Awesome Local SEO Ranking Tip to Grab #1 Spot

[billbean]

I was looking to see if there was something in the code (noindex or canonical link) that might be blocking it. Didn't notice anything at first glance.

Submit that URL directly in Google Webmaster tools. Use the "fetch and render" option.

And here's a recent Moz Whiteboard Friday you'll probably want to check out: Scaling Geo-Targeted Local Landing Pages That Really Rank and Convert - Whiteboard Friday - Moz

 

[johncrenshaw]

Back for more. I'm very interested in this idea. On Oct. 11, after reading your article, I created a test page for this concept for my elder care services website. The test page is at Top Caregiving Agencies in North San Diego County - A Servant's Heart In Home Care - San Diego In Home Caregivers and you get to it by navigating to the "Resources" page in the main nav and then you click on the last link on the Resources page.

So far, Google hasn't indexed that page, although it has indexed all the blog posts that we have published on the site since then.

I'm sort of surprised by this. In your experience, did it take a long time for that page to get indexed, since it wasn't accessible via the main nav?

Thanks!

On the indexing, how often do you update that page? Sounds like it's only been 9 days - if you don't update that page that often Google probably doesn't crawl it that often either.

That said, as is that page probably won't perform really well anyway. I had someone else PM me a similar thing where the page was extremely light on content.

You really have to make this a high quality page...not just a copy of a directory.

The goal is to make this page more useful to the people searching your target keyword than any other page that exists.

Ask yourself this question: "Does this page give the person searching my target keyword what they're looking for in a way that is better, more useful, more entertaining, etc, than everything else out there?"

If the answer is no, or kind of, or a little bit, then it probably won't be effective.

That birthday parties page has over 2000 words of unique content. This page is actually useful. Imagine how long it would take, if you were a parent, to review all the websites for these places? You still wouldn't get all this info because we actually called a few of them to clarify some things.

Your page has 205 words. 10% of ours.

Another example:

This "cincinnati web design" page on our site: 20 Awesome Web Design Companies in Cincinnati - Razorlight Media

There are over 10,000 words on that page. We put together a questionnaire of things people might want to know that they couldn't already find online about the web design companies in Cincy.

Then we emailed it to all of them. The ones that responded are posted there.

After a bit that page was performing pretty well for searches like "cincinnati web design companies" or "cincinnati web design agency," but wasn't at the top.

I thought, "what else could people want when researching a web design company?"

To view their portfolio is probably the #1 thing - so we improved it incrementally by adding links directly to each company's portfolio.

It's now #1-2 for those terms.

But it's still at the mid-bottom of the page for the more general "cincinnati web design."

If it stays there I might try to figure out how to make it even better.

The point is, if it's not genuinely awesome, the search engines aren't going to see any of the signals that indicate, "HEY!! Awesome content here!! People love this!! Rank it high!!"

Hope that makes sense.

 

[Tim Colling]

Thank you for all those observations, suggestions and encouragement. I see your point and I appreciate your help!

 

[johncrenshaw]

For anyone testing this out I have an update.

At some point in the last couple months it appears Google must have turned up the dial on the weight they give to how easy a page is to find on a site.

We're noticing a link in the footer to a category page, as I suggested in an earlier comment, isn't working as well as it used to. When we move the content to a more prominent location, it starts performing really well again.

Just something I noticed and thought I'd share.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

has this impacted your own landing page of 20 awesome web...?

 

[johncrenshaw]

has this impacted your own landing page of 20 awesome web...?

Yes, I believe it has. I'm going to move that page to a more prominent location at some point soon.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hey John, I just featured your post here, in a new post. Check it out.

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/local-search/29403-how-leverage-your-competitors-local-search-engine-optimization-get-high-rankings.html">How to Leverage your Competitors for Local SEO to get High Rankings</a>

Thanks for sharing all the insights you did in this post!

 

[Maginot]

Ok, I am trying this for the first time.

*crosses fingers*


I have collected all the lawyers in my market. Basically I am showing NAP + website.

Now here's the crazy thing, if they do not have a website: I am providing the G+ URL to the business. I considered using each competitors' "avvo" page or some "ratelawyers.com", but I want to see if algo likes my page linking to G+.

Any chance this backfires?

 

[JacobMaslow]

There are now services offering CTR boost by having a couple of people click on the right spots.

If this is a ranking factor at all, it is lightweight and only if there isn't anything more reliable for google to look at. I am sure it will be devalued further now that people are actively manipulating.

Doesn't need a lot of people to manipulate. Just need consistency (couple of people every day at random times)

Google tends to avoid signals that are easy to manipulate.

Linda,

I know that particular test we did here was inconclusive but based on what I've seen I'm anecdotally convinced that CTR / stick rate is really important, at least for organic - not sure about pack.

Good question on the pack issue - looking through what we've done to date, the sites were either not ranking locally at all before we started or the search queries we tested this on didn't have any pack results. Something to be cognizant of for sure.

 

[Maginot]

Also.

When I was compiling the competitors, I did notice the practitioner duplicates. Is it unethical to leave them as duplicates? If Google has two listings "Clinton William J" and "The Law Offices of William Clinton", wouldn't the algo expect both if you are a directory?


It seems a little mean to codify a duplicate. But they are your competitors. You aren't providing/adding incorrect information, you are merely compiling existing info.

 

[johncrenshaw]

Doesn't need a lot of people to manipulate. Just need consistency (couple of people every day at random times)

Google tends to avoid signals that are easy to manipulate.

Yeah, or they figure out a way to ignore or penalize the stuff that looks manipulative and count the rest. They already did this with backlinks.

---------- Post Merged at 09:45 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 09:39 PM ----------

Also.

When I was compiling the competitors, I did notice the practitioner duplicates. Is it unethical to leave them as duplicates? If Google has two listings "Clinton William J" and "The Law Offices of William Clinton", wouldn't the algo expect both if you are a directory?


It seems a little mean to codify a duplicate. But they are your competitors. You aren't providing/adding incorrect information, you are merely compiling existing info.

You aren't a directory. So no, that wouldn't be expected.

The litmus test of what to do here is: are you adding massive value? I think that'll answer your question.

 

[1moreroom.co.uk]

In the UK we're quite a small country, would it be worth doing a page each for different area's.

I do architectural design, and within 20 miles I have 3 to 4 cities. Is it worth doing for example a pages like:
Architects southampton
Architects Winchester
Architects Romsey
Architects Andover

That way I can cover each area?

My apologies if this sounds stupid, I'm an extreme newbie to all this SEO stuff so forgive me if this a silly question.

Thanks

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi 1moreroom and welcome.

There are no silly questions here. Everyone of us had to start where you are today.

 

[1moreroom.co.uk]

Ok so I'm giving this ago.

This has gone up on my news/blog page of our
20 Top Architects In Southampton (Architects and Architectural Services) ? 1MoreRoom.co.uk | Competitive prices with any local architect or architectural service for planning and design

The first 10 links I've given a bit more description to, the following companies after that I've bullet pointed some of their services.

I've given Company name, phone number and website. But I hven't added any addresses.

How does it look? Is there anything you would do/add to increase it's search-ability?