SEO for Beginners – Part Six – Local SEO & Directory Listings

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Welcome back! We are moving onto another important area of Search Engine Optimization. So far we’ve covered website optimization, keyword research, social media marketing , link building and reviews.

Ready to dive in? Okay, let’s go! It probably goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway… optimizing for local search is important if you’re targeting a local audience. Even if you aren’t targeting a local audience, however, you’ll want to follow these steps to help your SEO campaign.

First and foremost, consistency and accuracy are KEY! HOW you are listed is JUST as important as WHERE you are listed.

To start, you’ll want to make sure the online listings that you DO HAVE are accurate. Some SEO professionals refer to the trinity known as “NAP”, standing for Name, Address, and Phone Number.  Sometimes you’ll see NAP + W and the “W” stands for website. If you’ve ever moved your business, changed your business name, phone number or website, I hope you’re paying attention. Maintaining accurate listings is essential to SEO. If Google finds conflicting information, it is likely to rank your website lower.

Every year leading SEO firm MOZ performs a study on ranking factors. Here are the results from its 2014 study…

 

As you can see “External Location Signals” account for approximately 15% of online ranking factors. You notice “NAP consistency” listed specifically.

Looking for any easy way to check the status of your online listings? Check out Yext.com and fill out your business name and phone number. Yext will perform a quick search of the top online directories and provide you with a report of how your business is listed. Yext will offer to fix your inaccurate listings, however, this can be very costly. I would recommend that you just use this as a guide to fix inaccurate listings. This could take some time and you’ll need to go to each website one by one, but it will benefit your rankings in the long term to get all inaccuracies fixed.

Not sure where to start in terms of signing up for new directories? Check out this list of the top 55 local US search directories:

  1. Google Places (aka Google+ Local)
  2. Facebook
  3. LinkedIn
  4. Yellowpages.com
  5. Yelp
  6. Local.com
  7. WhitePages.com
  8. Manta
  9. SuperPages
  10. CitySearch
  11. Patch
  12. City-Data
  13. MerchantCircle
  14. Yellowbook.com
  15. Yahoo Local
  16. Mapquest
  17. DexKnows
  18. Yellow.com
  19. BBB.org
  20. ServiceMagic
  21. Angieslist
  22. AreaConnect
  23. AmericanTowns
  24. BizJournals
  25. LocalGuides
  26. 411.com
  27. Insider Pages
  28. MagicYellow
  29. Hotfrog.com
  30. Mojopages
  31. Switchboard
  32. Demandforce
  33. MojoPages
  34. Bundle
  35. Metromix
  36. Yellowbot
  37. Kudzu
  38. ShowMeLocal
  39. ChamberofCommerce
  40. LocalPages
  41. HopStop
  42. YellowMoxie
  43. Phonenumber.com
  44. Yellowise
  45. GetFave
  46. Tupalo
  47. ZipLocal
  48. EZLocal
  49. CitySquares
  50. USCIty.net
  51. LocalDatabase

When filling out new directory listings (or updating old listings) make sure to add as much information as possible and fill out ALL possible fields.  In addition to this list, seek out directories relevant to your industry.

I hope this month’s blog post provides you with a good starting point for your local SEO campaign.  As usual, please email me, Amy Grishman, with any SEO questions you might have.  www.socialfocus.com