factors that would go into ranking a site organically also work for ranking locally for certain keywords?

So far, I have found that the best thing for moving up rankings is reviews on Google+, but then does that make local SEO (from a high view point) just a race for high reviews and building the most citation?

I am feeling like the differentiator for local SEO is UN-structured citations and links to Google+ profiles.  Any thoughts?

See you at MozCon!

I think the next stage of the game for me is learning more about co-citation and co-occurrence.  Seems like that is where everything is headed.  Thanks Matt!

We are now at a point with Google where having a link profile that has a lot of exact match anchor text for a few main keyword targets is not a good thing.  So, how do we rank for terms that do not fit into the content of your site, but are still good keyword targets.

Here is an example from my situation.  A good keyword target for my area and business that I am working for is "plumber riverside" or "plumber riverside ca."  In a gramatical sense, these two/three words do not belong together in content, i.e they would not make a proper sentence being placed together, except with maybe a comma or period separating them.  In fact, this term probably wouldn't even make a good sidebar link copy.

Without having a link profile with "plumber riverside" as my most common anchor text, how can I let Google know that I should rank for this term?  Anchor text used to be the go to but now you have to really minimize the use of it for exact match terms.  Without on page content, it seems pretty hard.  Any thoughts?

Thank you to both of you!  I am going to emphasize my efforts on citations for the moment.  It is great to have people on here willing to help relatively new people like myself.

Hey everyone,

Been a paid member for 3 days and this is my first time posting

I have a quick question about competitive analysis with the MozBar.  I do not want to point out the exact website (unless that is something cool to do on this forum), but there is a site ranking for a single keyword in the local 7 pack in slot one, which is also slot one for the SERP entirely.  When I go to look at the page in more detail, the MozBar is showing no DA, PA, anything at all, and the Open Site Explorer is showing no links internal or external.

I know that the page has to have at least some of these elements populated in order to be ranking for a term this competitive, so why is the bar not showing anything?  The bar works GREAT on other sites below this one.

Thanks for any help!