Business with installers in many metros but no local offices

[Rich Owings]

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions on how to rank a business that has installers in dozens of metro areas in the US, but no local offices. Organic seems to be a stretch when you're far away from the home office. One option I'm looking at is self-hosted videos leading to a local landing page, hoping to get on page one with a video thumbnail. There's not a lot of competition; their search terms don't even bring up a 7-pack in many cities. Any ideas?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Rich,

Can you provide a little more detail? What industry are you talking about?

If you can share specific business details I can move this thread to the help section where it might get some more eyeballs.

 

[Rich Owings]

Thanks Colan. They are commercial roofers.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Well to rank in local they need a Place page and can't have one of those if they are just installers.

So video seems like a smart way to go. Video is much easier to rank for city KW even if you are not located there, than a regular organic listing is I think.

Check this thread for tons of info:
<a href="http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/local-search/13647-hardcore-video-search-engine-optimization-resources-local.html">Hardcore Video SEO Resources with a Local Search Emphasis</a>

 

[Rich Owings]

Those are great resources. Thanks so much for pointing them out.

Digging in a little deeper, I'm trying to decide if we should do YouTube videos or self-hosted (so that a search result with video thumbnail will go to the company's site). I'm not sure if the latter is worth the extra time and effort.

 

[MatthewMagicMan]

Rich,

If you want to rank FAST, Youtube will get you there way quicker than a self-hosted video. Self-hosted video ranking is going to depend a lot on your domain authority, which of course will be tiny compared to Youtube.

Depending on competition, sometimes just putting up a video will rank. Now with commercial roofing (I do a lot of service business SEO), you're going to need more than that. You'll need views, likes, comments, links, and embeds.

If you need more help, let me know.

Matt

 

[Rich Owings]

Thanks Matt. That makes perfect sense. If the client opts for a video strategy, I'm sure we will pursue YouTube rather than self-hosted videos.