The Necessary Steps to Achieve Rankings Quickly

Starting a local SEO campaign could not be a more exciting, yet important time. Whether you are conducting a campaign for a client or going to take on the effort yourself, there can be an overwhelming number of steps and ‘hidden tips’. Read on, as all is revealed in this guide toward getting ranked quickly in the local pack and generating traffic.

Phase 1: Research and Prep

The very first phase in any successful local SEO campaign is to lock down the NAP (Name, Address, Phone) and other business details. NAP consistency is one of the most critical elements of ranking in local search results. View all the local ranking factors for 2014. Create a spreadsheet, ideally in Google Drive with a sheet for NAP Data. You can share with the business owner and in real time, they can view all the updates.

Name

Use the legal name of the business. For very small and local businesses, make sure they have gone through the steps to register Doing Business As Name (DBA). It’s not surprising to find many businesses that haven’t and some states don’t require it. Using the legal name in citations is important, as several directories will pull data from the DBA or legal name filed with the state.

Don’t add keywords to a business name unless it is the legal name of a business. Although, keywords in business names are one of the top local ranking factors. If you’re building a brand new business and have yet to invest in the brand, consider changing the legal company name or “Doing Business As” and add keywords. The only exception is for multi-location businesses, add south, north, or the city name to the company name to differentiate it from other locations in the same area.

The criteria for one of the most strategic and strict citation sites, Acxiom includes the following:

NOTE: You will need the following documentation to validate your business. We do not accept documents obtained or scanned from Internet sites or W-9 Forms. This documentation must be submitted with account information or your listing will be denied and you will have to reenter the information and resubmit.

*** BUSINESS NAME AND ADDRESS ON DOCUMENTATION MUST MATCH TO YOUR REGISTRATION REQUEST

1. Federal Tax License Letter *submit the letter that includes your ID#, name, address and/or phone number of business
2. State, County, or City Business License or Sales Tax License
3. Doing Business As License
4. Fictitious Name Registration

One informative blog post goes over the importance of limiting the length of your business name. That’s right, don’t create a name that generally is longer than 40 characters or you won’t be able to add it to many citation directories, including Acxiom. Abbreviating the name is not an option, as again consistency on every directory is crucial.

Address

Just as crucial is the address of the business. Always check with the USPS for the official address and proper formatting. While it’s been proven that small differences such as STE and #, which both represent suite don’t affect local rankings, larger discrepancies do. Be consistent, by adding the correct address to the spreadsheet you’ll be sure to copy it properly every time.

Phone

Always use a local phone number as the primary, add 1800 numbers or specific department numbers to additional fields available, but always use a local phone number that is truly a business phone. I had a client that told me her main business phone number, when I discovered later the number although local, was a cell phone. Always validate what your clients won’t tell you and check if it’s a business phone.

Other Business Information

In your NAP spreadsheet, also lock down the following (by getting approval on all details)

1. NAP (Name of Business, Address and Phone Number). Also add to the spreadsheet (website URL, social media URL’s, company email address with a domain name such as sa***@*********me.com, and 1800 numbers and other contact details. For a multi-location business, using a location specific URL has a bigger impact. It ensures the data between the multiple locations is unique and does affect rankings.

2. Categories. One of the most important areas of ranking locally is choosing accurate categories for a business. Max out all related categories, usually 5 for most citations. Think of different ways to call your service or work, and start board and go narrow. For example, a real estate brokerage might use the following categories: (Apartment Rental Agency, Real Estate Brokerage, Real Estate Brokers, Condominium Rental Agency, Real Estate Rental Agency, Apartment Finder & Rental Service). Category diversity is also important). You can use a tool to find new categories, I find that throughout a campaign, you’ll find new categories just by using different citation sites. Categories aren’t universal, but realize the more times you use a category in a citation, the more often you are to rank for that category term.

3. Approved Business Hours (Tip on 24/7 hour businesses. Google doesn’t enjoy displaying hours for a business as open 24 hours. A representative told me it can trigger a listing for further review, and even be removed or unverified. Unless a business has an office with a secretary at a desk, 24 hours a day, they prefer you specify normal office hours. Many citations on other sites allow for a checkbox on 24/7 and normal office hours. For Google, just add to the additional detail section)

4. Approved Payment Information

5. All languages spoken by employees

6. Year established. (This may be an area of contention at some businesses. I usually err on the side of the earlier, the better as customers do place trust in more established businesses, but don’t make up an earlier date. Some businesses may choose to take the year of a business they acquired. A business that has a history of opening and closing may also choose the first date they opened their doors.

7. Approved associations (Chambers of commerce, Inc500, local industry chapters)

8. Approved certifications (gather detail on all areas of employees, what certifications to employees have that can boost the credibility of the business?)

9. Short and long description. Write a unique paragraph for a short business description and multiple paragraphs for a long description. Include keywords in the copy, category keywords work well too… On Google + make sure to hyperlink to important areas on your website. For a local business with high competition, rewrite the description for each major citation. Otherwise the content is duplicated and isn’t as valuable.

10. Approved company logo and pictures.. For a service business, get logos of partners, vendors, company logo, the team, the office location. For product based businesses, photos become even more important and easier. Show your product in an engaging way, research has discovered local businesses with pictures get 60%  more clicks. Use descriptive and keyword rich file names on images and include alt text.

Phase 2: Cleanup & Build

After gathering the above information in Google Drive, it’s time to begin cleanup. This will be the most time consuming phase of your local SEO campaign. If you’re starting a campaign for a new business (you have zero citations or websites online that reference you or your client’s business location), you’re at a much better starting point. For everyone else, assume the worst. Don’t skim through the search for duplicates, incorrect data, missing information and more. You’re goal is to find and catalog all unique problems (ideally in a spreadsheet). The name, address and phone, any and all deviations, should be recorded. Later you’ll use this list to search for more problems.

Begin with asking the business owner for any and all old phone numbers and location addresses. You should by now have the legal company name as well as any company locations. Don’t use the citation sites for searches. Many are poorly designed and can’t compete with Google. Use Google to find problems in the following ways. For the sake of the example, let’s say my business has the following NAP and I’m looking for problems on yellowpages.com.Pete’s Bakery4321 50th Street#254Chicago, Il 01234325-333-5743

• search for “site: yellowpages.com 325-333-5743”

This will help find businesses that share the same phone number regardless of name or address. They may be misspellings of Pete’s Bakery, duplicates of the address or even a completely unrelated business. Either way, any business that shares your phone number that isn’t the same entity should be resolved. Reach out to the owners if still open, or remove the entry. Sometimes I’ve even claimed a business, only to change the phone number to 111-111-1111.

• search for “site: yellowpages.com Pete’s Bakery Chicago”

This will find problems with the address, duplicates and the phone number. Often it’s an old number, a tracking number or even a 1800 number that is active on a listing.

Go through the list below of the most important local citations and check all for problems and duplicates first. Write down all unique addresses and phone numbers that are related to your business, you’ll use this list to check on all citation directories. Any new addresses, names or phone numbers you find, deserve a search on all existing directories.

You may find that none of the listings closely match the business. As you work through the problems, generally claim one of the listings and update it fully, remove all other duplicates. Although it is far easier to make an update with the original email and password, very rarely will clients have this information. Often speaking on the phone with support achieves a faster turnaround than an email. Review this handy guide for how to delete duplicates on popular directories. Add new listings that aren’t featured on the site, but triple check that they aren’t listed under the wrong name, phone number or address.

When you claim citations, use a generic or branded company Gmail account. It’s ideal to have this email not tied to anyone’s personal account. You will want ongoing access as many citations require email verification before making changes.

Most Important Local Citation Directories

Citation Directory	Type	How to Claim
Google +	Search Engine	Google Places, requires postcard verification
Yahoo	Search Engine	Update the data aggregators, over time Yahoo will update. Or pay for an update.
Bing	Search Engine	Requires email confirmation, postcard or contact support
InfoUSA/Express Update	Data Aggregator	Requires phone verification
Neustar/Localeze	Data Aggregator	Create an account, claim and update
Acxiom	Data Aggregator	Requires phone and document verification
Factual	Data Aggregator	Contact support
Yellow Pages	Review Site	Requires phone verification
Yelp	Review Site	Difficult process to remove and update without login, contact support
Angie’s List	Review Site	Contact support
Superpages	Review Site	Contact support for listings already claimed
HotFrog	Directory Site	Contact support
Manta	Directory Site	Call support
CitySearch	Review Site	Requires phone verification
Best of the Web	Directory Site	Paid
Foursquare	Social Media	Requires voicemail verification
Facebook	Social Media	Contact support
LinkedIn	Social Media	Contact support
Twitter	Social Media	Contact support
Mojopages	Directory Site	Contact support
YellowBook 360 (hibu)	Directory Site	Call support
Merchant Circle	Review Site	Contact support
Yellowbot	Review Site	Requires phone verification
BBB.org	Complaint Site	Requires payment
dexknows	Review Site	Owns Superpages, but process is still separate. Must call support.
Dunn & Bradstreet	Data Aggregator	Requires business owner verification
ibegin	Directory Site	Requires phone verification

Phase 3: Growth and Ranking

After fixing all issues on the most popular directory sites, it’s time to expand to any site that lists the business either correctly or incorrectly. Claim and update and use the techniques listed above to find all mentions of the business. Adding to Google Drive creates an easy way for a business to check in real time and see all the new citations and progress made.

Next, leverage software and there are many options available. I’ve used Whitespark and Brightlocal, but realize there are other solutions. Most do the same or similar functions. They track (although with some inaccuracies) all the citation directories where a business is located with opportunities to increase and add the business to new directories. They also help compare and track over time your competitors ranking in local search with your own business. There are some steps to use this software effectively:

1. Identify the terms that trigger the local pack for your geographic area. As you search for keywords you’ll often find other sites ranking that allow for a citation. Also note which terms are most aligned with your business and the search volume.

2. When looking at a local pack, there are two areas that can influence click through rate. One is position or where a business appears in the local pack. A higher position is better, although a business with reviews can outstrip traffic of higher results. Track using software the position of each keyword. 8th is just shy of appearing in the local pack, 7 is at the end for most terms.

3. Look for new opportunities routinely, especially in regards to competition. Where are they listed and perform and problems in search. Occasionally a data aggregator can receive the wrong information or create duplicate listings which require removal. Monitor and continue to optimize the growth of citations and the increase in rankings.

Review Strategy

With corrected and consistent citations and eventually, rankings, put a review strategy in place to increase CTR. Identify the top sites to receive a review, most of the time it should include Google +, Yelp and an industry specific site. Use software such as customer lobby, which can make reviews easier. Or simply put a process in place that asks every customer to review your business. This could be through stickers and visual reminders at your retail location, a conversation you have in person after completion of a service, or an automated email for an online business.

You can generate several quick reviews by simply sending an email to your marketing database. But for true success, put in place a process and realize it’s important!

Corey Barnett is a Globe Runner Online Marketing Specialist. Follow him on Google Plus. Corey also frequently writes on his blog – cleverlyengaged.com/blog

Globe Runner’s client roster has one new addition: Digital retail site NICMAXX Online.

NICMAXX Online conducts e-commerce for NICMAXX, an electronic cigarette brand that has grown in popularity in key consumer markets such as New York, Las Vegas and Florida. Developed over eight years by smokers for smokers, its proprietary blend of ingredients closely replicates the sensory experience generated by traditional cigarettes.

Based in Addison, Texas, NICMAXX Online comprises the retail site https://www.nicmaxxonline.com/, social media accounts for Twitter (@NicMaxxStore), Facebook (@nicmaxxonline)) and other digital assets.

Apart from US customers, NICMAXX Online caters to overseas customers who may not have access to the product. Some countries still forbid the sale of e-cigarettes but do allow for purchase and personal consumption.

In a recent Wall Street Journal story, Wells Fargo valued the e-vapor market at $2.2 billion. NICMAXX Online is seeing strong growth in ecommerce with revenue tripling year-over-year.

“It’s always exciting to work on a challenger brand making ripples in a relatively new category,” said Globe Runner CEO Eric McGehearty. “The opportunities to build NICMAXX Online into a strong brand are tremendous.”

Globe Runner was started in 2008 by McGehearty in Lewisville, Texas. In addition to its core business of search engine optimization (SEO), the agency also offers online advertising, content marketing, branding and social media services.

A while back, Google gave website owners an advanced link tool called the Disavow Links Tool. It allows us to tell the search engine which links to ignore when they calculate the links to our website. Bing.com has a similar tool, as well, and was actually the first to make the tool available to website owners.

With the Disavow Tool, you simply come up with a list of URLs or domain names that you don’t like and put them in a text file called a “disavow file” and upload that file to Google (and Bing). When the search engine crawls the links again and recalculates the links to your site for search engine ranking purposes, they are supposed to disavow those links (not count them or ignore them). From my experience, I’ve seen a disavow file really help in cases where certain links were super low-quality or “toxic” links. About 5 days after submitting a disavow file, I’ve seen traffic start to go back up. Sometimes it takes a lot longer.

But here is where I’m surprised. When you upload a disavow file and Google accepts that file, they know that you’ve disavowed certain links or certain domain names (all links from that domain name). Why does Google still shows those links in the “links to your site” section of Google Webmaster Tools? Google still shows those links in your list, as if those links still exist–and they do. But why would Google still show them? You’ve disavowed them.

Apparently the disavow file data is not taken into account when they generate the “links to your site” list in Google Webmaster Tools. If Google removed those links from the list (the links that you’ve disavowed) then we would know that Google is taking the disavow file into account when calculating links to the site. That would be very helpful for website owners to know.

Let’s look at a specific example. In January 2014, I disavowed low quality links from the domain name “articlesnatch.com”, which a previous SEO firm created (they submitted hundreds of articles to that site in particular). Now, I personally feel that those are low quality links, just there for “SEO value” and therefore should be disavowed. But 6 months later, after I disavowed all links from that domain name, Google Webmaster Tools still shows links from that website:

In fact, looking at this particular list of links to this site, I disavowed links to socialbookmarkssite.com, articlesnatch.com, basearticles.com, and amazines.com all back in January 2014, over six months ago. Yet they still appear in Google Webmaster Tools as links to the site. These links were disavowed because the site owners refused to remove the links or we were unsuccessful in getting those links removed. This was part of a reconsideration request because the site had received a manual action for it’s links. The manual action was revoked after we disavowed these links and removed other links to the site.

It would be really helpful if Google, in Google Webmaster Tools, were to remove those links from the list of “links to our site”. I understand it’s a random list of links, but the least they could do is remove the links we’ve disavowed. That would tell us that they’re taking our disavow file into account when they calculate the links to the site. Or, at least mark the links somehow so that we know that they’ve been disavowed. How hard is that to do?

Bill Hartzer is Globe Runner’s Senior SEO Strategist. Connect with him on Google+ or on Twitter as Bhartzer.