LOCAL SEO FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
LOCAL SEO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
First, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the method of improving the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. These searches take place on Google and other search engines like Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, etc.
Local SEO is basically the same as organic SEO, but with an added geographical component, as it specifically refers to the process of optimizing your online presence to attract more business from location-based searches. To collect information for local search, search engines depend on signals such as local content, social profile pages, citations (local business listing directories), and links to offer the most relevant local results to the end user.
We specialize in Local SEO which is, in our opinion, where you can see quick and real results from SEO!
Local SEO is one of the best ways to attract highly targeted traffic to your company. If your business serves the community face-to-face (brick-and-mortar businesses with physical locations or service-area businesses that operate throughout a certain geographic area), then you need local SEO to take your business to the next level. With an effective Local SEO strategy, your website will appear on the first page of Google when customers search for your product or services by city or near me searches.
Local SEO sends you qualified leads who are ready to buy your products or services. Did you know that over 80% of consumers perform an online search prior to making a purchase decision, and almost 90% of local, mobile searches result in a visit within 24 hours? If you want to be found by new customers, it is essential that you invest in Local SEO because if you’re not keeping up with your competition, then you will quickly lose business to others that are investing in Local SEO.
Absolutely! Generally, Local SEO is best for B2C companies who make individual, point-in-time sales like electricians, plumbers, roofers, construction companies, general contractors, landscapers, photographers, spas, salons, bakeries, auto dealerships, vehicle repair and mechanics, pest control, pool services, cleaning services, towing, veterinarians, medical offices, CPAs, transportation companies, maintenance services, home services, etc.
Alternatively, B2B companies who sell entirely online and need to reach CEOs across the US are probably better off using other tools like LinkedIn. For example, in the past, we experimented with ranking two of our own SEO websites, YouTube videos, google+ pages, web 2.0, etc. all on page 1 of Google. We held 8 out of 10 spots on page 1, plus 2 out of 3 spots in maps and only gained 1 client that year from all of that! We do not spend time and money on ranking our SEO DIGITAL MARKETING EXPERTS website to compete with pages of competitors who also do this professionally because that is just not where we get our business. Although we are a Sonoma based company, we serve clients almost entirely online and in different states and even in different countries, so a company like ours does not really benefit from Local SEO.
First, go to a private browsing window to clear out everything Google knows about you based on your search history and location. If you are in Chrome, just go to the three dots at the top right of your screen. Then choose new incognito window.
Type in your city and what you sell. For example, Napa Limousine Services. Ideally you want your site to appear at the top or within the top 3 spots on the first page of organic results for your most competitive keywords. Statistics show that more than 60% of people who performed a local search clicked on the top 3 listings while only 8% choose to check the other results on Google SERPs. If you are not appearing, then you need an effective Local SEO strategy to improve the rankings of your site to one of these 3 coveted spots on Google. It will help improve the conversion rates, sales, and profits of your business.
That’s great and is one way to get client leads. Incoming online searches is another way. Wouldn’t it be great to get leads that had never heard of you before?
No matter the local niche, in our experience, when a website goes from anywhere beyond page 1 to appearing on page 1 of Google, revenue usually doubles. Once a website reaches the top 3 spots, it can actually triple. Once you’re ranked in maps and in the top 3 organic, most businesses cut off any other forms of advertising they have because at that point they usually have to expand, buy more fleet, hire more staff, and/or raise prices because they have more customers than they can handle. That is the power of Google!
Instead of utilizing your website as a brochure for people to go look at after they have already heard of you, you can turn your site into an effective lead generation tool that brings customers to you.
It’s always important to have clear “calls to action”, for example, “Call Now” or some kind of offer that makes the traffic that comes to your site contact you or visit your physical location. Statistics reveal that over 70% of smartphone users click and call a company directly from their mobile device. If you are still not using Local SEO for your brick-and-mortar business, you are losing countless opportunities to grow and scale your business.
Now more than ever, people are constantly searching for products and services online, however, 90% of people don’t bother to go further than the first page of Google! In fact, approximately 60% of clicks go to the top 3 listings. You can see why the businesses who appear first in the results are the ones who are earning the most money.
A quality SEO campaign will start with making sure your website is properly optimized so that you appear at the top for any city + keyword searches that people use to find products/services that you might sell. Basically, you are constantly promoting your business anytime someone searches for keywords that you are ranking at the top of search engines for.
Local Search Engine Optimization is one of the best investments you can make in your company. Quality SEO is not an expense, it’s a revenue generator, because when done correctly, it will generate a huge ROI.
The price of an SEO campaign depends on the workload that it will take to get your website to the top of Google, as well as the value to maintain it there. Each business is different, and it is hard to give an exact estimate without first speaking with the business owner to listen to their goals and then do an audit on their webpage to see where they currently are. However, below is a rough guide of our pricing as we also base pricing on the population of the city served.
$1,000/month for populations of up to 50K
$1,200 -$1,500/month for populations of up to 200K
$2,000-$2,500/month for populations of up to 500K
$3,000-$3,500/month for populations of up to 1 million
$3,500-$4,500/month for populations of up to 8 million
*Tougher niches are case by case.
For example, if you want to rank for keywords like Santa Rosa Plumber, it would typically be between $1,200 and $1,500/month since Santa Rosa, California is a population of 175K. Our goal is to get you to the top, with the most competitive main keywords, not long sentence type keywords.
Our pricing is very competitive based on the level of service and results you obtain with us. Yes, there are probably SEO offers out there for less, but would you rather pay someone $800/month and get little or no results to save money? Or pay an expert $1,500/month and be able to collect over $10,000/month in new customers that you did not have before? Based on current client data and workload, ROI could be an additional $10,000 or more in sales per month, with just the $1,500 per month investment. Remember our monthly fee is only an initial investment for the first few months as soon our SEO fee will be paid with money that we bring you in the form of new customers.
We know how to implement SEO to work for your company’s needs, whether that is dominating your local market against local competitors or competing with a long-standing, top-ranked competitor. We follow a 6-step process that we take your website through. We do the six steps and get amazing results EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Each step works off each other, and it is impossible to know which step is going to be the most important to Google. It is the combination that ranks your site high. It really does not matter that Google keeps changing their algorithm (that’s to keep the sketchy SEO companies out) because what Google does not change is their desire to be the best search engine by delivering the most trusted and relevant content to its end users. Our entire SEO campaign is built on gaining Google’s trust so that they rank your website at the top.
Nobody can guarantee that they will get you to the first position in Google or even on the first page. Only Google decides that. However, we have never not been able to get a website to rank on the first page. In fact, some of our clients get multiple keywords on page 1 within 60 days! Naturally, it takes a little bit longer for your site to claw its way to the top of page 1, knocking off competitor after competitor, but the goal is to completely dominate.
Let us handle your SEO needs, so you have time to focus on serving your customers and growing your business.
No, in fact we do not even make you sign a contract. We do not believe in long contracts, just results! That is why our SEO services are month-to-month and you are free to cancel at any time. Each month before your invoice is due, we send you your current keyword rankings report. You decide if you want to continue, but once you have seen the results that we can get for you, you won’t want us doing the same thing for your competitors.
Yes, we offer 100% market & niche exclusivity, which means we only work with one business per industry, per market. This gives the businesses we work with an incredible advantage and edge over their local competition.
We are continuously working on your website to get it to the #1 position and making sure it stays there. We don’t stop working because your competition won't stop either.
Also, our SEO services provide real value to your business. Once we get your website to the top of Google, your business will see a huge ROI. We earn your monthly investment because our SEO services are what is generating your increased revenue.
We offer a 60-day risk free trial of our SEO services. If in 60 days we don’t drastically improve your website’s ranking, we give you all your money back. Hint, we’ve never been asked for a refund because we know what we are doing!
Results will vary depending on where your website is currently ranked, market size and competition. All of these play an important factor in how quickly we can get your website to the top of Google. However, our SEO process is designed to get you the quickest results possible and some clients get multiple keywords on page 1 within 60 days.
Yes! You can either choose to start with just 1 city and then add on from there or start with 2 or more from the get-go. It all depends on your budget and how fast you want to take over your competition.
We often get asked, “If my website is based in city A, can I get it to show up at the top of Google for city B, C, D too?” The answer is yes. Some of the top Local SEO strategies to get your website to rank in Multiple Cities include:
- Location pages - The most vital step to implementing an effective local SEO campaign for multiple cities is to build location pages on your website. If your business offers services in 4 cities, then each one of those cities needs its own page. For example, a roofing company centrally located in City A will have a website structured as follow:
- City A – roofcompany.com
- City B – roofcompany.com/city-b-keyword
- City C – roofcompany.com/city-c-keyword
- City D – roofcompany.com/city-d-keyword and so on.
Google’s search results are strongly based on the search user’s location. Thus, if you have a page completely dedicated and optimized with the keywords + location of the search user, then your chances of ranking that individual page at the top of Google increase.
- Google My Business – Make sure you claim your Google My Business listing (GMB). As crazy as it may sound, about 55% of GMB listings are left unclaimed. If you want to appear in the top 3 maps for additional cities, you must have verified GMB’s in multiple locations. If there is no physical location for these places, you won’t get in maps without an address.
- Citations need to be consistent – Citations are local business listing directories on the internet that display your business information. There are hundreds of directories across the web, some of the most well know are the Yellow Pages, Yelp, and Yahoo Local to name a few. We make sure you are not only in these listings but that your Business Name, Address and Phone number (NAP) are consistent everywhere on the web.
- Gathering local reviews- local reviews greatly contribute to building an online presence on a local level. When your clients give you a review, it shows Google that customers are interacting with your GMB listing, which passes more trust to your listing. Also, don’t forget to respond to the review and mention the city and service and your business name in your response. The more trust that your listing builds with Google, the better chance you have of getting into the coveted top 3 Google Map Pack.
- High quality content – In order to get to the first page of Google for specific locations, we will need to create high quality content focused on those locations. The easiest way to do this is to add a blog page to your website with articles that are thoughtfully created so that they are not only optimized for the focus keywords and locations that you want to rank for in that city, but that they also make sense to the end-user. Location specific content in your blog articles is a must if you want to rank in multiple cities.
Yes, we optimize your website to the fullest potential, which will eventually place you not only at the top of organic listings, but also in the Map results. The Google Maps Pack (aka Local 3-Pack) is one of the most sought-after spots since it is on the first SERP (above all organic results). It appears in about 30% of all first page for organic search results and gives potential customers all the information they need at the tip of their fingers. This makes the Google Local Pack one of the best ways to drive traffic to your local business. Once you dominate both the organic local search and Google Maps listing, you won’t need to ever advertise your business anywhere else.