How to optimize for a business in a town that nobody is searching for
-
This is the first time I have run into this problem, but hopefully someone can answer this. If a business is located in lets say in South Londonery, but everyone is searching for Londery what is the best way to tackle this. I should also add that both have different zip codes but as far as search there is no distinction as they are considered the same, and South Londonery is never used. So while it would be easy to rank high for South Londonery, it's pretty much useless.
-
Dear Tamara,
Thank you so much for your suggestions, I really appreciate your time. I think the band-aid for now will be paid.
Cheers
Shizzle
-
Dear Miriam,
Thank you its a brick and mortar store, and its just going to take a lot more work than I had bargained for, but I really appreciate you taking the time to get back to me. You were very generous with your suggestions, and I am much obliged.
Cheers
-
Hi Shizzlemynizzle,
If the business in question is unable to move to Londonderry to be in the heart of things, then it's important to educate the owner as to how local SEO works. Here are the points I share with my own clients who fit the scenario you are describing.
-
NAP (name, address, phone number) are the 3 key factors upon which all of local hangs in the eyes of Google. Google will almost always see the business as most relevant to its area of location rather than neighboring locations. The business will have to be honest in using its legit address and phone number on its Place Page, in its directory listings and other citations and as the main point of contact on its website.
-
Once these basic steps of local optimization have been attended to, the business will be able to make appropriate efforts to try to gain secondary organic rankings for its work in Londonderry. You don't mention in your original post whether your client is a brick-and-mortar shop (restaurant, lawyer, boutique) or a go-to-client business (chimney sweep, landscaper, carpet cleaner). If the former, then the business owner will need to become involved in some way in the area of his choice so that he has something to write about in relationship to that geographic locale. For example, if the business owner is a doctor, perhaps he gives lectures or clinics in Londonderry? Or, if a restaurant owner, perhaps he sponsors a sports team or attends community events or offers catering in Londonderry? One has to be creative to find a legitimate subject to write about to showcase his involvement in that city.
If the latter, the client simply needs to write lots of copy about the services he renders for clients at their homes or places of business, be these window washing, dog walking or what have you.
Both copywriting and targeted linkbuilding can assist the client in developing an organic presence for cities where he isn't physically located.
- Finally, the competitiveness of the client's industry and locale play into all of this. I am not really familiar with the business scene or population of Londonderry. Here in the US, however, let's say a bakery in rural Iowa comes to me as a client. Let's say they are the only bakery serving 3 different small towns. In this case, a locally optimized website and good local search marketing will often enable the client to obtain high local rankings for all three towns, simply because the options are so limited. So, if your client is in a scenario of low competition within all of Londonderry, then he may be able to achieve true local rankings as well as secondary organic ones. It all depends on what he does and what the local competition is like.
Hope this helps!
-
-
I would leverage local optimization the same way I would if the business were in an adjacent, larger metro area. Meaning - list in and enhance / optimize the company's listings in the usual local listings channels - maps, local directories, services / products directories, etc. Many if not almost all "local" directories will also provide nearby community search results, or give users the options of extending a search to say, a certain no. of miles / km's beyond a certain zip or postal code. These extended searches will generally pick up a business listing from a nearby community if it's relevant to the search. We have one client whose business address is in a very small, non-searched for locale, yet they consistently show up (via various local listings) in searches based in a nearby large metro area. As optimize your listings and content, you might also want to refer to the company's location as in the "South Londery area" vs. or in addition to simply being in "Londery."
If you're supplementing organic search with paid, you can always use both town names where applicable in paid keyphrases, and expand your geo-targeting to include the larger community area.
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
-
Two Distinct Businesses, same address?
I have a client who shares a location with another business. That is, they are both distinct businesses with unique names and phone numbers but they both share space in their suite – i.e. half the desks in the space go to the one business, the other half belong to my client. Can I set them up with Google My Business with this shared address and suite number? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | EdmundMansfield0 -
Webmaster tools search analytics - can you get current position (not average ) to show with out having to click through
We are working using Webmaster tools position, then pages. Looking at the average position to improve our page rankings. A lot of our pages are already moving up quite well, so the average is not reflecting the current position Is there a way we can see the current page rank rather that an average, with out having to click through each search, (position, then pages etc.) it is quite time consuming.
Image & Video Optimization | | CostumeD0 -
Local seo strategy for local gardening business ideas?
Hi all, I am just setting up a local organic garden maintenance business in my home town. I have set up the website, got social media accounts active (FB, Twitter and G+), set up google local listing (currently 5th in the local maps thingy), I have done loads of citations (many more than my competitors, but not a ridiculous amount), I've got 4 customer reviews on google so far, checked my DA against my competitors (mine 1, my comps 8-9), checked my comps links (less than 10) and been writing a blog on my website every couple of days. I realise the one thing I have against me is that my domain is just less than a month old. How long until google builds a bit of trust in it to see it come up in the serps? Also, I would love some ideas of what else I can be doing in the mean time. The idea here is to get the site rocking on all cylinders before the gardening season starts again in March. Do-able?
Image & Video Optimization | | HappyOx0 -
YouTube Filtering Business Videos as Inappropriate Making them Unavailable When Safety Mode Enabled
My client is a public banking software company and recently many of their videos are unavailable to those browsers with "Safety Mode" turned on. What elements within these innocuous videos could be triggering the safety filter? Is there anything we can do about it? I've already reviewed titles/descriptions and reviewed the transcripts for words like 'sex" but I can't find anything that could be inappropriate. Is there any way around this? Is there a process for having this status changed? Thank you
Image & Video Optimization | | RosemaryB0 -
Google Places for Business - multiple accommodation listings
Hi there I have a client who runs a holiday rental accommodation business in Australia. The business model is: a single brand (+ website) with multiple holiday homes (each with their own physical address). So, I have two questions: 1 - She currently has her Google Places for Business configured where there is one 'brand' Places account with an individual listing for each holiday home. How is it best to link the Google Places account to a (yet to be created) Google+ profile? 2 - Google's quality guidelines are a little grey around 'rental accommodation'. She does not run a real estate company but the properties are technically being rented which I fear contravenes Google's quality guidelines for Google Places. Does anybody experience in this area (the competition is doing it left, right and centre). Thanks in advance! Laurie
Image & Video Optimization | | turnbullholdingsltd1 -
Google Images in Normal Search
If you search for the term, "Crappie". Listed 4th is a row of images. These kinds of images always seem to grab my attention above the actual search results-- or at least they do for a moment. These images seem to be in order of google images rankings. I may try to take a swing at ranking for these images. Is there anything else I should know before I start? I can't seem to find any guidance on the topic. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | terran0 -
My Google Places get mixed with another similar business
I'm having this issue with the keyword "miami printing" raking local for Miami, FL. My website is miamiprintingfl.com and part of my listing, photo, some reviews and etc, belongs to another listing miami-printing.net that last domain is not working at all. Is there anyway to solve this problem? Thank you Here my listing link: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&ix=seb&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1600&bih=799&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=miami+printing&fb=1&gl=us&hq=printing&hnear=0x88d9b0a20ec8c111:0xff96f271ddad4f65,Miami,+FL&cid=13803935199736027265&ei=mxFdT7LKJar50gGPk8WICg&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=placepage-link&resnum=1&ved=0CI8BEOIJMAA And the other website that google its getting my listing mixed: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&ix=seb&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1600&bih=799&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=miami+printing&fb=1&gl=us&hq=printing&hnear=0x88d9b0a20ec8c111:0xff96f271ddad4f65,Miami,+FL&cid=16945901725821376380&ei=mxFdT7LKJar50gGPk8WICg&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=placepage-link&resnum=3&ved=0CJ4BEOIJMAI
Image & Video Optimization | | jpgprinting0 -
Maximising Local Search
Hi, I work for a weather company. I have recently begun to define a keyword strategy to target specific keyphrase segments with the objective to maximise webpage visibility and increase CTR. One growing keyphrase segment is "location weather" based searches (e.g. "London Weather", "Manchester Weather"). I am keen to understand how I can maximise our presence for location weather searches within the SERPs. This seems to be a common trends seeing as Google announced that over 20% of all searches contain a relevance to locality. I have been trying to understand if there is a way to maximise our location based weather pages, perhaps using the Google Local search tactic and if there are any recommendations you could suggest? ISSUE: In order to maximise your presence through local search you need a fixed address, something our site does not offer, however it does offer bespoke landing pages for a specific weather forecast based on locality (city, town etc) Essentially, are there any recommendations you can provide a website that offers specific location based pages (without a fixed address) to maximise our location weather based search rankings within the SERPs? Many thanks Simon
Image & Video Optimization | | simonsw1