Calculated Marketing Services

03/09/2022

14 Essential Local SEO & Listing Management Tools

A strong local search presence is key to driving more customers to your store. These local SEO tools can put you ahead of the competition.

03/07/2022

What an H1 Tag on Your Webpage Means Today for SEO

Find out how important an H1 tag is for SEO today. Here's what headers on pages mean and how they are viewed by search engines.

Simply stated, H1 header tags are important.

But it isn’t just making sure we use H1s on webpages or even how we use them.

It’s actually understanding what an H1 is (in modern definition) and how it fits into a page’s organization.

More importantly, it’s knowing how an H1 – and other header tags (H2, H3, H4, etc.) – fit into the overall user experience of that page and the website as a whole.

Technically, that main header tag doesn’t even have to be an H1.

But, whether it is an H1 or another header tag, that main header is incredibly significant.

Let me explain.

H1s Aren’t What They Used to Be

H1s used to be systematic and standardized; but no longer, as search is smarter than ever before and getting smarter every day.

The idea of using an H1 as a main category – a headline, if you will – has not changed.

But the role of that header is built more around the overall user experience of the page – and how it helps to improve that experience – than the keyword variations included in it and the order in which an H1 shows up in the header hierarchy.

So, that main headline doesn’t have to be an H1, but the fundamentals behind it acting as an H1 remain.

The main header of a website, which could easily be an H1, should be an overarching, short summary of the content on the page.

And the rest of the page’s content should comfortably exist below it on the page, likely in the form of subheaders.

To further understand the importance of an H1 – and how to craft perfect ones for your content – it helps to understand where H1s came from and how they evolved.

Because now, their purpose is important, but their formality is unrestricted with rules or prerequisites.

What H1s Used to Be

There used to be some pretty straightforward requirements for H1s in regard to SEO.

• Include the most important keyword(s).

• Don’t use more (or less) than one H1 per page.

• Make sure the H1 is the first and largest text on a page.

But Google has made it clear these are no longer the rules of the land.

Websites have evolved, as has the way they are presented, the way they are crawled (by search engines), and the way they are consumed (by humans).

What H1s Are Now

Having multiple H1s isn’t an issue.

It’s actually a fairly common trend on the web, especially with HTML5, according to Google’s John Mueller in the video linked above.

And how many H1s there are or where they line up on the page shouldn’t be overthought if the heading structure of a certain page is the best, most organized way to present the content on that page.

“Your site is going to rank perfectly with no H1 tags or with five H1 tags,” Mueller said in late 2019.

We should always favor the user experience over keyword density or even the hierarchy of headers.

(Since some CMSs use styling that may make other headers more prominent than the H1 for whatever design reason.)

And, since having multiple H1s doesn’t negatively affect a page’s organic visibility, nor does an H1’s lack of high-value keywords (if it makes the most sense and still summarizes the content on the page), crafting headers on a page should be done without too much focus on those elements being an H1 over an H2 or vice versa.

It’s just about making sure the content is organized in a practical and sensible manner.

Mueller cited three ways Google’s system works to understand page headers and how they support a page.

They include a page with:

• One H1 heading.

• Multiple H1 headings.

• Styled pieces of text (without semantic HTML).

This obviously illustrates a lot of freedom when it comes to page style and organization, as well as header tags in general.

And plenty of sites are being rewarded that use all three of the above-mentioned layouts.

Header tags, including H1s, are also useful for accessibility.

Especially for visually impaired site visitors that don’t have the ability to actually look at the website and its design.

Software that aids users with disabilities to consume websites will read headers in the order it sees them.

Thus, H1s are a large part of a website communicating with those users, but multiple H1s won’t affect that page’s effectiveness, even for the visually impaired.

Remember, it’s about the user experience.

10 times out of 10, having that semantic structure that indicates a clear organization of the content on the page is going to work in that webpage’s favor in terms of crawlability, digestibility, and ultimately, visibility.

Getting the Most from H1s & Header Tags

While it’s been said that H1s don’t directly affect organic rankings (i.e., keyword inclusion, multiple tags, etc.), it’d be impossible not to consider them to be a significant part of each webpage’s overall optimization and, therefore, presentation.

If headers can help people understand the content on the page in an easier way, it’s likely they can help search engines in a similar manner.

And they do.

Consider your main header, which may very well be an H1, to be an accurate summary of the page and its content.

All other topics and categories on that page would likely line up below that main header as a subhead, typically going more in-depth about a topic within that main header.

Think of the semantic structure of a page in a simple way:

• Main header (could be an H1).

○ Subhead 1 (could be an H2).

○ Subhead 2 (could be another H2).

■ Secondary subhead 1 (could be an H3).

■ Secondary subhead 2 (could be an H3).

○ Subhead 3 (could be another H2).

■ Secondary subhead 1 (could be an H3).

■ Secondary subhead 2 (could be an H3).

■ Secondary subhead 3 (could be an H3).

○ Subhead 4 (could be another H2).

○ Subhead 5 (could be another H2).

Some content won’t have many or any subheads.

Some will have multiple.

Again, it’s about the content and the best way to present it to the audience.

Headers Are More Important Than H1s

Headers can be H1s, but they don’t have to be.

The main heading of a page can be an H1, but it doesn’t have to be.

The main heading of a page should be an overarching topic/summary of the page, and thus likely will also include target keywords.

But it’s not for a page’s SEO; it’s for the website visitor and the experience they have on the website.

Remember: it’s not about SEO.

It’s about users.

Make the message clear and each page layout simple.

03/04/2022

6 Types Of Duplicate Content In Local SEO: Do They Help Or Hurt?

Learn about the various content types in local SEO and whether it's worth your time and resources to focus on unique vs. duplicate content.

03/02/2022

How To Migrate A WordPress Site From One Host To Another

Migrating a WordPress site from one hosting provider to another can be stressful! Use this step-by-step guide to make it seamless.

02/28/2022

7 Ways SEO & PPC Can Help Each Other

Paid and organic search both rely on search engine results pages to attract clicks and traffic to our websites.

Often we target the same audiences with both channels and within them find ways to align them.

In some organizations, PPC and SEO are done by the same person or people.

In others, though, there are teams that are siloed and separate from each other.

Regardless of how our paid and organic search teams or efforts are structured, we can benefit from sharing specific data, tactics, and approaches across the channels and disciplines.

By sharing, we can save efforts, costs, and be smarter in how we optimize and manage campaigns.

Here are seven specific ways that paid and organic search and work together for mutual benefit.

1. Keyword Research

This is probably the most obvious or first way to collaborate that we would all think of.

Both paid and organic search:

• Rely on keywords.
• Need initial and ongoing research and insights to determine the keywords and topics that match up well with what our target audiences are searching to find our content.

While we may use different tools to get our keyword research data, there’s no reason to keep sets of data for SEO and PPC separate.

Multiple tools and multiple mindsets in the research process can yield the uncovering of more ideas and terms that might not be thought of or discovered by different tools.

By sharing data, and potentially going further in sharing research tasks along the way, we can share insights like:

• Long-tail terms.

•Topical groupings for terms.

• Ideas that we may not have thought about in a single channel or siloed mindset.

2. PPC Ad Copy & SEO Titles & Meta Descriptions

Paid search text ads are formatted very similarly to organic search results in SERPs.

This means that we can look at the best performing ad copy for PPC ads in terms of click-through rate and quality score and relate it to SEO titles and meta descriptions.

The reverse is also true as we can use the SEO titles and meta descriptions with the highest click-through rates to guide keyword use and text for PPC ad copy.

By studying what works for each channel, we can cut down on some of our testings and use what has proven to work on the other channel in the past.

3. Search Term Performance

The best guidance and shortcut to optimal performance is by having historical data to act on and to help identify areas to leverage and those to avoid.

When SEOs can get search term reports from Google Ads and when PPCs can get Search Console performance data, a lot of experimenting and mistakes can be avoided.

While keyword research tools can provide great guidance, getting actual search performance is even better.

We have to consider seasonality, changes in SERPs, and differences in competitors for paid versus organic search, but again, it is a great starting point if you can share or gain this info.

4. Competitor Data

Competitors are a big factor in rankings, ad positions, and costs of investing in both paid and organic search.

Understanding who is paying the most for ad positions and dominating the SERPs can help SEO.

Likewise, it goes the other way as well. Competitors aren’t always the same for organic and paid search.

Plus, they change over time based on SEO tactics and algorithm changes.

Sharing historical and current competitor data can help understand the opportunity for rankings and bids.

Both SEO and PPC can utilize insights into who the top competitors are, how much focus they’re putting into search, and how individual keywords differ in terms of focus.

Knowing where competitors are spending money and jockeying for position can help set expectations on how hard it will be to rank and how much it will cost to advertise.

Plus, it can show areas that are underserved and where the true low-hanging fruit is.

5. Areas of Opportunity for Remarketing

There are a lot of insights to be gained from looking at engagement, traffic, and exit data.

The basic metrics of how users navigate websites can be important to share between search channels. Much like the insights gained from paid search, they can be aligned as well from SEO traffic data.

For top of the funnel content and terms that drive traffic from organic search – paid search can be used to further support moving customers along their journey or down the funnel. This includes the use of remarketing for visits to key pages.

Examples include the use of remarketing after landing traffic to the site from organic search on long-tail terms and thought leadership content.

SEO might open the door to the traffic, but paid search can continue engaging the visitor so both can work to support each other.

6. SERP Layouts

Search engine results pages can vary greatly by keyword and even from day-to-day.

Algorithm updates and aspects of intent and localization can have a big impact on the presence of:

• Text ads.
• Shopping ads.
• News.
• Images.
• Answer boxes.
• Map packs.
• Organic results.
• And more.

It is critical to:

• Track the ever-changing nature of the SERPs.
• Monitor for SERPs that have a lot of ads versus those that have few.
• Be mindful of how this can impact both paid search and organic search performance

Ads are likely warranted on a page that has a lot of noise between the ads and the organic results.

Especially, if you’re a brand and only review/rating sites are ranked on page one after map packs. If you have no shot at Page 1 then an ad is probably warranted.

On the flip side, if you own the SERP and the only ad is yours, there is no other noise, and organic search results come right after the ads, you might be paying for ad traffic that you don’t need to.

7. ROAS & ROI Data

One of the hardest questions prior to launching a campaign can be projecting or predicting return on investment.

Whether it is determined by the ROAS ratio or actual all-in ROI for PPC or SEO, it is incredibly valuable to have an idea of what performance would be like in advance.

If you can utilize data from PPC or SEO to predict performance, then it can help:

• Set expectations for the campaign.
• Save money that would normally be spent for the first few months to see how keyword and planner tool data will actually play out.

Conclusion

Bottom line: sharing of data and insights is key.

If you’re a solo practitioner who handles both SEO and PPC, then these things might be ingrained in your approach.

However, for all structures and ways of handling paid and organic, there’s likely something that can be gained that can help with smarter and more informed decisions.

Work and dollars saved are important as well as being able to scale and do smarter things.

There are many more details beyond these that can help both channels.

Work on aligning strategies and disciplines to leverage what you’re investing for maximum return.

02/25/2022

7 Local SEO Tips For Franchises & Their Locations

Local SEO for franchise businesses and their franchisees comes with a few unique challenges. Improve your online visibility with these tips.

Franchises, like all local businesses, require local SEO to rank in the search engines and reach new potential customers.

That includes SEO best practices such as optimizing the websites of individual franchise locations and creating business listings in national and local directories.

However, SEO for franchises differs from regular local SEO in several ways.

Read on to learn more about how to rank franchises in Google and other search engines.

The Importance Of Franchise SEO

Like all local businesses, franchises can use search engine optimization to get noticed by potential customers.

From creating Google Business Profile listings to writing blog posts that target relevant keywords, using the right franchise SEO strategies will help you increase brand awareness and boost your sales.

Organic traffic from increased search rankings is free.

As long as you maintain your rankings, you can drive leads and sales at almost no cost to you.

The Unique Challenges Of Franchise SEO

Franchise owners wanting to build an online presence face various unique challenges.

One of the top challenges you’ll face is avoiding duplicate content.

While each of your locations will have its website, the look and theme of each website should be similar to each other.

Avoiding duplicate content is harder when you’re a business owner that owns several of the same businesses in different locations.

Unfortunately, duplicate content won’t help your rankings, even if you own both of the sites the duplicate content is on.

Another challenge is deciding on the right SEO strategy for your franchise websites.

Do you optimize the content for topics related to each business location or area, or do you adopt a national strategy?

It’s also critical to provide the right contact details and address of each of your franchise businesses.

Franchise SEO: 7 Steps To Improve Your Rankings

Regardless of the products you sell and the niche you are in, follow these steps to rank for your target search queries and drive organic traffic.

1. Use Consistent Branding

The first step is to use consistent branding across all your individual websites.

The entire purpose of a franchise chain is to offer the same user experience at each of your physical locations.

Your online presence should be no different.

People who visit different branches of your franchise will expect a similar experience at each one.

Similarly, when they visit the website of each franchise location, they will expect a similar layout and color theme.

This is all about the user experience.

If people are expecting your website to look one way, and they land on a webpage with an entirely different design, they may exit your page, thinking that they landed on the wrong one.

2. Build Locality Into Each Individual Franchise Website

When it comes to building a website for your franchise, there are certain essentials that you should have regardless of the industry.

These will not only help with SEO and usability but also provide value in what people want from websites today:

• Optimizing your franchisee pages with the most search localized terms and including them within Title Tags, and Content).

• Embedded Google map of the franchise’s location.

• Hours of operation.

• Images of your management, work performed, before and after. Anything original to that location.

• Localized testimonials from that franchise location.

• Direction details, where are you located. If you are a service area business, what areas do you cover.

• Structured local business markup.

3. Use The Right NAP

NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number, and using the correct format is critical for local SEO.

When running a multi-location SEO campaign, you must use the correct NAP for each of your locations.

Furthermore, the NAP should be in the same format on each of your websites.

If you use parenthesis for the area code of one franchise’s number, use it for the phone numbers posted on the websites of all franchises.

It’s critical to use each location’s NAP as opposed to the corporate NAP.

You may include corporate contact details on a separate page and put a “Corporate” option in the footer menu.

4. Use Location-Based Keywords

Use location-specific keywords on each of your websites.

Use a keyword tool to find competitive keywords that will allow local people to find you.

Targeting national search terms on each website might not be the best idea.

You may rank for them, but the people who land on your page might live far from where the individual franchisee is located.

The exception is if you have a national website that automatically redirects people to the nearest franchise location.

5. Decide On A Content Marketing Strategy

This part is critical.

Content is a crucial aspect of any successful digital marketing campaign.

For franchises, however, it can get tricky

• Should you blog about general topics related to your niche or products?

• Or, should you blog about topics that are related to the specific location or area of each franchise?

As a general rule, it’s best to do the latter.

Create blog posts that have nearby residents in mind.

There are two types of locally-targeted blog posts.

The first type discusses general local news and events.

That type of blog post can be useful, but only if you have a broad target audience or sell a product that a wide range of people can use.

For example, if you have a bagel restaurant franchise in several cities, you can blog about local holidays and then offer limited-time promotions at the end of your posts.

As a general rule, however, it’s best to blog about your niche but with a local slant.

As an example, if you have a roofing contracting franchise, you can talk about how the different weather patterns in a specific city may cause readers’ roofs to get damaged and require repair.

Or, if you have a pest control business, you can talk about the common pests and rodents that people in that city (or different areas of the city) deal with the most.

If you have a hair salon franchise, you can talk about how weather patterns can affect people’s hair and what to do about it, or you can discuss local hairstyles that are trending and popular.

If you own a well-recognized national brand, you don’t need to write locally-targeted content.

Most people will already have some exposure to your brand.

They may consider you an authority in your industry and turn to you for general information.

Examples of such companies would include Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, etc.

Of course, you likely don’t own a business that well-known.

However, the point remains: Businesses with such a level of visibility can position themselves as authorities on coffee, donuts, hamburgers, etc.

6. Get Listed On Google Business Profile And Other Platforms

You’ll also need to create a Google Business Profile listing for all your individual businesses.

Each location should have its own Google Business Profile listing.

However, there are a few possible ways to manage access and control.

You can have each franchise owner create their listing, depending on how responsible they are for marketing.

Alternatively, you can set up each listing under your own Google account (you can use one account for all listings).

Then, you can add franchise owners as users to manage and control their listings.

Either way, having a GMB profile that you link to each franchise’s website is critical for local SEO.

When people search Google for local businesses, websites aren’t the only results that show up.

In addition to websites, Google features a few local GMB profiles at the top of the search results.

These profiles appear alongside ratings and other engaging data, and the lucky businesses that show up in the first few GMB profiles tend to get the most clicks.

Similarly, a local GMB profile allows you to show up on Google Maps. Many local searchers use Google Maps to find businesses instead of searching on Google itself.

Google will use data such as the distance of each company from the searcher to determine which businesses will show up first.

If you have several franchises within the city, there’s a good chance you’ll show up in any given search.

However, creating a Google Business Profile is just the beginning.

Also, create profiles on other popular directories, including Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Apple Maps.

While those are national directories, they are optimized for and appear in local searches.

In addition to large platforms like Google Business Profile, you should be building listings in as many local directories as possible.

Getting citations and links from local directories will do wonders for your search engine rankings – the more local citations you can build, the better.

A franchise SEO service can take care of this for you and submit your data to multiple directories at once.

Each franchise should get listings from directories that focus on its city or area.

Local directories shouldn’t be your only sources of citations, either.

Look for directories that are nationwide but deal with your specific niche.

For example, if your franchises offer home repair or construction services, get listed in directories like HomeAdvisor.

For both GMB listings and local citations, it’s critical to include the correct contact data.

Use the same NAP format as you use on your franchise websites.

In addition, optimize each listing or citation by ensuring store hours are correct and uploading images when allowed.

Google Business Profile also allows you to publish post updates, which you should do from time to time to show that you are active.

Different post types are available on GMB.

Some can include general updates, while others can announce discounts or promotions, new product launches, a change of hours, or Covid-19 updates.

You should include your top target keywords in your GMB profile description, as well as in your post updates.

Each platform and directory will have different requirements.

In general, however, try to add as much relevant information, upload as many images, and target as many relevant keywords as you can.

Once you created listings on GMB, Yelp, and other directories, encourage customers to leave reviews.

Profiles with many positive reviews tend to rank better.

Many platforms forbid incentivized reviews, so you can’t give customers discounts or freebies in exchange for reviews.

However, you can encourage reviews by putting up stickers or posters in each franchise location reminding customers to look you up on Google, Facebook, Yelp, etc., and share their feedback and comments.

An excellent hack is to create QR codes that take users to your official profile on Google or Yelp and put those QR codes on your menus, storefronts, receipts, and other materials.

7. Build Local Backlinks

Local backlinks are critical for local rankings as well.

Building local backlinks as a franchise can be complicated.

On the one hand, you need to find local businesses to collaborate with within each area you are operating in.

On the other hand, you don’t want to get links from or link to competitors.

Try to work with local organizations, schools, charities, and events.

You may be able to sponsor a lunch day at a local school, for example, in exchange for a blog post announcing the sponsorship and linking to you.

If you own a food-based franchise, you may be able to set up an initiative in which you collaborate with local charities to feed the homeless.

Final Thoughts

In many ways, the same SEO practices and strategies that apply to most local businesses apply to franchises.

However, it’s important to understand the challenges that franchises face and create a roadmap and a list of guidelines that all individual locations should adhere to.

02/21/2022

Local SEO Deliverables: What To Expect Of Your Agency

Whether you run a small or enterprise-level business, you'll need various deliverables for local SEO. Here's what to expect from your agency.

Effective location-based SEO (local SEO) can have a substantial impact on your digital marketing success comparable to any other core marketing.

For a business that has a physical location, or many company premises to optimize for, the value of dominating your local online space cannot be overstated.

The same can be said for companies functioning and servicing within specific geographic areas that are core for company revenue and related success parameters.

There are many misconceptions about local SEO; for example, local SEO is only for small businesses, or that local SEO restricts total visibility online.

It’s important that, when looking to outsource your local SEO, you ensure your expectations of an agency and the deliverables you receive match your local SEO aspirations.

I hope this column will help.

SEO Agency Fundamentals

Whether it is local SEO deliverables or enterprise-level SEO services, any established and effective search marketing agency will provide the fundamentals expected as specialists in their field.

Typically, this would include:

• A clear set of objectives unique to your immediate, medium, and longer-term requirements.

• An action plan that reinforces what the priorities are and when key milestones will occur.

• Access to data and the building of a larger data ecosystem for insights and action-taking.

• Agreed and consistent ways to communicate, report on progress, and reinforce what is being delivered for your investment.

• Iterative improvement from the ongoing application of expertise and evidence-led decision-making.

• Direct access to key staff working with you to achieve your local SEO goals.

• Simplified and relevant ongoing support and feedback to enable agility and pivoting of approach to maximize new opportunity and react to changing threats.

• Proactive and effective customer care enabling collaborative working, or full outsourcing dependent upon client requirements.

There will be other priorities that may be unique to business circumstances and areas of increased perceived value to your current requirements, and these can be added to the above agency fundamental expectations where applicable.

As a tip, one thing to avoid in your expectations is a small set of very specific and localized SEO keywords to focus on.

These will be the five or ten you may look at on your mobile phone every week and curse the competitor who ranks there.

Whilst you may have some keywords more commercially important than others, please do not restrict your focus (and that of any agency you decide to work with) to solely focus on a handful of terms.

Consider the end goal of these terms and what you wish to achieve through local SEO success.

There may be thousands of relevant and highly effective search queries, plus many new and unique ones being discovered every day in your data.

You don’t want to lose sight of these and their potential value by having a blinkered focus on just a few.

If it’s easier to move away from standalone keyword goals, consider the topic rather than the term. This can be far more useful to measure local SEO gains.

Strong Technical Performance

Regardless of your local SEO goals and objectives, every local SEO campaign should factor in the website’s health, user experience, and overall technical ability to perform.

Traditionally within local SEO, this would focus on topics such as:

• Broken links and content.

• Duplicate, missing, and non-optimized metadata.

• Slow load times.

• Crawling and indexation of core content.

• Duplicate content.

• Thin content pages, redirects, and soft 404s.

Add to the above a practical emphasis on:

• User experience including Core Web Vitals.

• Mobile-friendliness.

• Trust/HTTPS.

You may want to factor in broader items historically associated more with bigger entities and brands, as well.

This could include providing easy access to information through the site architecture, and digital simplification to enable the user to get to their endpoint as easily and effectively as possible (including broader conversation rate optimization principles).

Evidence-Driven Content

It is not enough to provide expert industry opinion and localized content on a website with the expectation to dominate local SEO.

Any competitive local SEO campaigns should ideally be fueled with data (evidence backed) content at levels of quality and volume much higher than you may expect for local-orientated SEO campaigns.

The creation of content may be delivered by you in-house or outsourced to a marketing agency. But regardless of the approach to output, the dovetailing of data, local SEO experts, and leveraging of your unique industry insights is paramount.

It is this combined approach that will provide a competitive advantage, and enable you to consistently create the best of breed content, that has true standalone value both within the local niche and for broader brand and authority building.

From an agency, you should expect them to lead the local SEO content strategy and approach, providing ongoing recommendations using all available and relevant data sets to justify the; priority, focus, purpose, and ongoing impact of content being generated.

You would expect content to be created to leverage the value and metric success of existing content you have on your website.

You would also expect a consistent focus on new opportunities to ideate and implement new content reflecting the new data sets, and changing needs of your core business audience.

As with any comprehensive content strategy led by SEO, you would want to cover a range of user intent, focus on the actual value provided, and look throughout the spectrum of the information seeking and buying cycle.

Whilst this would be skewed towards local SEO, that does not restrict the impact.

Pertinent topic areas important to the business will likely have wider appeal and opportunity to grow site trust, backlinks, and perceived relevancy beyond the local demographic.

Local Authority And Trust Building

Local authority building is a mainstay within local SEO and a necessity for gaining ground within your online niche.

There are a number of consistent threads to this including:

• Local brand building with PR and local media publications.

• Business entity and relevant local and regional directory sites.

• Links and mentions of the brand, company, and key staff in community and business forums.

• Supporting local events, and sharing of expertise (and often resource, charity support, etc.).

• Content promotion and placement (both local content and topical business products/services content).

Outside of the citation and link aspect of authority building is the deeper expertise, authority, and wider trust signal gains.

This includes in no small part the management, optimization, and ongoing growth of reviews and engagement through Google Business Profiles (for every business location), formerly Google My Business.

This includes (but is not limited to) search and maps optimization, profile completeness, promotion of content, and answering questions from your audience.

The more proactive you are with generating positive reviews as part of your combined business and agency focus (including targeted location-specific reviews), the faster you will see gains in your perceived online authority and local SEO results.

This needs to be through Google Business Profiles, Bing Places, and other established and trusted third-party review sites.

Content And Social Media

You need to look at how you and your agency can enable your website and brand to become truly embedded within the local community.

For some sites and brands, this may be many local communities, spanning a number of geographically dispersed regions, whilst for others, it may be a single location and a number of miles surrounding it.

Either way, the ability to enhance your website community focus through audience-aware content hubs, free community resources, and tools, and ideally local user-generated content, the better.

This will naturally tie into social media interaction, engagement, and promotion, as well as social listening and audience building, by a genuine understanding of their wants, needs, plus pain points.

And more importantly how your people/experts/staff, brand, and products/services can positively impact them.

In Summary

Businesses will have an array of bespoke requirements for their local SEO and the deliverables expected from an agency.

Some of these will be based on filters applied tied to previous experiences, and often lessons learned.

There are, however, a number of key standard expectations which you should always consider, as outlined above.