With Local SEO, Patience Is A Virtue

I was recently asked to answer a question on Quora about local SEO.  The question specifically was Are There Any Apps of Extensions That Can Assist With Doing Local SEO for my Website.

At first glance, my mind started to run through all of the apps and tools I use on a daily basis for the local SEO work we do for clients.  But then my mind wandered a bit deeper with the question and I started looking back over the history of our local SEO success with clients.

And the one word that kept coming back to me was PATIENCE!

I’m going to share my response to that on Quora below because I think it’s relevant for our readers here at Bipper Media.

Here’s my response to the local SEO question that I was asked to answer:

First, let me say that “patience” is the #1 virtue with local SEO. If you aren’t ranking well in Google local, or your business does not have a substantial brand authority behind it, you have to go into knowing that you will not rise to #1 / letter A overnight. For new clients with virtually no brand authority, the process can take upwards of 6 months to a year to start gaining traction and rise to the top.

With that said, my favorite local SEO app is Moz Local.

They distribute your local business information (NAP / citation data) into the four major data distributors which are Localeze, Acxiom, InfoGroup, and Factual. Plus, you gain entrance into Apple Maps through Localeze, Acxiom, and Factual. Here’s a screenshot of the major distribution points:

Finally, the tool that helps encourage me along the way is their progression data. This shows you what percentage your listings are at within each distribution point.

Here’s a screenshot from one of our clients:

And as a bit of a background, and relative to what I mentioned with needing patience, this client struggled early on with their rankings – actually for about the first 18 months or so.

But as their distribution points matured, they have recently skyrocketed to the top of the category and are now the #1 ranked business for their most profitable category level keyword phrase.

And the increase in traffic and exposure has contributed to building their build and domain authority, which has also shot them to the #1 organic ranking in Google.

Moz Local is really my tool of choice as far as apps go to assist me in local SEO.

But there are several other steps and techniques that must be implemented effectively along the way such as:

• highly structured website and internal pages
• Schema language integration for your NAP data on your website
• Backlinks and distribution to your Google Maps listing
• Including your category in the title of your Google My Business page
• and several others.

I share a lot of tips, tools, and tactics on my blog and you can read one such article here called 2016 Local SEO Power Tips to Dominate Google Local Search.

I hope that helps, and let me know if you have any other questions with local SEO… I would be more than happy to address them!

Cheers,

Bobby