If you have a website, doing SEO correctly for your site can be confusing. Title page, meta description, keywords, images, etc. Here’s Matt Cutts laying it out with examples; What to do and what NOT to do.
Every little bit helps get your site to move up on the search engines.
Maybe you already know about all this SEO stuff, but doing a check on your site now and then will usually uncover something you may have overlooked.
According to comscore.com about 109 millionUS Internet users, (approx 63%) turned to a local search engine in July.
A survey of local search engine optimization (SEO) experts reveals that claiming a local place page or local listing, followed by having a business address in the city of search are most influential in affecting a local search ranking in the major search engines, Google, Bing and Yahoo.
David Mihm surveyed a group of 32 local SEO experts on what they considered to be the factors that most influenced a local search ranking in Google, Bing and Yahoo, both positively and negatively.
Specifically, the local SEO experts were asked to rate 69 items in relation to their influence on rankings in the Google, Bing and Yahoo Local “Universal” search algorithms. The ratings extended from -5 (‘can hurt your ranking / lead to penalty’) to +5 (‘very important for ranking well’) with 0 in the middle (‘doesn’t impact a local search ranking one way or another’).
Based on David Mihm’s findings, here are the top 5 factors for positively affecting a local search engine ranking:
1. General Importance of Claiming Place Page / Local Listing (+4.40)
2. Business Address in City of Search (+4.16)
3. Associating Place Page with Proper Categories (+3.91)
4. Volume of Citations from Major Data Providers + IYP Portals (+3.53)
5. General Importance of Off-Page / Off-Listing Criteria (+3.35)
Here are the top 5 factors for negatively affecting a local search engine ranking:
1. Multiple Place Pages with Same Phone Number (-2.75)
2. Not Showing Address on Your Place Page (-2.48)
3. Multiple Place Pages with Same Address (-2.33)
4. Listing PO Box on Website without a Physical Address (-1.61)
5. Multiple Place Pages with Same Business Title (-1.35)
Here are the top 5 factors with the lowest impact (positive or negative) on a local search engine ranking:
1. Including Location Keywords in Place Page Categories (-0.14)
2. Defining a Service Area for Your Place Page (0.47)
3. Location(s) in Place Page Custom Fields (0.84)
4. Including Coupons with Your Place Page (0.87)
5. Choosing List of Areas Served for Your Place Page (1.00)
For more details about the survey methodology and how to interpret the results, be sure to check out the report in full.
Source: David Mihm, “Local Search Ranking Factors Volume 3,” June 7, 2010, DavidMihm.com
Finally started making a website to LEASE. This one is for roofers or roofing contractors in Rhode Island. The key difference is it’s a ‘direct-response’ website and NOT just an ‘electronic brochure’ if you know what I mean.
Most roofing websites tell you how long they’ve been in business, “family owned an operated,” etc. The prospect looking to have his roof repair might first want a “diagnosis”… similar to a medical patient before you start carving him up.
I was on one of my favorite forums: OfflineGoldForum.com and one poster talked about how he created an ‘ego domain” and website for say “roofers.”
It could be BestLouisvilleRoofer.com or something similar like below:
Then the idea would be to make it into a postcard (above) and then mail it to say 5-10 roofers who have no website (or have a cruddy-named website) and say:
“This postcard is being sent to 5 roofers in your area! The first roofer who wants the site, get’s it!”
He then leases it for a monthly recurring rate.
So all you gotta do is pick a niche; wood flooring, cabinet maker, plumber, etc. and you got a nice little monthly recurring thing going for you.
Probably one of the fastest way to get your feet wet being an offline marketing consultant, is to offer email capture & autoresponders to your local offline business prospect. The video explains it…
It’s all about getting in front of your of your prospects. How do you do that?