Planning a complex local listing project

[James]

Hi - I am working with someone who has quite an ambitious plan for their website. The website is not designed yet so on the plus side we are able to get suggestions in early.

The business provides tutors to Birmingham, Leeds, London, Birmingham and Newcastle in English, Maths and French. The business is based only in Newcastle.
As you would guess from the above there is a huge number of local terms and locations that they would like to rank for such as:

Maths teacher Leeds
Maths teacher Newcastle
English teacher Leeds
English teacher Newcastle
English teacher Leeds
English teacher Newcastle

Etc, I wont list out all the location and subject combos as I think everyone reading will get the point.

Now I have pushed sites up in google local before several times and done a good job of it however I have no idea how to even approach this. I am considering professional help which I would watch very closely to learn the ropes on how to tackle something this complex but not written off giving it a go myself yet.
Also, in the past I have always pushed up listings into existing three packs but with some combos of these search terms like

English teacher leeds

There is currently no three pack so it would need to be formed.

On the bright side some of these terms do have a pack at the top of the serps with just 1 or 2 listings in them and no serious competition so I suspect that getting some of the ranking would be easier.

I would imagine this is a bit too complex to be answered on the forum, although if you can it would be appreciated! I wondered if anyone could point me towards any reading that might help me get started with something like this?

Thanks for reading

 

[James Watt]

It's likely not going to be possible to get them in all of those 3-packs. Anywhere too far away from their actual location is going to be a no-go, anywhere with no 3-pack showing isn't good to count on (though it's certainly possible one will form if you do your work right) and it's likely you won't be showing for different categories too dissimilar from each other. Wedding Photographers for example, should either go for engagement photography or wedding photography. It's very challenging to capture both, since you can only choose one primary category for the GMB listing.

You can go after the extras with extra pages on the site, but make sure you don't fall into the class local landing page trap.

 

[AndiFox]

Hi there James.

Here are the things you need to do for local.

1. Make sure everything on Google matches exactly to the site as in NAP
2. Ranking in surrounding areas is going to be difficult. Though no formal announcement has been made yet, what I am seeing is that you are going to rank for your hyperlocal area the best. You *may* rank for some of the other cities but you will never do as well as someone that has the address in that actual city.
3. Name every one of your image with the exact city your client is in + keyword, so Leeds-English-Teacher. Then Geotag it to their location
4. Add Google Posts every week
5. Use Yext, if you can
6. Create a Foursquare account and integrate that into Yext and offer a deal for people that check into the location.
7. Consider a Groupon. I know they are a loss leader but the deals get in front of local people at scale.
8. Social Media esp your primary ones. FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, Tumblr, G+
9. Create G+ local groups and join them too.
10. City-Data can be very powerful but passively post and do not spam it. You will get booted.
11. Reddit local groups. Again, do not spam. Add helpful things.
12. Link build like crazy to DA's of at least 40 on plats that have NAP and always, always, always, copy and paste directly from Google My Business to avoid any mistakes. It is all about consistency.
13. Make sure every website page has only one H1 that uses the Geo + business category, title tags need to have the same Geo + business category, description, keywords etc. should all follow the same.

I know I have more but that should get you going pretty strong out of the gate.

 

[James]

Add Google Posts every week

Great post things, much of that I knew but its reassuring to see it written out like that from someone who knows their stuff. Some of it is new to me but I am not sure what you mean by "google posts" can you give me a bit more guidance on this one thing?

 

[James Watt]

Google+ posting. There's some evidence that Google+ posts can help listings, but personally, I'd put that on the 'low priority' list. Unless you're able to generate actual social interaction with your G+ community, the posting itself is likely to be worthless.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Agree with James. Put Google+ posting lower on your priority list, since there are a ton of things that will move the needle more effectively.

I have found that posting on Google+ is a good accelerator to page indexation. Haven't been able to conclude it helps ranking, but definitely (like most other social posting) helps maximize the possibility of Googlebot finding the page and crawling it. You can also use Google Search Console for the same reason, but Google+ adds the ability for other people to see the post as well

 

[Linda Buquet]

Since it said Google Posts, without a +Plus. wonder if she meant "Google Posts"?

Not sure that would directly help rankings, but we know Google likes fresh content and likes to see listings actively managed/updated so not a bad suggestion. Just not sure there is a direct ranking correlation.

 

[James Watt]

You're right Linda, I think that's what was meant after all. I saw the 'join G+ groups' lower down and made some assumptions. Google's naming conventions sometimes can get a little confusing... though it's at least a lot better now than when they were changing the name of GMB every year.