Local SEO can be an effective solution for that problem: by ranking high on Google Maps, we can get more traffic, prospects, and ultimately, visitors. Yet, how can we effectively implement it? In this guide, we will learn how, from registering your Google Maps listing to optimizing your listing.

First, however, let us begin by discussing the concept of local SEO.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO, in a nutshell, is optimizing your business listing on Google Maps. Quite recently, Google implemented a major change on their Google Maps search results page: while previously Google listed 7 top results on the first page, now they only show 3.

Meaning, if your listing is outside this top 3 results for your specific industry and location, you will get significantly less visibility.

Is local SEO different than “traditional” B2B SEO then? Yes, and here are the main differences:

• First, obviously “traditional” SEO is targeting the Google search engine as opposed to Google Maps for local SEO.
• While traditional or organic SEO relies on backlinks or inbound links, local SEO relies on citations (we’ll discuss it more below)
• Traditional SEO is mainly about developing content, while it’s also true to local SEO, it’s less prevalent

A common misconception we should first address is that local SEO is not about targeting local keywords like “restaurants, Toronto” on your content. It’s a common practice in the past, but no longer relevant nowadays.

Why? Because for keywords that are tied to locations (try searching for “restaurants in Toronto” now), the Google Maps results will be on top of any other sites, usually followed by list articles like “Top 10 Restaurants in Toronto”. So, optimizing your site to rank organically for this keyword is very difficult.

Local SEO, in a nutshell, is optimizing your business listing on Google Maps. Quite recently, Google implemented a major change on their Google Maps search results page: while previously Google listed 7 top results on the first page, now they only show 3.

Why Is Local SEO Important?

We all know how more and more people are now using mobile devices as their main way to search and browse the internet. We should also consider the rise of smart home assistants in recent years from Amazon Alexa to Google Home to Apple HomeKit, among other products.

With these devices, near me” queries became more common,, especially when we are using voice search. If you are a brick-and-mortar business, not optimizing for these queries simply means missing out on a huge market.

Also, a Google Maps listing can effectively encourage prospects to purchase from your brand, with Google Maps reviews being very relevant social proofs nowadays.

Long story short, if you rank high on Google Maps, more people will be aware of your business and more people will trust your business. In turn, this will translate to more traffic to your listing and more visitors to your actual location.

Let’s use a fictional restaurant, the X Bistro as an example. If X Bistro can get the top 3 spots for the “restaurants near me” query when someone is near Toronto, there is a high likelihood this person will click on the X Bistro listing. If the review for X Bistro listing is also good, there is a high chance this person will visit our restaurant.

How To Rank on Google Maps

There are two main factors driving your ranking on Google Maps listing: proximity and relevancy. Before we can optimize our listing to rank better, we should learn these two different factors.

• Proximity

In a nutshell, the closer you are to the searcher’s location (or the location specified in the search query), the better you will rank.

• Relevancy

If the X Bistro is deemed more relevant than Y Restaurant by Google, X Bistro will rank higher. Yet, how does Google determine relevance? There are three main factors: how complete and up-to-date your listing is (including photos), your reviews, and your local citations.

So, Google Maps ranking is based on these two factors. Obviously, we can’t optimize proximity (unless somehow you have an unlimited budget and can build a location on every inch of the planet), so our main focus to rank better in Google Maps is to optimize the relevancy of our listing.

For the rest of this guide, we will learn how with a step-by-step approach.

Implementing Local SEO: A Step-By-Step Guide

Above, we have discussed that our local SEO efforts will be focused on optimizing the relevancy of our listing. Yet, how can we do that? Here, we will discuss how in just five simple steps.

Step 1: Register and Verify Your Google My Business Account

To optimize your listing, you should first have a listing. It’s fairly obvious, but still a very important step. There are also several details you might have missed when you registered your Google My Business account, and so make sure not to skip this part.

Here are some important considerations in this step:

• Make sure your address is complete and accurate. A good approach is to use the exact same address used by the USPS
• Specify your service area, if you can deliver your product/service to nearby towns or even cities, you can specify it in your listing
• List all possible categories related to your business. For example, since our X Bistro is specializing in steaks, we can list “restaurant”, “steakhouse”, “steak restaurant”, and so on. The more information you can provide Google, the better, but make sure they are all relevant.
• Optimize your introduction. You can include the relevant keywords here (i.e. “restaurant in Toronto”, but your main focus is to make sure this section is well-written for human readers.

Also, make sure to verify your Google My Business listing. Usually, Google will mail a postcard containing a unique PIN to your physical address, where you can use the PIN to verify your listing. Verifying your listing is very important, so don’t neglect this step.

The main principle of this step is, the more complete and accurate your information is, the better it will be for optimization purposes. Take your time to fill out all the necessary information including business hours, payment forms accepted, and so on.

Step 2: Optimizing Photos in Your listing

Google My Business and Google Maps are essentially visual in nature. What’s the first thing you see when looking at a Google Maps search result? Most likely it’s the photo(s).

Including and optimizing photos in your Google My Business listing has two different benefits:

• Obviously, having nice, well-photographed photos on your listing can drive more customers
• You can optimize your listing with photos, in relations to local SEO

With that being said, consider including at least one professional-looking photos in your listing. If ambiance or design is a crucial aspect of your business, you might want to include more pictures.

So, how can we use photos to optimize our listing? the answer is by optimizing the EXIF metadata of each picture. You can use various third-party tools to do this, some of them are free. Here is some metadata you might want to add to your images:

• Your geographic location tags (city, country, etc.)
• Your physical address
• Latitude and longitude details
• Your target keywords
• Details about services offered by your business (business category data)

Step 3: Building Local Citations

This step might be slightly more complicated than the previous ones, and so we will first explain the concept and main principles of local citations.

A local citation, in a nutshell, is an online mention of your local business which must include three important aspects: your business Name, Address, and Phone Number, which is often abbreviated as the NAP. There are three different types of local citations:

1.Major Local Business Platforms

These platforms include Google My Business (which we have covered), Infogroup, and Acxiom among others. Major social review sites like Yelp! or Facebook can also be included here.

2.Location and Industry-Specific Directories

There are sites and online directories that are focused on listing businesses in a specific location or businesses that belong to a specific industry. For example, Toronto Business Directory is focused on Toronto area, while the Toronto Dining Channel is focused on listing restaurant businesses in Toronto.

3. Other Citations

Other citations such as mentions from publications, blogs, relevant sites, and relevant apps can be valuable. In this case, the approach is similar to building backlinks for traditional SEO.

Our focus in this step is more about the first and second type of citations, while for the third type, we will discuss it further when discussing content development below.

Now, your main job in this step is to find all the relevant directories (both major and local platforms) according to your industry and location. Let’s go back to our example, the X Bistro. In this case, we would want to find local directories for Toronto (location) and restaurants (industry).

A quick Google search will help you find these relevant directories, and here are the important principles when building your citations:

• Make sure all your information are complete and up-to-date, as complete as your Google My Business listing discussed on step 1
• Pay special attention to NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number), make they are always consistent across all your listings
• The more the merrier, but the more listings you have, the more you will need to invest your time and resources, especially if the citation also features reviews. We will discuss this further below.

Your citations are one of your most important assets when talking about local SEO. Pay extra care to the effort in building your local citations, and evaluate your listings regularly.

Step 4. Driving Positive Reviews

In this era when social proof is extremely important,, soliciting positive reviews have two major benefits: first, obviously the more positive reviews you have, the more credible your business will be perceived by customers. This will translate to more prospects and eventually, more customers.

Also, positive reviews on your Google Maps listing, as well as relevant review sites like Yelp!, TripAdvisor, and Facebook, are a strong ranking signal for Google Maps.

So, how can we get more reviews? One of the most effective ways is to incentivize your existing customers. For example, you can offer discounts, freebies, or other special offers for those who leave positive reviews on your Google Maps listing.

Here are some important considerations for this step:

1. The best way to get more positive reviews is to offer service excellence and delivering an excellent product. There’s no shortcut around this.
2. You can use various monitoring tools to keep track of your reviews, as well as your competitors’. This can act as an effective market research method.
3. Also, an important factor is how you should handle negative reviews. If it’s a valid negative review from those who have purchased your product/service, handle it quickly and politely. Don’t ever deliver false promises.
4. For negative reviews coming from fake users, especially those with clear malicious intent (using harsh languages, etc.), you can ask Google Maps or the review platform to remove this review with sufficient proof. Consider taking legal actions if the attacks are serious.

Step 5. Developing Content

Content marketing is a pretty broad subject on its own, and we won’t give it much justice discussing it here. However, here are some key principles in implementing content marketing for local SEO purposes:

• The most important part here is targeting the right keywords (i.e., “restaurant Toronto”). Find keywords with enough search volume but manageable competition. However, focus on writing for human readers: write naturally, don’t overstuff keywords, and make sure the content is unique, valuable, and relevant.
• Aim to get more backlinks from relevant sites, which can act as a citation. Promote your content with social media, influencers, and other channels.
• Guest posting for relevant sites can be a good approach if you do it right.

Conclusion

While local SEO can be terrifying at first, it is actually quite simple once you’ve got the hang of it. With the five steps we have shared above, you can start working with local SEO consultants and see your listing climb higher on Google Maps ranking.

The key to a successful local SEO is consistency: local SEO, as with traditional SEO, is a long-term game, and you should expect to invest at least 6 months before you see significant results. Monitor your progress, constantly evaluate and optimize, and be patient.

Getting that top spot on Google Maps can dramatically improve your growth. So, although the process can be long, it will be totally worth it in the end.

The post How to Create a Successful Local SEO Strategy appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

If you’re trying to figure out how to improve website ranking in Google, working on improving your website’s SEO can be one of the best things to do.

Improving your traffic with SEO consultant is one of the primary ways to get more traffic to your website, but it can also be a tricky process.

The truth is, there are right ways and wrong ways to improve your site. Using blackhat SEO techniques can lead to disastrous results and may backfire. This can leave your site with worse rankings than it had before.

Luckily, as long as you pay attention and make sure to do things right you can avoid getting on Google’s bad side.

If you’re wondering how to improve website ranking without getting a Google penalty, then read on.

What is a Google Penalty?

So what exactly is a Google penalty and why does it matter for your site?

A Google penalty occurs when your site has come under scrutiny due to any number of issues. As a result, your site is negatively impacted and you fall in Google’s search rankings.

Google may decide to penalize your site due to recent algorithm changes or a manual review of your site.

Google penalties are best to avoid at all costs, as search engines account for much of the traffic many websites get.

Types of Google Penalties

There are many reasons your site may receive a Google penalty. Google is coming up with algorithm changes regularly and occasionally makes major changes to what it looks for in a high-quality site.

However, there are some main things that have been well-known to earn Google penalties.

If you’re trying to figure out how to improve website ranking in Google, take note of the following reasons Google may penalize you.

Unnatural Backlinks

While high-quality backlinks can be crucial for the success of your site, poor quality links can have the opposite effect. Google looks to other sites around the web to determine the worth of your business’ website.

By paying for backlinks or listing your site in spammy directory sites you are playing with fire. Spammy and untrustworthy backlinks can quickly earn your site a Google penalty. It’s simply not worth it.

Thin Content

In the eyes of Google, quality is preferred over quantity. If your site features thin and less than valuable content, you’re risking a penalty.

Avoid mistakes such as duplicate content, content that is spun, or content that features little actual value, but is filled with affiliate links.

Google considers all of these types of content to be thin. Having spammy content that is not valuable to visitors may earn you a penalty and make your progress more difficult when trying to figure out how to improve website ranking.

Cloaking and Sneaky Redirects

Cloaking occurs when you show some content to Google but not to your visitors. Sneaky redirects are when the pages that Google indexes on your site differ from what visitors are led to when clicking on the result.

Both of these issues are seen as troublesome by Google and make it appear as though you are being deceptive.

Cloaking and redirects are usually intentional, but there are times when your site may be giving off these signals when you don’t realize it because of how your site is set up. Be careful of redirects and cloaking and fix any issues that occur as soon as possible.

Hacked Site

If your site has been hacked or compromised in some way you may also receive a penalty from Google. Google tries to direct its users to high-quality content only as well as content that is safe.

If your site has vulnerability and security issues it’s likely to be left in the dust in future search results.

Be sure that your security is up to date on your site in order to avoid hacking. If you discover that your site has been hacked, remedy the situation immediately.

User-Generated Spam

Similar to a site that has been hacked, other people can compromise the integrity of your site by leaving spam comments and links all over your site.

Be sure to keep a watchful eye on spam comments and limit these by using a tool such as CAPTCHA or by approving comments manually on your website.

How to Improve Website Ranking

So now that we’ve learned how to avoid a Google penalty, what are the best ways how to improve website ranking?

There are a few steps and strategies that you’ll want to focus on to make sure your site is in the best shape possible when it comes to improving SEO while avoiding penalties.

Analysis First

The first thing you should do is properly analyze your site. Use backlink analysis and SEO tools to figure out how you are doing already.

It can also be a great idea to get a site audit to find out if you are at risk of experiencing a Google penalty and to discover ways how to improve website ranking.

The many tools by Moz, Majestic, or cognitiveSEO are great places to start and can offer great insight on your site’s backlink profile, social and page metrics. These sites also offer great competitive analysis tools.

Using these tools or undergoing a site audit can help you to see where you may need improvement and where your site’s weaknesses are. Afterward, you can target what you need to work on and move on to other strategies to improve your site.

Correct Keyword Density and Usage

Using the right keywords that are immensely relevant to your business can be very important if you’re wondering how to improve website ranking, get excellent traffic and improve your site in the eyes of Google.

Use keyword research to find the best keywords to optimize your site for. It is especially important to look for long-tail keywords, as these are searched for most often.

You may choose to use a tool such as Ubersuggest or Keywordtool.io to find long-tail keywords.

You can also use the Google Adwords Keyword Planner using the following method:

• First, you’ll want to have a seed keyword or topic you want to write about.
• Then, go to the Keyword Planner and type in your keyword.
• Click on “Get Ideas.”
• View the keywords tab to show related keywords.
• Look for keywords that receive a lot of monthly searches.

Be aware, that although you should be using keywords you can take them too far and use them incorrectly.

Some poor quality sites will perform “keyword stuffing” and place an excessive and unnatural amount of keywords on their site’s copy and content.

Make sure to use keywords correctly and wisely at all times, and avoid overdoing it.

Get Backlinks the Right Way

I’ve already mentioned the impact that poor quality and spammy links can have on your website and how these can lead to a Google penalty. So then what are the best ways how to improve website ranking in Google?

Instead of getting poor quality backlinks, you should work on getting high-quality alternatives. High-quality links come from authority sites that have earned respect in the eyes of Google over the course of time.

One of the major ways to get these links is by guest posting and then getting an authority link back to your site.

To find other websites and blogs to guest post for, you can simply search for your industry topics or keywords along with a phrase such as “Write For Us” or “Submit a Guest Post.”

Once you’ve found one or two ideal sites, you can then use a tool such as Alexa’s Audience Overlap Tool to find even more options.

Tools such as the Guest Post Tracker can also help you to find great blogs to write guest posts for.

Once you’ve found a few possible blogs to submit a guest post to, your job isn’t quite done yet. You’ll want to make sure the blog is worth writing for.

One of the best ways to do this is by checking the site’s “Domain Authority” using a tool such as the Open Site Explorer.

A high domain authority is ideal, so look for sites that have a number that is at least above 30 at the minimum.

Create Great Content

The real centerpiece of any high-quality website is an excellent content marketing strategy. By writing great content you can offer real value to visitors.

When Google crawls your site and notices a large amount of content that provides value and is not spammy or filled with keyword stuffing, the search engine will take notice.

The importance of high-quality content shows no real signs of changing anytime soon. Content will likely continue to be a cornerstone of separating the great websites from the poor ones.

A content marketing strategy is not something you should ignore.

Final Thoughts

While it can be frustrating to get a penalty or be in fear of one, it can actually be very simple to stay in Google’s good graces.

Just be sure to avoid spammy link practices at all costs if you’re wondering how to improve website ranking and SEO.

Great SEO does take some time to build, but if you follow good SEO practices you will be well on your way to doing great in search engine results.

The post How to Improve Your Google Rankings Without Getting Penalized appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

Web search engines are not a new invention. They have been around since the early days of the internet, and were used to list down and index pages and directories back in the day. If you owned an Internet-enabled computer in the ’90s, you must be familiar with some of these names: WebCrawler, Lycos, Altavista, Go.com, Inktomi, Dogpile, and Ask Jeeves. These were some of the popular search engines that people used before the trailblazing Google burst into the search engine scene in 1998.
It is not an overstatement to say that Google basically revolutionized the way how search engines work. Before Google, search engines were uncomplicated affairs that rank links by simply crawling through web pages and counting the search terms that are in them. More search terms = more relevancy. This system, which can be easily gamed, is the reason why search results pages were sometimes full of spammy links back then.

Google and the Rise of SEO

But here comes Google. The brainchild of then Stanford Phd students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google employs complex algorithms and formulas to determine the relevancy of a particular page in relation to a user’s search terms. Factors such as search terms, links, keywords, and operators were taken into account in the computation of search results. This resulted into results pages that are more relevant and “cleaner” (i.e. devoid of spam links) than those of other search engines.
This period also represented a time when people realized they could make money off their websites. Being listed on the first page of a search engine results page translates into more visitors to a website. And more visitors = more income. Business owners started trying to find new ways to get their websites listed at the top.

And thus search engine optimization was born.

What Is SEO and Why Should I Care

SEO is basically the process of tweaking a website/webpage for it to become more “visible” in the eyes of search engines. Why is this so important? First off, landing on the front page of a search engine results page (SERP) assures a huge amount of publicity for any website.

Studies have shown that the result at the first place in Google search pages get 20% of all clicks. This means that for a search term that gets about 100,000 searches monthly, 20,000 unique visitors will go just to the first place alone! Most people don’t even bother browsing beyond the first page, preferring instead to click just the top results. This is the reason why websites with high-traffic search terms (like “make money online” for example) make it a point to get themselves in the top five spots in the first page of SERPS. For industries such as real estate and advertising, search engine visibility can make or break any business.

How to Do SEO the Right Way

Modern search engines like Google assign different weights to a variety of website factors when calculating for its relevancy in SERPs. Though these elements and the algorithms that are used for calculations are not publicly revealed, search engine experts agree on a couple of things that are important: 1) content and 2) user experience.

As the saying goes, content will always be king. Without good content, there is no reason why people should hang around your website. Content should be related to the theme of your website and MUST be well-written. It must establish you as an authority in your particular niche.

User experience refers to how your website works in the literal sense. Can it load fast? Can people find what they’re looking for easily? Does it have an aesthetically-pleasing design? Does it look safe? Think of content as the body and muscles of your website, while user experience is the skin that keeps everything together.

A word of advice though, if you’re tempted to try out “black-hat” SEO tricks such as keyword stuffing and buying links- DON’T DO IT. Google has released updates that punish these kinds of tricks, and it will do your website more harm than good. Remember to stick only to organic, tried and tested methods.

The post The History of Search Engines and SEO appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

However, sometimes you might face a different challenge in your SEO strategy. Your page might show up in the first position when you search for it, but it may appear lower down when someone else does a search for the exact same phrase. It’s vital to understand why two users searching for the same term can receive a different set of results. Knowing the factors at play in the background is part of developing the ultimate SEO strategy for you and your clients.

The New Era of Personilized Search Results

The “search” part of SEO usually refers to Google, who continues to utterly dominate the field of search engines. Understanding this problem involves understanding Google itself and the ins and outs of their search algorithm. Google has a massive appetite for data, collecting huge amounts of personal data about its users, which it harvests from search histories as well as their core products like GMail and Chrome. The reason Google tries to assemble this profile of each and every user, is so that it can tailor search results giving more accurate responses to queries and helping to target AdWord messages for each specific users search preference.

This is why you may notice a discrepancy between the search results you see and the results someone else might get for the same query. It’s also why you might see differences depending on whether you’re logged into Google’s services or through browsing anonymously. So exactly what kind of personalized tailoring takes place when someone does a Google search? Here are a few of the key factors:

Geo-Targeted Location

All websites, including Google, can tell your whereabouts simply by examining your IP address. Logged-in Google users can also use the My Location feature to specify wh ere they are in the world, or choose to see results from a particular locale by adjusting the search options. Manually configured location data is stored in a cookie on your browser and picked up again the next time you perform a Google search.

Search results relevant to your location will always be given preference, especially if the search is for something that varies from area to area such as restaurants or hotels. If possible, Google will return a Google Maps result for the highest-ranked search, allowing you to browse your neighborhood for whatever it is you’re looking for.

You can also access local versions of Google simply by changing the domain suffix. For example, Google.co.uk will take you to the British version of Google.

Search History

Your personal search history has a big effect on future search results. If you use Google when logged in, your full search history is stored and relevant previous searches will be offered by Google’s autocomplete function. Even if your search term isn’t in your history, information stored about previous searches will still influence the results displayed. For example, if you frequently click through to Wikipedia entries, Wikipedia search results will get pushed towards the top of your search results. Even if you’re not logged in, the search history for your browser is stored locally as a cookie, and this will have a bearing on the results produced.

Google+

Did you know that your friends’ searches could also play a role in your search results if you or they are a Google+ user? The histories of those you have in your Circles will have a small impact on the search results you receive. This is totally anonymous however so there is not a huge concern associated with it, as your Google+ friends won’t be able to see your search history, or vice versa.

Google Data Centers

Behind the famous search engine, there are dozens of data centers all over the world working hard to process user queries and produce search results. Your Google query is automatically routed to the closest available data center and the results are returned from there. In theory, it shouldn’t matter which data center you use; in practice; updates between data center servers can occur at different times, giving a slight variance for users in different regions. This is not one of the biggest factors, but it is still worth considering. Google even has an internal team that provides support services so its data centers function at peak capacity 24/7/365.

Random Testing

Google is constantly striving to improve its performance and fine-tune its search algorithms. As many as 40% of Google queries may be used in different kinds of testing behind the scenes as engineers work to optimize performance. These tests tend to be relatively minor but, again, they can cause some variance between search results. Even running the same query twice in the same browser might produce some variance.

These are the key factors in search result variance. Unfortunately, there is little that can be done to influence them from an SEO point of view, as these are all either features of the Google user experience or technical constraints on Google’s side of things.

There are some steps that can be taken to mitigate the effect of different search results in Google. The most important thing is to factor this into your testing when trying to assess the ranking of your web content. Many people forget that their browsers will return results personalized for them, meaning that your own content is going to be highlighted in a way that it won’t be for external users. When performing test searches, make sure you have fully logged out and wiped all cookies from your browser. Better yet, keep a clean testing environment used solely for the purpose of SEO assessment.

It’s also worth considering that virility is now built into Google’s algorithms somewhat, with Google+ playing a part. Although this social network has a much smaller uptake than Facebook and Twitter, engaging with G+ users may reap benefits in terms of search. It’s also worth remembering that YouTube has now been assimilated into the Google+ network, so your original video content (if you have some) is also helping your search results.

But most importantly of all, you should remember that Google’s own advice, as with all things SEO-related, is to produce high-quality, relevant, original content. This remains the best SEO strategy of all; publishing content that people want to read will ensure that you are pushed to the top of everyone’s search results in an organic fashion.

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