Local SEO Tactics and Digital Marketing Strategies

What are local citations? A citation is essentially a listing of your business, and it's key information, on another website. Think of Yelp, Mapquest, and similar websites. Your business is listed, usually with your name, address, phone number, website link, and basic business information. Citations are a powerful way to broaden your reach and build authority for your business. In this episode we'll talk about what they are, how to build more of them, 3rd party local citation services you can use, and best practices for maintaining them moving forward. What You'll Learn Citations are listings of your business on another website Google My Business is the most powerful citation for your business More citations can broaden your business authority and reach It is important to keep your business information consistent across all citation listings Search for competitors and see what citations they are using There are local citation services to help you find, clean, and build citations if you need help Keep a record of your citations and and the login details to modify them later as needed Update your citations every 6 to 12 months or as key business information changes View the show notes, resource links, episode transcript, and watch the video version at www.localseotactics.com

In this episode we're going to talk about some good practices to optimize your "thank you" page, or pages, for your website. What we're talking about is the page that a prospect or customer will land on, after the fill out a contact form on your website. You can optimize and leverage this page on your site to help engage further with customers, promote your brand, and direct them to new areas you want to promote. Plus, getting this setup will also help you with measuring "goals" within Google Analytics - which we will cover in an upcoming episode, so stay tuned for that! What You'll Learn What a thank you page is, and why it's an important feature of your website How to promote products and services to a captive audience How to leverage your thank you page to improve your sales and upselling process Setting up multiple thank you pages and why this is a good idea How thank you pages help for tracking goals in Google Analytics View the show notes, resource links, episode transcript, and watch the video version at https://www.localseotactics.com/do-not-forget-to-optimize-the-thank-you-pages-on-your-website/

Back after the coronavirus summer, we're here with a new episode of Local SEO Tactics. This week we answer a call in question from Cole, about the effectiveness of getting backlinks from blog posts. This is a tactic that worked years ago, but is not really effective anymore. We'll talk about why, and also cover some good best practices for getting real backlinks, that work, for your website! What You'll Learn Sometimes you can link back to your website from a blog post or website article This was an effective SEO tactic years ago Most links are now tagged as nofollow, so they do not provide any backlink benefit You can still drive traffic by linking to your site from a blog The best tactic is to get good local, niche relevant, or high authority backlinks View the show notes, resource links, episode transcript, and watch the video version at https://www.localseotactics.com/will-linking-back-to-my-website-from-blog-posts-provide-any-seo-benefit-to-my-site/

Okay, so we all know (by now) that getting reviews for your business is very important. Google just improved the process, and value in our opinion, by allowing photos to be uploaded with reviews on your Google My Business listing. This is a great new option and can have a positive impact on your listing visibility and ranking in the map pack. In this episode we discuss the importance of this new feature, and how you can leverage it to maximize the benefits for your GMB and your business! What You'll Learn You can now have photos submitted by users when they leave you a Google My Business review Photos that are uploaded with reviews are a great double dip, to get a review and a photo at the same time Google can tell what is a stock photo and what is original Getting these original photos uploaded by users is a great engagement signal for your Google My Business listing Make sure you have a plan to ask customers for a review, to get more reviews Add a script or process to ask for photos to be included in the review by your customers View the show notes, resource links, episode transcript, and watch the video version at https://www.localseotactics.com/you-can-now-upload-photos-when-leaving-a-review-on-google-my-business-listings/

A few episodes back we talked about a strategy for creating content silos and how to link those pages together, and also how to link them to your primary or "money" page. Local SEO Tactics listener Matt asked a question about why this is a tactic, and why it is better to link from a silo page than to a silo page. In this episode, we answer his question and expand on the topic of silo pages. When it makes sense to link from an inner silo page out to your money page When it makes sense to link from your money page out to an inner page You need to understand the intent of your inner silo pages if they are sales pages or just content pages Be specific and intentional on how you are linking your pages together and the road map you are creating Inner silo pages are generally created for Google, to help them understand your scope of content The inner links you create for your website help show Google your major content areas and what is important

If you're doing SEO, then you're also using Google in ways that the average Google user is not. You're performing research, market analysis, and looking for content ideas, among other things. In this episode we're going to cover the topic of "search operators", to help you level up your Google search game! We'll touch on some of the more powerful and hand search operators, and hopefully turn you on to some new ways to use Google to improve your SEO and knowledge. What You'll Learn Use search operators to refine and manipulate the type of search results you are looking for There are dozens of individual search operator functions that you can use Simply type the search operators into Google, incorporating them into your Google search You can restrict search results to a single domain You can restrict search results to specific keywords or topics Use search operators for precise market research and competitor analysis

In this episode, we interview Scott Hudgins of Core ID Services and Michael Takla of HackNotice about cybersecurity and corporate breaches. A surprising amount of information can be purchased, shared, or just plain found on the so-called "dark web". Bad actors can gain access to this information and compromise your company assets, including your website. Scott and Michael are here to talk about CIA, a new service by Core ID Services, that helps companies to be proactive in the fight against cybersecurity, as well as share some simple and effective best practices that we can all improve upon! BONUS - Core ID Services is giving away free 30 day trials to all Local SEO Tactics listeners! What You'll Learn Scott Hudgins with Core ID Services and Michael Takla of HackNotice discuss dark web threats Core ID Services provides identity theft protection and cybersecurity services for businesses and individuals Most corporate cybersecurity issues arise from third party vulnerabilities and breaches Over 70% of breaches originate from credentials stolen from a third party Employees that use corporate email addresses for personal account logins can be exposed Being lazy and reusing credentials on multiple services can lead to breaches Most security hacks are lazy, looking for the easy victim, and are not very sophisticated Good security starts with basic personal best practices, like using a password manager app If you know or think any of your account credentials are compromised, you should absolutely change your password Core ID Services can proactively find your information on the dark web, so you can take fast action before you are compromised

Getting back into some direct SEO tactics on this episode, we'll dive into the topic of content silos and using the silo architecture to help you with some SEO gains. Leveraging this strategy can help to build relevancy for your topics, products, and services. We'll break down the basic concept of the content silo so you can implement it on your own website! A content silo technique can potentially help you rank higher for specific search terms and topics Create a strong landing page that you want to rank in Google Develop supporting pages that dive deeper into to topic of your landing page Do not link your landing page to the supporting pages The supporting pages should link to themselves, and to the landing page Each supporting page should be in-depth and specific on one topic that is related to the landing page intent Supporting pages in the silo are not intended to be linked in your main menu or navigational structure All actions on your supporting pages should be pushing users to your landing page

This is a special mini-episode, to let you know about new coronavirus related attributes that are available in Google My Business. Not many companies are taking advantage of this right now, so it is important to take the time to investigate this if it applies to your business! This can help your visibility, your clicks and conversions, and have a positive impact on your GMB SEO. Check out the show page for a link to the YouTube video, so you can see the screen-cast with examples and guides on how to do this in your GMB listing. Google has released some new Google My Business attributes related to the Coronavirus pandemic You can add attributes such as curbside pickup, take out, delivery, and in-store shopping Not many businesses are taking advantage of this attribute right now You may have to change your primary business category if you are not seeing the attributes Discover what categories your competitors are using if they trigger attributes but you are not

How-To videos are hot right now! With everyone completing their honey-do list at home, learning new hobbies, or just trying to be productive, there has been a surge in views for educational and How-To videos. Take advantage of this and leverage How-To videos on your website! There are many types of How To videos, and we go through some examples in this episode. Once you have the video, you can leverage it for all sorts of benefits, including transcribing the text, embedding the video into your website, extracting the audio, saving screenshots, and much more! Enjoy! Use How-To videos on your website to get SEO benefits How-to videos are extremely popular right now There are many types of How-To videos you can produce You can easily create videos, post them to YouTube, and embed them in your web pages Leverage your videos A How-To video does not have to be a DIY video or a tutorial video How To make things or build things are easy videos that you can make if relevant to your business You can make How To videos that guide customers on how to hire services like what you provide Make educational How-To videos to help customers know when to replace or repair items you provide