8 Reasons Local SEO is Incredibly Complicated & Difficult

[Linda Buquet]

<img src="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Brandingconfused.jpg" alt="" title="Brandingconfused" width="220" align="left" hspace="3" />You have to admit it. Local Search is just plain hard AND complicated!

In a previous life I demonstrated and sold high end equipment like LASERS to Dentists. This was back when they 1st came out. Before anyone knew what they were or how they worked. I've even done LIVE air abrasion demos on REAL teeth on LIVE patients. It was pretty high end complicated stuff. And trying to sell a $20,000 'anything' to a Dentist is no easy feat!

But I've never done anything as complicated as Google+ Local!


I just discovered an awesome post from last month by Chris Auman, President and Senior Strategist at Sanctuary. I've never read him before and need to thank Nick Rink, a member here for sharing his post.

Why Local SEO can be hard

1) One of the biggest hurdles to proper SEO is time. Local SEO is time consuming. If you think that there’s a simple, magic sauce that you can learn and dish out in an afternoon that will solve all your problems you can probably stop reading now. Successful local SEO takes time and knowledge.
(Read on, more info about #1 at link above.)

5. There are many factors that are simply outside of your control and that’s the way search engines like it. Reviews, links, ratings, user generated content, discussions about your products and services, etc. can all figure into your rankings. All you can do it find ways to encourage these factors. Never try to artificially manipulate or fake them.

7. You should know that when you’re trying to rank within the search engines, sometimes things just don’t make sense on the surface. There are potentially hundreds of things that can influence why one company is ranking and ultimately why you’re not. Starting your work with this understanding will help your sanity going forward.

Click over to read the rest it's great info.

I would of course have to add an 8th point to the post above - but I would move it to #1.
And that would of course be...

#1 Google+ Local is buggy and extremely complicated to work with. PLUS there are tons of minefields to dodge that can cause you to be completely wiped off the face of Google or suspended - sometimes even if you are totally in compliance.

I'd say this post is def worth a bookmark to share with a client that has unreasonable expectations OR who just got a quote from some schmuck claiming that optimizing their Place page for $200 will shoot them to #1 in 2 weeks!

What do you think? Anything to add?

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Image Credit: The awesome image was created for me by Greg Gifford, the Director of Search and Social at AutoRevo, a software company that provides websites and online marketing to used car dealers all over the country. Greg also spends his time doing freelance website design and SEO for local businesses. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the <a href="http://www.dfwsem.org/">DFWSEM</a>. You can read his local search tips and tricks on AutoRevo’s blog at <a href="http://blog.autorevo.com/" target="_blank">blog.autorevo.com</a>.

 

[chrisauman]

Thanks for the love Linda. Totally agreed on your comments! I'll make sure to update the post because you've added valuable feedback.

 

[Linda Buquet]

No thank YOU Chris for the great post and I'm so happy I discovered your blog.

Just gave this post our new #bestof award and it's being highlighted in a brand new section that features the best posts here at the Local Search Community. (Have not even announced that section yet as I'm still trying to find and add posts to it, but right now yours is on top!)

 

[Nick Rink]

Hi Linda,

Thanks for sharing my G+ post and Chris's blog post here on the forum. I think your 8th point is spot on and to be honest I think we could probably add a few more points! Maybe Chris will need to do a part 2.