Local Search Engine Optimization (Local SEO)

A strong foundation is vital to your digital marketing and Local SEO strategy.

A strong foundation is vital to your digital marketing and Local SEO strategy. Your website (or landing page) is a major part of that foundation. Ensuring your website is properly optimized and aligned with Google’s and other search engine’s best practices is an advisable first step and where our process starts.

Our approach to website optimization is conversion-focused, employing improvements to the user experience as well as technical, behind-the-scenes changes that only your search engine sees. We follow a 36-point checklist, but some of these technical improvements include:

• Unique and descriptive page titles and meta descriptions
• Keyword-rich HTML heading tags
• Optimizing images regarding file size and alt tags
• Internal links plus authoritative outbound links
• Schema

Conversion-focused improvements vary according to individual need and industry but may include navigation menus, reformatting pages for a better user experience, and ensuring your calls to action are clear and sensible.

Your website or landing page influences the visibility of your Google My Business page as well. This is the other integral part of your Local SEO, which we go into more detail in the next section below.

Your Google My Business listing is the other key element of local SEO optimization. We described this element in full above, including screenshots of the Google Maps, Local 3-Pack, and knowledge panel listings. When you first sign with Phoenix Online Media, we ensure your GMB page is claimed, set up correctly, categorized intelligently, and optimized accordingly.

Google updates GMB constantly, so we stay up-to-date on new developments to capitalize on early adopter opportunities. Our Google My Business checklist ensures your online presence looks as professional as possible to portray you as the obvious choice when compared to your competitors.

Reviews matter.

They're a vital part of local SEO and overall online presence, expected to continue growing in importance through 2019 and beyond.

These days, reputation is everything these days, especially when the internet makes it so easy for consumers to research products or services before making a final decision. Knowing the importance of reviews, we invested significant time and money into creating a review and reputation management system that we believe is the best available today. We are proud of this system, and a week doesn’t go by where we aren’t celebrating another win with one of our clients stemming from an impressive collection of online reviews.

What if your business already has some negative reviews? No problem. We have solutions for those, too.

Our review acquisition system employs an automated, multi-channel campaign including email, text messaging, and print. Our intelligent filtering system forwards negative reviews to your inbox instead of online. We also use a built-in monitoring system that informs us of any new reviews, so we can respond quickly. Our system also includes the capability to generate automatic responses, stream positive reviews on your site and social media platforms, and more.

We're so proud of our review system, we'd love the chance to set up a demo for you to preview it in action. Call us today at (480) 539-2900.

Often referred to as link signals, backlinks are one of the top influencing factors on a website's ranking. In terms of local SEO, MOZ rates link signals as second only to your Google My Business page (see the full report below under Additional Resources, MOZ 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors).

Our effective backlink process helps obtain valuable links from industry-relevant sites. Not convinced that links make a difference? Google search "best growlers in Gilbert" and you'll see a the GMB page for Quick N' Shine Carwash. Our backlink process helped earn a carwash that quality spot, even though Gilbert has its fair share of bars and pubs.

Content is an ideal way to demonstrate you’re an expert in your industry, provide more value to your customers, clients, patients, or website visitors, and gain additional internet traffic from people clicking through to your page or post from their search results.

Although less important than the early days of the Internet, citations remain an important aspect of local SEO. At one time, they were one of the most important ranking factors. Businesses could literally outrank their competition in local results and on maps by having the most citations! Those days are gone. Local SEO has become much more complex since then, and that strategy eventually burned out as Google’s algorithm progressed. Having said that, a consistent and accurate citation portfolio on the web's “top 15” directories still proves to be a significant ranking factor. According to the latest study put out by MOZ (see more info in the Local SEO Resources section below) citation signals still account for 10.82% of all the local ranking factors. We view citations as potentially being the differentiator, or tie breaker, in the cases when all else is pretty much even between you and your competition. A robust online presence with your profile fully built out on our chosen top 15 and other industry-relevant sites gives your business the edge in the rank war. Our citation process is simple: Hand-entered citations on our top 15 and on the directories that are most relevant to your niche. In our own experiments, we have compared hand-entered citations verses automatic submission programs which have become quite popular. Those definitely have their advantages, especially in the time they save, but within such a competitive landscape, the details matter – and that includes citation building.

Social signals influence your Local SEO. More importantly, social media allows you to engage with both existing and potential customers. Furthermore, social media is becoming the customer service platform of choice for both customers and the businesses that utilize it.

Did you know that 30 percent of consumers surveyed said that they may not choose to purchase from a company that doesn’t have a social media presence? A properly implemented social media strategy can have many benefits for your local search strategy as well as your overall online presence.

Our social media strategy includes posting relevant content on the social channels most relevant to your customers, and engaging with them with surveys, contests, sweepstakes, and highlighting products and services. We have also developed a very effective Facebook Ads campaign process that provides highly targeted traffic or engagement, even with a small marketing budget.

We understand that analytics and reporting don’t directly influence your rankings, but since we feel it to be so important, have decided to include it anyway. After all, it is an essential part of our process. We strongly advocate measuring and comparing results and making strategic adjustments according to that data to achieve the most optimal results every time.

As the great management guru Peter Drucker said, “What gets measured gets managed.” We provide clear and informative monthly reports that show the good and the bad. We strongly believe it is advantageous for you to know the online health of your Local SEO and your ROI. The goal is to demonstrate monthly improvements to you but also be transparent when there is a bad month.