How to beat directories in local search.
-
After just a couple months I'm placing on the first page for some keywords but I need advice on how to get over the hump.
Search results for "Lakeville Snow Plowing" and "Lakeville Snow Removal" return directory results for the 1rst 3 listings above the local results.. I'm right below that at 5 and 7.. (I'm not showing up in local results even though I have a radius but that's another issue)
Any tips or advice to compete against these type of results rather than a direct competitor? How does a small company with limited to no budget go about outranking BBB and Manta.com?
I'm considering purchasing the BBB membership, and I imagine a link from them would be helpful, other than that, I could use some advice.
Derrick
-
Correct. My reasoning for concentrating on the local results is that if I am looking for snow removal service, I am not going to check the BBB. I am going to check the local results and see if there are any reviews on the different companies (hint: get your customers to review your company!!!)
I quickly took a look at your site and you are on the right track with having landing pages for Burnsville and Lakeville. You just need to have these locations and the services for those locations more pronounced on your site.
Hope this helps.
Mike
-
Thanks Mike..
So your suggestion would be to focus on the local results instead of organic results, correct?
I have a challenge there as the business is run out of a home in New Market, but my target locations are lakeville, apple valley and so on. I listed the cities in google places account but there seems to be a conflict with my G+ account that has me verified in New Market.. Anyway, that's probably another question topic..
The site is yalecreeksc.com
-
Go Minnesota!
Those blizzard conditions yesterday made for an interesting commute in the AM.
Any who... to your question.
I don't think there is anything you can do for those specific keywords. Those keywords are more or less asking Google for a listing of snow removal companies in the Lakeville area. The "best" results then would be a directory. For those keywords, Google automatically is doing the 3 websites, then returning the local results.
If you do a search for straight up, "snow removal" Google will return local results first without the 3 websites first.
My best advice to you is to get ranking #1 for the local results for those keywords. Since I don't know the name of your company/website, that is about all of the help I can give you.
Good luck Derrick,
Mike
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Methods for estimating competitor website traffic from natural search
Hi all, I'm currently working on some competitor analysis and estimating website traffic based on rankings and estimated search volume for approximately 500 keywords. I'm then estimating based on click through rate from Webmaster tools. I think this will give me a relatively accurate estimation but was wondering how everyone else does this? Any other methods out there? Thanks, Elias
Competitive Research | | A_Q0 -
Beating the Big Boys: help analyzing keywords in a very competitive space
Hi all! Long time Pro member first time question asker! We are in real estate in Barcleona and, although we create tons of content (daily blogs, free ebooks, videos) we have never properly optimized our root domain page for any keywords that might bring us specifically real estate related traffic from Google. Our website is www DOT SuiteLife DOT com. My question is about keyword analysis. We've had this sort of paralysis whereby we're nervous to start link building etc… for the wrong keywords. The problem we have is that most all keywords in our space are VERY competitive. So far the two tools we've used are: Google Keyword tool: About the top 20-40 keywords we'd like to go after are rated as HIGH competition. SEOmoz Keyword tool: Only the really too-obscure or long tailed keywords related to our business fall under a 50 rating. We were wondering if anyone could shed some light on how to further analyze keyword possibilities for our homepage when it seems like anything with any decent search traffic is super competitive. Please let me know if there's any important info that I've left out! Thank you SO much in advance for any advice/help. The SEOmoz community is so amazing! Rock on guys and gals! ~ Benny
Competitive Research | | SuiteLifeBarcelona0 -
Local SEO questions
Been getting into Local SEO a bit but still not completely up to speed on a few things. Would appreciate any input by experienced local SEO's to any parts of this: Ill ask my broader questions within the context of an example. I have a client who is a part of a keyword niche that isn't exactly what Google might consider "local". What i mean by this is that if you are a car accident lawyer and you type this into Google Google with spit out local results because it seems to know which terms are searched for with intent to find local results. This client makes essentially medical form software which I dont get any local results for when I search for their keywords. But they do have a local focus as in they have an address in a city which is a target market. The client told me they are looking to target other markets nationally as well down the road. However they don't have brick and mortar locations for these other cities so I am under the impression that it wouldn't be something we could target locally. This brings up a strange question in my mind though - if you need an address for a physical location for each city you want target...if you want to target the whole country locally, you would need to have a location in every city? Is there any way to target local focus without purchasing a new office in every city you target? Or can you target a state with one office etc or is Google bond things down to cities or understood regions? Does it sound like this company should even be doing local? The last part to this is whether or not there is any way (tool?) to figure out what local areas are searching for you keywords? Why doesn't Google allow us to use the Keyword Search Tool to see traffic etc for more than just a nation or the globe? What I would love to see is, which cities get the most traffic for X keyword term and have the lowest competition. Then it might justify having to buy some Regis office in a random location. I feel like this doesn't exist but maybe some of you have some ideas to direct me...
Competitive Research | | eastco0 -
Local Real Estate Site vs Larger National Sites
Hello all, I am a local realtor that created my website with an idx feed. I am on page one but at the bottom. Question is how can a local real estate website rank better in the SERPS than the larger national brands? Any tips out there from those who have worked with real estate websites and seo? I'm trying to out rank the larger sites for my main keywords. Thanks all.
Competitive Research | | bronxpad0 -
Tools to search google for sites?
Hi, I am sure I read it on here. But is there a link to a resource whereby I can search Google for sites that accept things like guest bloggers, offer do follow links, do not no follow comments etc... It used things like "search term" blogs, eg "guest bloggers" websute Anyone help me out? Cheers Will
Competitive Research | | YNWA0 -
My site is ranked in the top 5 for my keywords, but howcome I'm low in an organic search results for my key words?
Are the other factors such as page rank, Alexa rating and mozRank used to determine where I will show up in search results, over Goggle's key word rank for my key words?
Competitive Research | | allstatetransmission0 -
How good really is Yahoo Directory Listing is on SEO optimization
I just god the approval from Yahoo Directory Listing today. How should I expect ranking increase just with that on google, yahoo and bing in the next couple of days ?
Competitive Research | | processia0 -
Search shows site links, but not hyperlinked?
2 of our competitors on Google have site links show in their results which brings you to that specific page. In our listing we show up with the same results a few spots behind them with our site links visible showing very similar content, but are not actually hyper linked. Is there a way to fix the issue and let people actually be able to click on our site links instead of just reading them?
Competitive Research | | sknott0