This answer was once a 100% no for us. But as SEO has become more and more competitive, we see many more sites in the top of the Search Engine results that are paying for links, and appear to getting better rankings because of it.
The type of links I am referring to here are directory links, not text in blog link farms, or anything developed for the sole purpose of getting your rankings to increase, with very little or no real readership.
A good link should have the potential to bring you more traffic, on its own, period. There are a ton of directories that are free, and do show up high enough in the search engines, or do their own advertising, to bring real prospects to our site. It does take some research to identify them, and the directories you choose should be dictated by the industry and location you are in.
It’s logical that a directory charge if the edit and review every submission, and have the expenses of keeping the site running. Although we are a big fan or organic natural ranking increases through great content and relationships, now and then paying for a directory listing does make sense.
What’s the difference between Local SEO and Organic SEO?
Before October 17th 2010 it was a clear distinction, but on that date (in Denver Search Engines Results
anyway) Google began merging search engine rankings between the Local Maps and the organic
results. Some search terms that the day before had returned the traditional 7 pack, now had a few
organic results listed above the Maps, and some had a mix of maps and organic.
We have been researching how your organic rankings relate to your maps rankings recently in our
attempt to get further understanding of what really determines Google places rankings. We know there
are lots of factors of course. You can read about them all over the Internet. The common factors being
claim your profile, complete your profile, get good citations.
Yet, we have found several highly ranked places listings that have no citations, partially completed
profiles, and don’t seem to represent the common understanding of why a listing would be highly
ranked. One doesn’t even have a web site.
So we are comparing the highest ranked Places accounts in average to very competitive categories.
We are using the sites SEOmoz page authority as the organic score. The theory is, if great on site SEO
scores are the major factor in Google places rankings. Before October 2010, this was not the case.
We will be publishing some of the results as we get a broader base, from multiple cities, and keyword
categories. In the early view there appears to be very little doubt that your SEOmoz score is a huge
indicator of your places rankings. We are looking into how your “categories” relate to your rankings as
well. (An early hint is, not as much as you think) SEO News
Lot’s of data points to look at, and the first run we are keeping it simple. SEOmoz page authority
compared to Places ranking and a few other tidbits.
There are some early surprises. Where we do see a consistent correlation between SEOmoz rank and
Places rankings, there are some glaring exceptions, and those are the situations we are most interested
in.
We will keep you posted on results as we understand them.
Big changes for Google place accounts this week. In a nut shell, Google will be allowing the general public to edit and make changes to your Google places account. They also will be updated your places information based on what they find on the Internet which may be information they think is more current.
Google will send out an email before they make any changes, but that assumes you have a verified listing, and you check your emails. I have already had several emails forwarded to me from clients from Google.
We can all see the good and bad in this. What concerns me the most is the black hat SEO’s or competitors who submit bad categories or just misleading information on a competitors places account. I have seen some SEO’s
submit bad reviews in Denver on competitors, so submitting incorrect information on purpose is not only a possibility, but likely!
What a business owner needs to do if their Google places account is important to them.
Make sure you claim your business listing with Google places
Make sure you read any emails from Google, and respond if the information they have is not correct!
Make sure you check your places listing weekly.
I recently had two businesses contact me because they both had bad reviews posted on Google. One had no idea who the person was, and the problem they described was not familiar to them. Could it have been a case of mistaken identity? Could it have been a real complaint? Maybe it was a competitor? With the current system (not likely to change) all you can do is look at the reviewer’s profile, and that rarely will help.
The only solution is to monitor your listed, report incorrect information, respond to Google if someone does try to change your places account, and get great reviews on Google by asking your current customers to review you on your places account. Provide each customer with your Google places url… !
We do provide on-line reputation monitoring, with a focus on Google places, major review sites, and Search engine results. With the most recent changes with Google places, it’s more important than ever to know what your on-line reputation is.
I have received three emails over the last month from companies that will “Get your site on the first page of Google and not accept any payment until you are on the first page”. They do require you submit the keyword you are trying to rank for of course, and after they research it, they will let you know if you qualify for the no pay until first page program.
Two things. One, and this is very important, being on the first page in the 4th through 10th position isn’t going to bring you much traffic. Maybe less than a percent of all the searches. Remember the first position gets 38% or so of all the clicks.
Second. If they need to qualify what keyword you want, they are only going to accept the easy keywords, which are easy to optimize because they get very little traffic and have very little competition.
So here is my offer: If any of our readers are tempted to proceed with such an offer, please send us the proposal and we will do the same thing for 50% less of whatever their price is. Guaranteed.
However, what will really get you where you want to be is our Custom SEO Programs:
As promise, here are the key tactics to make sure your local business is visible for local searches.
First, make sure your web site and business is listed in the major search engine local directories. A great resource for this is www.getlisted.org. This will allow your site to come up on the Google local maps, and the yahoo and Bing local directories for search terms that relate to your business.
Make sure to completely fill out your local directories. Pay careful attention to the categories you choose. Each directory offers different opportunities, so take your time and fill them out with all the information they request. This process should take about 90 minutes all together, and it’s the best 90 minutes you will spend on local search engine optimization.
Second, make sure your local address is prominently displayed on your home page, with your phone number. Add it to your contact page as well. Also, you may want to search on Google for your business to see if you have any old listings online with an old address or phone number. If so, do contact the site or directory and ask then to either changed it, or delete it. Search engines hate conflicting information. Only use an actually physical address. Google doesn’t accept P.O. boxes.
Third, make sure (as in all SEO), your title and description meta tags have your main keywords in them. Also add your keywords to your headline of your home page. Don’t over do this, make it natural. It’s important that the search engines understand what your site is about.
Now you have a good start! It’s time to get “votes” for your site with the search engines. Votes are when other sites link back to, or mention your business on their sites. As search engine optimization becomes more and more competitive (lets face it, more businesses are paying for it then ever) and there are only 10 or so sites listed on the first page of a search, and the top three get the vast majority of the traffic, in many cases you are going to need a lot of high quality votes.
The first place to look is with associations you belong to. The B.B.B. is a great link, and so are many chambers and associations. Check and see if your listing has your web site on it.
After that, add good local directories. Go to Google and search Your City Directories. You will find a ton, and many will have categories that fit your company well.
Plan on spending about 30 minutes a day linking for a few months, and maybe a lot more. Yes, that’s what it’s going to take.. I could write a book about link quality (the type of links that pay off) and how to research for them, but if you are doing your own SEO, this is a great start. If you want several excellent researches you can subscribe to www.seomoz.com , or SEObook.com
I do want to leave you with two additional thoughts. A great start for back linking is www.metasocialweb.com You can add your site, plus your blog, and all your social sites. It’s a powerhouse SEO, Social media tool. Yes it does cost money, but you may find that many valuable sites do, because they are human edited (A big plus) and they have to pay to keep the site up and running. We built Metasocialweb.com to help small business with Social media, and it turns out to be great for SEO too!
If you want a jump start on links every month you can subscribe to our Do It Your Self SEO package that provides the information on 20 quality links we have already researched. Or our starter SEO packages where we do the linking for you.
The most recent studies show that a web site ranked first for a keyword on a search engine will receive about 38% of all the clicks. The site in the third position gets about 8%. Many businesses are happy with rankings below the first or second position. If you are one of those, think of the revenue value of just moving up a few positions! You could increase your Internet sales 400% by going to the next level.
How to move up in the rankings.
Moving from fourth to second can be a much greater move than even moving from the tenth page to the first. Those top two positions are generally very competitive, and the site owners in many cases have an SEO firm working every month to keep those positions.
One of the most affordable ways to make that move is using our starter SEO plan if you are a local business. Or if you are in a hurry to triple your on line sales and revenues, a custom SEO assessment and program.
Subscribe to our Starter SEO package, even if your on the first page! We guarantee your rankings will improve. More Information here Starter SEO packages.
Just subscribe today to get started or call us at 303 500 3053 ext 1 for a free ranking assessment. We are A+ rated on the Better Business Bureau!
Transcript from a recent DIY Search Engine Optimization lecture by Professor Optimizer.
The presenter had just arrived from his SEO laboratory… The first question got the clearly mad scientist Rolling!
Audience participant: Professor, can you define SEO in a simply way we all can understand?
Professor: Well sir, there are really 3 main ingredients in SEO ( Holding up 4 fingers )
As I have outlined on the board…. the first being
1.) Relativity.
The more relatives who 1+ plus your site, the higher your site will rank. (Slaps knee)
No…no… Here’s the theory….
Your web sites ranking will in fact rank in different ways depending on the input of user’s of a search engine….
If , for instance your site is about dog food, (Starting to scribble on the board) and the user enters dog food, and your site says Dog Food and it’s url is dog food and it’s title is dog food, and its description is dog food and your copy has dog food in it , and your navigation pages have Dog Food in them, and your you tube account has dog food video’s and your pictures (know as graphics) are tagged dog food, and other sites “related ” to Dog food, link back to your site, and your are a well published writer with many blog’s about … Dog food, and your Face book business page says “dog food: and your twitter bio and tweets say dog food, and all of your social media profiles say DOG FOOD… and your official business name with the your secretary of states office is Dog Food Inc, and your BBB page … talks about dog food.
Well… Sir, what do you think Google and Bing will think your site is about?
Audience participant… ummm Dog food?
Professor, YES, YES! Dog food.
Participant. So, when a person doing a search enters Dog Food, your site will come up first.. Right?
Professor… Maybe, maybe not. Comme ceci, comme cela
it’s still relative… you see. But your probability of coming up number 1 2 or 3 (*Holding up 4 fingers) is far greater, than if your site was about dog food, but 50% of the signals I mentioned above say… K-9 Nutrition.
Participant… So I should not use k-9 nutrition in any of those many signals you spoke about?
Professor…. Maybe, Comme ceci, comme cela
In fact, you may want to use k-9 nutrient as it may be the course of least Resistance for your searchers to find you! Which is Point number three…, but first here is point two.
E equals mc2 or
“Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy-content?
Well Sir? Does it?
Participant: umm
Professor: Yes!
Your site is a big blob of digital mass. Unless something acts upon it, it will stay where it is. Just like you Sir, your site only moves when energy of some sort is activated.
Got it?????
Participant: Ummm.. So…what “energy” will we need to move my site up???
Professor: Exactly!
Participant: Exactly what?
Professor: In the world of SEO you need to have a special “view” of the Internet as a large interwoven universe of it’s own all connected through “strings” of energy. Or what you call “Links”. Every web page is it’s own existence, or world if you like, and it has it’s own amount of energy on that world. Every link it has on it to your site, or to other site or page, transfers a part of that pages energy to the new page. So, the more links going to your page, the more energy transferred and the more acceleration your page will have in an upward ranking direction.
If no energy acts to move your page, it will stay where it is. If enough energy is transferred, it will move, and a page in motion has a tendency to stay in motion… right?
Once your little page is moving, the search engines know what “worlds” to rate it highly in by all of the relative things we discussed in the beginning!
Do it yourself SEO use to be a lot easier before the Google Panda updates and all the new algorithm changes. Many of today’s better search engine optimization companies really learned through the Do it your self process.
The big difference between a few years ago and today is the complexity involved for a site owner, or web design firm in the SEO process. We do offer DIY SEO help, so feel free to check out our web optimizers club if this is your intent, or if you are a SEO looking for a little edge.
Here are the big basics for organic SEO. I will cover Local SEO in the next blog.
(Before we start… one point. You optimize a page, not your site. Chose the page you are going to work on. Generally the home page is good, but it can be any page on your site)
Just type in your service or product name, and watch the results. Spend some time playing with it. This is important. If you hit the mark here everything else in SEO is easier.
Once you know your keyword, the following three points are huge. And just taking a page that may be missing these areas, and changing two of them can make a big difference in rankings.
1.) Your sites Meta Title should have your keyword or keyword phrase as the FIRST words in the Title. And add any “like” words after that.
2.) Your sites Meta Description should have your keyword phrase as the first words in the description, and repeated if possible. No longer than 70 characters.
3.) Your web page URL should have the keyword phrase in the URL if possible. If you are starting a new site, get a domain with the keywords in it. If it’s to late, either skip this and understand you will need to have more back links than other sites with all of the above in the page, or optimize a new page on your site that you include the keyword in the URL. Example www.yoursitename.com/bagelshop ( If you are optimizing Bagel Shop)
Those are the big ones. I am assuming your page will have well written copy that uses your keyword phrase a few times, it might even be in the BOLD or in the first heading and paragraph on the page. That would just be natural.
If you don’t understand some of this, any web firm can help you, and it takes about, umm, 10 minutes for them to do the actual Meta work, and change a page name.
After that, you have to move on to back linking and some social media links. I will cover that in another blog. I do need to mention, that in DIY SEO and all SEO most Search Engine Optimization companies will agree, that the Back links (Links from other sites to your site) are by far the number one factor in your ranking. So why didn’t I put that above the 1,2 and 3.? Because, if you don’t get the Meta and URL stuff right, the back link work and promotion won’t do you a lot of good.
Feel free to email me questions, and do check out our web optimizer club if you want to do your own SEO. It can talk as little as 15 minutes a day with the right tools.
There is far more to Local SEO in for Google places than just the ranking of your web site. The reality is, even if your site is in the first or second position for three of four keywords, you will still end up in the 3rd or 4th position for other relevant keywords.
Take our Friends At Vivax Pro Painting. Their site is ranked in the first or second position for just about every search you can imagine related to house painting ______ < add a city around Denver. But for a few searches they fall to 4th or so.
They still will get a high percentage of the clicks for one reason They have 6 reviews and therefore have the “Stars” on the SER places listing. This will draw people to click. If they had 2 reviews, or none, they wouldn’t stand out, and would lose about 75% of the possible clicks to their site because they are in the 4th position. The first three listings will get about 85% of clicks in a all things being equal situation. But by providing the searches with something that clearly makes your listing stand out, you can pick up a larger share of clicks, and therefore customers.
LOCAL SEO’s who focus only on rankings are not doing the best job they can… and their clients may be losing out on revenue.
That’s way we provide a turn key system to clients to get their customers to go to and review their services on Google and other important sites. It’s not SEO, it’s PR and conversion tactics.
SEO is a tricky little devil these days. Ultimately the bottom line on any SEO program is how much new profitable business you have come from it.
If you are looking for reports about the effectiveness of your SEO programs we thought we would show you what we produce for clients. This is a partial quarterly report.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
M and E Painting. 3 month Report on Status of Web Site Visibility and SEO for www.mandepainting.com
Suggestions:
Have your web firm add the Google 1+ button on your site.
My One Call to work on specific opportunities identified on this report. Including SEO for “Painting Contractor in” Keyword, via on site suggestions, places account and anchor text on My One Call owned sites.
Run Large Scale Keyword report to determine additional opportunities
Check why PPC is high in Fort Collins and Greely
Add social media links in August. Add no follow links. Link profile is high in Follow links.
Current SEOmoz SEO ranking. PA 37 and Domain Authority 26 ( Seomoz is the internet’s most reliable SEO ranking service, that closely monitors and try’s to replicate Goggles Algorithms ) Add diversity to link profile to improve rankings overall.
Key word reports from Google: Based on a review of your site these are the main keywords consumers will use to find you. SEE PAGE BELOW
As you can see the main keyword is House Painting. The way Google works is if a consumer in Broomfield (or any decent size city) types in only House Painting they will get a list of the top local sites in the map section. MOVE TO PAGE BELOW
In the following example we set our browser for zip code 80021 (Broomfield) to determine your site does rank highly with or with out the “local intent” city in the search
Your site is Ranked Number two using this method.
Here is your site ranking using the local intent term in the search:
Your site is Ranked Number 1 in Maps and Number 1 Organically
Here are the same comparisons for Loveland, and Fort Collins:
Loveland with City
Loveland with browser set to zip
House Painting with Fort Collins
House painting with zip in browser (as if in Fort Collins, no city Intent)
As you can see when a consumer searches with out a “city” you are still in great positions. The national sites do show up above the map, but as we are seeking consumers looking for local painters your click rate for these searches should be similar to the local intent (city name ) searches.
The second highest searched term according to the Google keyword report is “Painting Contractors In “
Her are the rankings in your primary cities for that search.
Loveland:
Fort Collins: Opportunity to move you into the MAPS section SEE PAGE BELOW
Painting Contractor In Broomfield
Opportunity to move into Maps! Number 1 Organic
Your sites ranking is determined by two large buckets. The first is your on site optimization, which includes Meta tags, Copy, and navigation, and the second is off site optimization which is how many sites, social media, and mentions link to your site, or mention your company.
Current Back Links from Link Diagnosis.com. This report is also attached as an excel sheet with more information.
We have attached a PDF of this report to the email sent.
Google Web Master Summary:
Shows no HTML problems
Shows no Google plus clicks
Shows site is being crawled (29 pages a day average)
Impressions you have by Key word (how many times your site showed up in search results on Google for the keyword last 30 days.
SEE NEXT PAGE…This report generally gives you a good view of how Google see’s the keywords on your site and how Google displays your site for those terms. Google shows the following Domains linking to your
We checked your sites linking structure in Google web master and it appears good.
Google Analytics:
Your site traffic continues to improve
Your bounce rate is acceptable
Top Traffic sources since April 2010
Top Traffic sources Last 90 Days
Google Pay Per Click:
July: Cost is down a little over July.
Greely and Fort Collins are by far the highest clicked and cost.
Action: Check way Greely and Fort Collins cost is this high
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some of the images where removed, but you can see our point. SEO is about rankings, and those rankings resulting in customers.
