Need advice on local search optimization
-
HI all,
I've found myself in a puzzling position and not quite sure which direction to push my current SEO project so if anyone who's done this particular type of SEO can offer some suggestions I'd be eternaly grateful.
I am currently working on a project for a Law Firm based in New Jersey. Lets say the town they are in is Garfield. What I really want to try and achieve is see them appearing in the number one spot whenever anyone within Garfield or the immediate area searches for a lawyer relating to the individuals need. E..g searches like "personal injury lawyers", "real estate lawyer".
The problem is I can see how I can easily make it to the number one position if people are specific and enter garfield in the search term but in reality they wouldn't be doing that.
An additional problem is that peoples ISP's in garfield aren't located in Garfield, in some cases they're as far away as Newark so when they're doing a search for 'real estate lawyer' google is bringing up results for the Newark based firms.
It seems using tools like market samurai to look at the traffic and competition is proving useless as searches like the ones I'm doing for local business are so closely tied to the ISP location I don't really know whether to target broad range searches like "Real Estate Lawyer", or to be really specific and include the town name in my page titles, H1 tags etc...
I hope I put across my dilemma and someone can help me chose which direction to go in..
Thanks
-
Another way to get authentic mentions of other areas without being spammy is to have testimonials from clients that include their city names.
"I had a wonderful experience using Joe Smith as my real estate lawyer. Blah blah blah
- Jane Doe, Nearby City, New Jersey"
You could also talk about how you are members of the greater Newark Chamber of Commerce or Newark Area Real Estate Lawyers who Lunch or how you support the Nearby Town Little League.
-
Hi David,
We're going through old unanswered questions and seeing if people still need help, or if you've gone ahead and implemented something and have anything interesting to report. Could you give us an update, or mark this question as answered? Thanks!
-
Hi thanks for your replies.
I've been adding the county name to my page titles thinking that would potentially bring in more traffic for searches from the outer areas.
Perhaps instead, adding the City name to the 'home' page title should be what I'm doing, but as I said I can't see people in Garfield searching for 'garfield attorney, or garfield lawyer' but if having the city name in in the title will affect the places result and indirectly the organic results then I'll give it a go. Well I'll try and keep the city and state on the title at least.
Last week I had my client pay for directory inclusion into a few of the BIG legal directories which hold a lot of authority so when google finally realises we're indexed on those, hopefully that will have a knock on effect too...
-
Target the actual location on your site. If you can fudge a few other related geographic keywords into your content in a non-spammy way, do so, but focus on building up local search (listings and citations). As your local search rankings take hold, you will start appearing for proximity searches on Google Places.
Newark is a bit out of range - nothing much to be done about that. BUT if they search for "real estate lawyer Garfield" or surrounding towns, you want to show up in that Places map.
Great local search resource: http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml. There was also a WBF on optimizing for local a few months back.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi David,
I would definitely start out with the town name in the targeted keywords. For starters, it will get the ball rolling, and secondly, they're good keywords to optimise for - sure, they won't bring as much traffic as the more general non-geo terms, but they will likely have far less competition and be easier to rank for.
The ISP location targeting isn't really a variable you can influence, so it's best to put majority of your effort into that which you have a good level of control over (geo keywords). Additionally, it would make sense to mention that you are a Garfield firm regardless of whether you are using geo-keywords, so optimising for the geo-keywords really can't hurt.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
New Domain, No 301 Possible - Any Advice
A client of mine lost their domain when an ex business partner sold it out from under them. They've filed with WIPO, but in the meantime we're trying to figure out how to help them out. They had two really excellent links - one from the NY Times and one from a .edu website. I'm going to reach out to the authors of those articles (the articles are pretty old, so I doubt they'll change the links), but does anyone have any advice on how to let search engines know the new domain replaces the old without having the ability to do redirects? The content on the site is exactly the same - we were able to get the files over, happily. I've re-submitted the site for indexing, changed the domain links in Moz Local, changed in Analytics, and on all their social sites. Is there anything I'm not thinking of that can be done to let Google know that this new domain replaces the old? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | newwhy0 -
Bolded words in search results
are those synonyms or semantically related keywords ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Doing SEO for a Classifieds Website and need help
Hey All! I'm going to be doing SEO for a classifieds website (cars only). But I'm struggling to dream up an effective strategy. They have a reasonably popular blog that I could definitely use to publish content for link bait, and some opportunities for guest blogging. But in terms of straight up link building (think craigslist), I'm really at a loss as to where to start. If anyone has any experience working with Classifieds websites or can recommend any strategies that you think will work I'm all ears! Really appreciate any help that anyone has to offer! Cheers 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CD_20160 -
Separate Email for Separate G+Local Listing?
Client decided to keep restaurant and catering businesses completely separate, so he's gotten a suite number and a separate landline. He already set up and claimed the restaurant G+Local/Places page using his personal gmail address. I need to set up the catering G+Local page, but of course he's not crazy about giving me the login to his personal gmail account. But maybe, since they're completely separate businesses, I really should go set up [email protected] and start fresh with the catering page? I also have an email address, [email protected], but it seems like Google never likes these. How do you recommend that I set up the catering G+Local pages? (This would also presumably be for Analytics and Webmaster Tools for the domain too.) Should I just start fresh? Can I even do it with a non-gmail account? Or will Google slap him for two unmerged accounts, even though they're for separate businesses? (I've looked all over the place and it looks like that it's still true that he can't just change the email associated with the restaurant G+ page... no?) Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayvensoft0 -
Optimal ratio of different categories of link
Hello, I know this probably depends on market sector, etc., but are there broad guidelines on the optimal ratio of different types of links - blogs, directory links, citations, etc. I'm working for a tourism business and see nearly all of their links are from directories - both generic and tourism specific. I'm thinking about re-balancing that with guest blogs, PR work, etc.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Anyone managed to change 'At a glance:' in local search results
On Google's local search results, i.e when the 'Google places' data is displayed along with the map on the right hand side of the search results, there is also an element 'At a glance:'
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DeanAndrews
The data that if being displayed is from some years ago and the client would if possible like it to reflect there current services, which they have been providing for some five years. According to Google support here - http://support.google.com/maps/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1344353 this cannot be changed, they say 'Can I edit a listing’s descriptive terms or suggest a new one?
No; the terms are not reviewed, curated, or edited. They come from an algorithm, and we do not help that algorithm figure it out. ' My question is has anyone successfully influenced this data and if so how.0 -
I need help with setting the preferred domain; www. or not??
Hi! I'm kinda new to the SEO game and struggling with this site I'm working on: http://www.moondoggieinc.com I set the preferred domain to www. in GWT but I'm not seeing it reroute to that? I can't seem to get any of my internal pages to rank, and I was thinking it's possiblly b/c of a duplicate content issue cause by this problem. Any help or guidance on the right way to set preferred domain for this site and whiy I can't get my internal pages to rank? THANKS! KristyO
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KristyO0 -
On-Site Optimization Tips for Job site?
I am working on a job site that only ranks well for the homepage with very low ranking internal pages. My job pages do not rank what so ever and are database driven and often times turn to 404 pages after the job has been filled. The job pages have to no content either. Anybody have any technical on-site recommendations for a job site I am working on especially regarding my internal pages? (Cross Country Allied.com) Any help would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0