There are tons of components that go into a successful local SEO strategy. But for digital marketers and business owners, building citations is one of the easiest and most effective steps to building a comprehensive local SEO program.
In this blog post, we’ll provide a beginner-friendly guide on the process of building citations and links so that you can begin optimizing your website and draw more customers through organic search results. Read on to learn the basics of citation building as part of a successful local SEO strategy.
What are Local Citations and Why are They Important for SEO
Local citations refer to online mentions of a business’s name, address, and phone number (sometimes abbreviated as ‘NAP’) on various directories, review sites, and blogs.
Citations on reputable directories and review sites like Yelp, Open Table, and Angies List, signal to Google and other search engines that a website is trustworthy and relevant to a particular locality.
With local search becoming increasingly competitive, having a robust citation and link profile has become paramount in improving a website’s search engine rankings and driving more traffic to a business’s website.
How to Find the Best Citation Sites for Your Business
We’ve all heard of the big business directories. Angi, Yelp, etc. And there are tons of lists and resources out that can point you towards some of the lesser known, but still important, national directories.
But to really maximize the benefit for local SEO, it will be important to find niche or local-specific directories. How do you find these?
One of the best ways to find these directories is to simply Google the keywords that you’d like to rank.
For example, restaurants can Google “best restaurants in [town].” The results page will contain a mix of restaurants but more importantly the directories, and review sites that cater to your niche and location.
From here, you can begin to either claim your business profile if it already exists or sign up for the website and create a profile yourself.
Finding the right citation sites can take some time and effort, but it is well worth it to ensure your business is seen by the right people in the right places.
Creating a Consistent NAP Profile Across All Directories
One of the critical elements of citation building is ensure your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are the same across all directories.
If your business has been around for a while, chances are that some of the information has changed. Maybe you’ve relocated or altered the services you provide.
Most aggregators and directories don’t spend a whole lot of energy keeping their listings up to date so it falls on the businesses themselves to ensure everything is accurate.
Doing so will solidify the authority and trustworthiness of your business and increase your chances of ranking for the keywords that matter to you.
Citation Builder Tool
Of course, most business owners are pressed for time as it is. So most folks don’t have the time nor the patience to scroll through SERPs and creating profiles and verifying emails.
That’s why there are many tools and citation building services out there such as SEMRush, Moz, BrightLocal and many more.
Services like these will recommend directories and other sites to create new NAP on. And many will even create these profiles for you.
Wrapping up
In conclusion, local SEO is an important tool for any business to stay competitive and gain visibility in the current digital marketing landscape.
By building local citations and links with consistent NAP profile, businesses are able to improve their visibility on search engine results pages.
With these best practices, businesses will be on their way to optimizing their local SEO rankings for maximum online success.
In the year 2023, we have all experienced ad overload from a company. That’s right, you viewed a product one time on Nike’s website, now, every time you open up Facebook, BOOM Nike ad. Okay open up Instagram, BOOM an in-feed Nike ad. Surely there won’t be a Nike ad while reading your local morning news website. Wrong. There, on the side, is a Nike banner ad. These ads even find their way onto your solitaire app.
While some people do actually find these ads helpful, others of us feel like we are being bombarded or even stalked by these companies. Why are they showing up everywhere? Are they invasive or helpful?
So, is ALL paid advertising Evil?
Truthfully our answer is no, paid advertising isn’t usually evil and in fact can be used for a lot of good. And yes this is coming from someone who makes a living running these ads but bear with us here.
We understand that companies have their own view on paid advertising. Some love it and will pour all their money into running +50 campaigns and other companies fear that paid advertising comes off as sleazy and inauthentic to consumers.
But with paid advertising there are so many forms of targeting and placements, that labeling them all the same way isn’t the best route. We have created an Authenticity scale that uses two metrics, control and helpfulness. The Goal of the Authenticity scale is to help advertisers determine what their comfort zone is when it comes to paid advertising.
First we are going to do a brief recap of search ads and display ads. Next we will outline what the Authenticity Scale is and how to use it. Finally, we will break down a handful of examples and place them on the scale to help you get the hang of it.
SEARCH vs. DISPLAY ADS
Let’s quickly layout 2 kinds of Google ads, search and display ads, before we dive into the Authenticity of advertising tactics.
First, Search ads. Search Ads appear alongside organic results when a consumer enters a query in the search engine. Advertisers bid on search terms and if those terms are queried then their ad may appear. For example, if Nike bid on “Running shoes” and someone searches “Best tennis shoes for running” then they will be met with a Nike ad like the one below:
Display ads. Display ads can appear in apps, in video, or as banner ads on websites. They will look something like this:
Now that we have nailed down two ad types, let’s jump into our Authenticity Scale.
ADVERTISING AUTHENTICITY SCALE
Paid advertising comes in many forms. In order to determine an ad’s Authenticity, we are going to utilize two different scales.
Control: The control an advertiser has over who, where, how a consumer is receiving ads.
Helpfulness: The extent to which an ad is helpful to the consumer.
When using this two point scale ads are going to fall into a Green Zone, Blue Zone, and Orange Zone.
Ads that are high on both control and helpfulness are going to be in the Green Zone. The Green Zone consists of ads that will almost always be beneficial for both company and consumer.
Next are our Blue Zone ads, which are ads that will be in the middle of either control or helpfulness. These ads are usually still beneficial for company and consumer, though seeing as they fall in the middle of one or both of the scales we can’t be certain about either customers intent or placement of ads.
Now for our Orange Zone ads. Orange Zone ads will fall low on one or both of the scales. Just because ads are in the Orange Zone doesn’t mean they are evil, however, we understand there is a time and a place for them. We recommend using Orange Zone ads when the primary focus is for brand awareness rather than high conversion rates.
Let’s look at this on a graph.
Advertising Authenticity Score
PUTTING THE GRAPH TO WORK
Now let’s put this graph to work and plot where different advertising strategies fall.
SEARCH ADS IN THE ORANGE ZONE:
I am going to play devil’s advocate right off the bat, and give an example of advertising that is closer to the ~evil~ side, or inauthentic side, of advertising.
Competitor Search ads. For a company like Nike, this would be bidding on terms like “Adidas Shoes”. On our first scale, Control, competitor search ads actually rank very high. We would know where these ads are showing and for the exact search terms they are showing for.
On our second scale, Helpfulness, Competitors Search ads rank very low placing them in the Orange Zone. If a consumer searches, Adidas shoes, chances are they know what they want and it’s not Nike Shoes. With this method of advertising, the goal is less about being helpful and more about disrupting a consumer’s actions. Getting Nike’s name in their last minute, one, probably won’t have a high return on investment, and two, is disregarding the consumers preferences and is thus more invasive.
Therefore, Competitor Search ads are in our bottom right corner in the Orange Zone.
Advertising Authenticity Score
SEARCH ADS IN THE GREEN ZONE:
Now let’s look at Search ads that are on the flip side of the Helpful scale in our Green Zone.
Branded Search Ads. Pretty self explanatory, but Branded Search ads re when a company bids on its own name. For example Nike bidding on “Nike” or “Nike Shoes”.
Control: These ads like Competitor Search ads rank high on control. When bidding on branded terms you have a narrow and controlled pool of search terms your ads are showing up for.
Helpfulness: Unlike Competitor Search ads, Branded Search ads are high on Helpfulness. When a consumer is searching for your company, they are point blank looking for you and exactly you. Therefore you want to be front and center for them when they search.
Non-Brand Search Ads. Some examples of Non-Brand Search keywords for Nike are “Athletic shoes”, “gym shoes”, or “best sneakers for running”.
Control:In terms of control Non Brand Search ads rank just below Branded Search Ads. The only reason there is a little less control is because there is a wider pool of search terms.
Helpfulness: Believe it or not, non brand search ads we still classify as high on the helpfulness scale. If a consumer is searching for a product and just doesn’t know the name of a company that supplies said product they are still information gathering.
Let’s go back to Nike but pretend that this consumer who is searching for running shoes does not know any of the big brands. The consumer searches for “running shoes”. They are looking for a high quality product, so why not Nike. Whether Nike is bidding on these terms or not other people will be. Therefore, even if Nike is the first organic result, they won’t be the first company that consumers see because there will be ads at the top. If Nike is the best option for the consumer and they simply don’t see them because their organic result is buried under ads then both consumer and company are missing out. Thus you want to be there as an option in their search for information.
Since both our Brand and Non-Brand Search ads ranked high on Control and Helpfulness, that places them right in our Green zone.
Advertising Authenticity Score
DISPLAY ADS IN THE BLUE ZONE
Let’s dive into which Google Display ads fall into our Blue Zone.
Consumer Renegament Display ads: targeting previous consumers based on email lists. This is not people who have simply visited the site but people who have actually purchased the product or service.
Control: Medium High. Since this ad type is based on email lists from the company we know exactly who we are targeting. The only reason it is bumped down a few points is because of the nature of display ads. In this scenario we aren’t picking specific placements on the google display network so the ads could be running on a variety of sites and apps.
Helpfulness: Medium. Truthfully this one depends on the product being sold. For instance if the product being sold is a Refrigerator, consumers probably aren’t going to be in the market for a new refrigerator for many more years. Therefore hitting them with a display ad 3 months after purchase isn’t helpful.ing.
However if the product being sold is a face wash, hitting the consumer with an ad 3 months after initial purchase to remind them to place a new order before they run out can be very helpful. We know these people have used the company’s product or service, and assuming a positive experience, they most likely like the company and would purchase again.
Site Remarketing Display Ads: targeting those who have visited the companies site without purchase.
Control: Medium. We know for the most part who is being hit with the ads but it’s a wider pool than consumer re-engagement and it’s on the Display network.
Helpfulness: Medium. Hopefully the consumer is at least interested in the company, hence spending time on the site. However we don’t fully know their motives for being on the site or their impressions of the company after the visit.
Blue Zone ads tend to be reconnecting with people who are at least aware of the company’s name.
Advertising Authenticity Score
DISPLAY ADS IN THE ORANGE ZONE
We talked about Competitor Search ads being in the Orange Zone but let’s finish filling this zone out.
In Market Display: Using Google’s AI, we are targeting those who are in the market for a product. For example Nike’s In Market Display ads would be targeted at people who are “in the market” or looking to purchase running shoes. Again, who is in the market for new running shoes is determined by google not the advertiser.
Control: Low. The nature of display ads already knocks it down a few pegs, but the second reason it loses points is because we are relying on google’s targeting metrics. What exactly makes someone “in market” for new running shoes? We as advertisers have less control over who sees the ads when google is at the wheel.
Helpfulness: Medium high. Since we are targeting people who are in-market or actively looking for a new pair of running shoes, showing Nike’s name is hopefully beneficial.
Interest Display Ads: Using Google’s AI to target people who have interests that would align with a company’s target market. Using Nike again as an example, they could target people with interests in playing sports, running marathons, or even coaching.
Control: Medium low. We have an idea of who is getting targeted but again it’s a very wide pool that google has created. Also, as stated before, the display network naturally has less control than search ads.
Helpfulness: Low. Honestly with this group we truly don’t know if they are interested in running shoes at the moment, they might be swimmers or love their new balances. The positives for running ads like this would be more for brand recognition. Getting your company’s name out there so that they are remembered when the consumer is looking for your product even if they aren’t in need of it at the moment.
Look Alike Display Ads: Target people who match a profile (lookalike) of those who have purchased a product or used your service. Lookalikes are again determined by google’s AI.
Control: Low. Again, this is reliant on what google demes a lookalike. Maybe Because we don’t know what metrics google uses to compare, we deem these pretty low on control.
Helpfulness: Medium low. Going on the idea that google is in fact showing us to quality consumers we rank this medium low. Ideally they will be similar to previous consumers but that’s not to say they are in the market for your service right now.
As we state early, just because an ad is in the Orange Zone doesn’t mean it is evil and invasive by nature. For our Green and Blue Zones we are looking for conversions and a lower cost./conversion. For these Orange Zones ads on the other hand it’s best to have a totally different goal. That goal being brand awareness. Many of these ad types tend to have high impressions which is a great metric to use when trying to measure the success of a brand awareness campaign.
Advertising Authenticity Score
WRAPPING UP
We went over a lot of ad types and tactics today and, let’s be honest, that’s just breaking the surface, since we didn’t even touch on Social media advertising. With all the different kinds of targeting and placements out there, it can get overwhelming for a company to decide what direction they want to take and what kind of advertising aligns with the values of their company. By looking at each tactic individually and using this two point scale companies can better understand if said tactic fits within their comfort zone.
Now what about our very first example of one person getting bombarded with every ad on every network for Nike Tennis Shoes? Yeah….we would consider this the closest thing to invasive evil advertising. Though we would also be lying if we said these ads have never worked on us.
There aren’t many marketing tools that provide more value to both customers and local businesses than Google Business Profile. Whether you’re a local service provider like a plumber or moving company or you run a brick and mortar business like retail or restaurants, Google Business Profile can be an immensely powerful tool for bringing customers to your business.
In this article, we’ll provide a quick overview on how to setup your profile and leverage it for maximum returns!
I. What is a Google Business Profile (GBP)?
A Google Business Profile (GBP) is a free profile that businesses can create to showcase their services and products on Google’s platform. It includes information such as your business name, contact info, hours of operation, website address, reviews, and photos.
By creating a GBP, businesses can appear when people search for terms related to their services or products. There are two primary places where GBP appears in rankings: the Local Pack and Google Maps.
SERPs and the Local Pack
The local pack section appears at the top of search engine result pages (SERPs) when someone searches for a specific type of product or service in an area they are located in or they have specified in the search query. These are the all-important “X near me” queries.
This is particularly valuable because it increases visibility at the top of SERPs. Companies don’t need to break the top 10 organic search results in order to appear on the first page of the search results, providing more opportunities for customers looking for goods and services nearby to see them first.
GBP on Google Maps
Google Business Profile results are not limited to the Local Pack. Users have the option to search from or click through to Google Maps where your profile can appear even if you’re not in the top 3 Local Pack results.
This user-friendly interface allows users to gauge how close businesses are to their location, read reviews, see images, and more, all from the Maps interface.
Enter the name of your business or select from the list of suggestions.
Choose your business category
Input your business location and whether you have a brick and mortar location customers can visit.
Select your service areas by city or zip code.
Input your business phone number, website, and any other information.
Finish!
Now it’s time to select the verification options.
Verification process
You’ll be able to verify your business through a few different methods and it may require more than one method to complete. Google breaks it down into “standard” and “instant” verification methods.
Standard verification can take up to a week and can be done by phone call, video call, video recording, email, and postcard.
Instant verification is less common and requires your website to be connected with Google Search Console.
III. Ongoing Profile Management
Keeping an updated and accurate profile is important for potential customers searching for local businesses online because they need reliable information at their fingertips when trying to make a decision.
Managing Reviews and Feedback
Why Customer Reviews Matter
Reviews matter to local businesses for several reasons. First, reviews can greatly impact a business’s online reputation, which can influence potential customers’ decisions to choose that business over its competitors.
Positive reviews can serve as social proof that a business is trustworthy and provides quality products or services, while negative reviews can harm a business’s reputation and deter potential customers.
Second, reviews can also impact a business’s search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Google’s algorithm takes into account the number, quality, and relevance of reviews when ranking businesses in local search results.
Therefore, businesses with a high quantity and quality of reviews are more likely to appear at the top of search results and attract more traffic to their website.
Finally, reviews provide valuable feedback and insights for businesses. By monitoring and analyzing reviews, businesses can gain insights into their strengths and weaknesses and identify areas for improvement.
Responding to reviews can also demonstrate a business’s commitment to customer service and help build trust with customers.
How to Get Reviews
There are several ways that a company can encourage customers to leave more reviews. Here are some effective strategies:
Ask for reviews: Simply asking customers to leave a review is often an effective way to get more reviews. This can be done in person, through email, or via social media.
Make it easy to leave a review: Provide clear instructions on how to leave a review on your Google Business Profile or other review sites, and make the process as simple and user-friendly as possible.
Follow up with customers: After a customer makes a purchase or uses your service, send a follow-up email asking for feedback and encouraging them to leave a review.
Display review prompts: Display prompts on your website or in-store encouraging customers to leave a review. You can also include review links in your email signature or social media profiles.
Engage with customers: Engage with customers on social media and respond to reviews, both positive and negative. This shows that you value their feedback and are committed to providing excellent customer service.
Remember that it’s important to encourage genuine and authentic reviews. Avoid incentivizing customers to leave positive reviews or posting fake reviews, as this can harm your reputation and violate review site guidelines.
Engaging with Feedback
Business Profile owners have the ability to respond to customer reviews. Engaging with reviews is an important part of reputation management for businesses. Here are some best practices for engaging with reviews:
Thank customers for positive reviews: Respond to positive reviews by thanking the customer for their feedback and expressing your appreciation for their business.
Address negative reviews: Respond to negative reviews by addressing the customer’s concerns and offering a solution if possible. Be empathetic and avoid getting defensive or confrontational.
Keep it professional: Maintain a professional tone and avoid engaging in arguments or negative interactions with customers. Remember that your responses are public and can be seen by other potential customers.
Encourage further communication: Invite customers to contact you directly if they have additional concerns or feedback. This shows that you are committed to resolving any issues and improving the customer experience.
Respond promptly: Respond to reviews as soon as possible, ideally within 24-48 hours. This shows that you value customer feedback and are committed to providing excellent service.
Google Business Profile Optimization
While Google reviews have been demonstrated to have an impact on local SEO, there is an ongoing debate within the digital marketing sphere over what extent we can influence our Business Profile rankings.
Regardless of the answer, staying on top of your business profile management and engaging with customers helps to establish transparency and trust, which not only can impact a business’s search engine ranking and visibility, but it can influence potential customers’ decisions.
Wrapping Up
Setting up and managing a Google Business Profile is an important step in helping your business grow. With the right tools and strategies, your profile can be optimized to drive visibility, conversion, and growth. Creating a well-curated profile will help customers find relevant information quickly and easily.
Remember to update your business listings regularly to stay ahead of changes in local ranking factors, as this can have a big impact on how successful you are in achieving business goals. With the right setup, a Google Business Profile can become a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes.
Domain Authority vs. Domain Rating vs. Authority Score
One of the primary selling points of popular SEO tools such as Moz, Ahrefs, and SEMRush are the website authority metrics. These metrics proport to calculate a website’s “authority” based, for the most part, on the quantity and quality of its backlinks.
While these metrics measure roughly the same thing, each tool uses different factors in their calculations which can result in radically different scores.
In this post, we’ll offer a head to head of Domain Authority vs Domain Rating vs Authority Score by first looking at the original authority metric, PageRank. Then we’ll dive into each metric, their individual input factors, and compare the outcomes by looking at our own website’s performance on each.
But first, a short history lesson.
It all Begins with PageRank
What is Google PageRank? This was one of the most important SEO metrics a decade ago. Back then, an update to the PageRank toolbar provided an opportunity to determine if the recent steps you took helped to improve the positioning of the website – and that Google viewed your site as one with more authority. Where does PageRank fit into metrics today?
To understand the value and place of PageRank and authority scores, you need to consider the application in today’s industry and how they may or may not matter to your link building strategy.
What You Should Know About PageRank
PageRank is quite a complex algorithm. It provides a score in a numerical format that is supposed to give you an idea of where your website stands. PageRank is more of a linear representation of that rather than a true way to know how well your website is going to rank in the search engines.
A low score, for example of 0, means that your website is low quality. That often means that it is not seen as an authority website by Google, and as such, Google may not value it high enough to position it high in search engines.
A score of 10, on the other hand, seems like a good figure, and it does indicate that the website is more authoritative than other sites.
What Factors Influence PageRank?
While we know that PageRank is no longer used in the way it once was, there are still some key components of it that do make a difference. For example, things like anchor text and how likely it is that the link will be followed can still play a role in your success.
While Google retired the PageRank Toolbar that was often used to help with this figure, we know that PageRank still matters to some degree. That’s why several other organizations decided to create their own tools to help you better understand how well your website ranks.
Difference Between DA, DR, and AS
When considering website authority scores, you will find a lot of different acronyms out there. It is easy to become overwhelmed with trying to navigate all of your options. Here are some of the explanations you need to do that.
Domain Rating
Domain Rating, DR, is one of the terms you will see readily used. This metric was developed by Ahrefs. It helps to show the strength of your website’s backlink profile. It provides this information on a scale that ranges from 1 to 100. How does Ahrefs determine what this number is?
Key factors that DR uses
To calculate this information, the tool will look at the following:
Referring domains
Link root domains
Domain age
The total number of links
Fanatically Digital’s Domain Rating
Fanatically Digital’s Domate Rating is 39, apparently. Cool.
They have also found 139 unique websites that link to us. Ahrefs relies heavily (if not exclusively) on backlinks in order to calculated their score.
This can be a positive because it keeps things relatively simplified. We know what is being measured. That is, where a website generally stands within the backlink hierarchy of the internet.
However, having only a few variables impacting this score (quantity and quality of links) means it’s more susceptible to spamming and manipulation.
Anyway, let’s see how this compare to what the others found.
Domain Authority
Domain Authority, or DA, is a bit different. It is a Moz calculation. That means it provides a bit of a different source of data. It aims to provide you with insight into how well your website may rank in the search engines.
What factors does DA use?
The age of the domain itself
The spam score it has
The amount of traffic volume the website sees
The total number of backlinks that are on the website
The quality and the quantity of backlinks in comparison to each other
Social signals pointing to the website
The linking root domains
Fanatically Digital’s Domain Authority
Rather than focus exclusively on backlinks, which is what PankRank did, Moz takes things a step further by factoring in performance on search engines.
Domain Authority isn’t merely attempting to mirror PageRank. It’s not trying to gauge the quality of the inputs (i.e. quality of it’s backlinks). It’s using the outputs (i.e. search engine performance) to predict Google’s assessment of authority.
You can see this reflected in Fanatically Digital’s lower Domain Authority, only 22 compared to our 39 Domain Rating. That’s because Moz’s evaluation of our search engine performance is lower than one might expect given our backline profile. Only 44 keywords, according to Moz (although according to Search Console, this metric is off by a factor of 100).
They also take into account our Spam Score, which is only 1% so that’s nice, I guess.
Authority Score
The third option is Authority Score, or AS, which SEMRush designed. It provides a different viewpoint as well. Here, the score is more explicitly a prediction of the overall quality of the webpage or the website itself. It is best used to compare domains.
What factors does AS use?
Your AS is dependent on numerous factors but specifically focuses on these areas:
The link power of the domain. By this, the organization focuses on the quality as well as the number of backlinks for the website.
Organic traffic. The second key factor here is the amount of organic traffic that is coming to your website. This is estimated on a monthly average. Organic traffic stems from people landing on your page from search engine results often thanks to your SEO efforts.
Spam factors. The third factor that plays a significant role in this process is spam. That is, the tool looks for anything that seems spammy and whether or not there is a natural link profile.
To provide some additional insight into Spam Factors, SEMRush shares that there are six key things it does to determine this:
If you get no organic rankings on the search engine results page
Having a super high percentage of do follow domains
Having too many referring domains that come from the same IP address or the same IP network
An imbalance in the amount of organic traffic the website gets compared to the number of links it has
Another domain that has the same (identical even) backlink profile
Fanatically Digital’s Authority Score
While our Domain Rating is a cool 39 and our Domain Authority was a respectable 22, our Authority Score is a meager 5.
These are all out of 100.
As you can probably tell just from these numbers here, SEMRush weighs organic search performance A LOT. Our organic traffic is 0 visitors per month, apparently (also heavily contested by Search Console).
So despite our relatively respectable backlink profile, our Authority Score has been given an F–
This all begs the question, what exactly are these tools purporting to be measuring? And how do we as search marketers or business owners find value in them.
It’s interesting how, over time, these tools try less and less to be mirrors of PageRank, focused exclusively on the quality and quantity of backlines. Instead, they shift further towards an all encompassing SEO score.
Where Do You Stand on the Use of PageRank?
We find that these website authority metrics are a viable bit of information, and all of these versions, AS, DR, and DA, are great tools to have. However, this is just one component of a much larger picture. You cannot determine how well your website is optimized for search engines using these tools. They cannot provide you with enough insight to know what you need to improve either.
The key here is that these scores can be used as a component of an overall marketing strategy but not the total picture. They are merely proxies, and what is worse, they are highly susceptible to manipulation. For that reason, they are often overvalued in today’s use.
Don’t rely on this as the sole component of your marketing campaign. Instead, use it along with the help of a professional organization to customize your marketing strategy.
Never run Yelp ads before? Look no further. This is your Beginner Guide to Setting up Yelp advertisements. After we nail down exactly what Yelp ads look like we are going to break down the setup process into 5 easy steps.
Campaign Goals
Asset Selection
Choosing Keywords
Location Targeting
Budget
In order to set up your ads, you will need to claim your business on Yelp first. For help claiming your business, view this guide.
Now Let’s Jump In!
What Are Yelp Ads?
The first main questions are what do Yelp ads look like and where will they show. Yelp ads actually blend in very well with organic listings, so much so that some users might not even realize they are viewing an ad rather than the organic listings.
Your ads will typically appear in two places, above organic listings in the search results and on other competitors’ business pages. That’s right, your ad might appear as a “similar suggest business” directly on another company’s page. See below for examples of these two ad placements.
As an aside, just like your ad can appear on another’s business page, competitor ads can also appear on your business page. If you want to keep consumers’ attention on your company while on your page, you can block ads from showing on your page for a price. To do this, travel to page upgrades in the side menu and select remove competitor ads. At the time of this article, this upgrade costs $1 a day.
Setting Up Ads
STEP 1: CAMPAIGN GOALS
When setting up Yelp ads the first step will be to select your campaign goals for where you want to drive traffic. Yelp will provide you with three options:
“Yelp Optimize”
“Get More Phone Calls”
“Get More Website Clicks”
It is important to note that with Yelp Optimize, the goal is to land people on your Yelp business page not on your website. So, if your services require filling out a form or reading more information on your site, then we recommend using website clicks as your goal over Yelp Optimize.
For receiving calls, Yelp will replace the phone number on your business page with a custom forwarding number for reporting and tracking metrics.
STEP 2: ASSET SELECTION
Luckily when it comes to assets creating your ads are quite simple. You can choose a feature image from images that have already been uploaded to your business page or pick an image that a customer has uploaded to your page. The other option for images is to let Yelp optimize it for you. Yelp will run your ad using different images and push out whichever image performs the best.
As for text, advertisers again can either write their own copy or pick a customer’s review to highlight in their ad. Seeing as Yelp is all about reviews, choosing to display another consumer’s opinion of your company rather than a biased tagline can actually help your ad appear more organic in people’s feeds.
STEP 3: CHOOSING KEYWORDS
Yelp has a pretty narrow field when it comes to keywords. Right off the bat Yelp will provide you with a list of keywords that they believe to be applicable to your company based on your Yelp business page. In Yelp you are able to remove keywords, but by removing their keywords you are actually “blocking” those terms, which is essentially negative matching them. So thinking through which terms you remove is crucial.
Now even though you can not add keywords to your ads, your keywords are not completely in the hands of Yelp. If you go through setting up an ad and realize that the keywords Yelp is providing are way off the mark, you are able to edit your business page to hopefully make Yelp’s suggestions more relevant.
Yelp will also allow you to “boost” keywords that you want to focus your budget on. This can be done during the initial ad set up or afterwards. You will be able to find this in your keywords manager. Next to each keyword will be a green up arrow for boosting and a red x for removing. This allows advertisers to have a bit more control over how their budget is being allocated amongst the keywords.
STEP 4: LOCATION TARGETING
Yelp has two location targeting options for your ads.
Yelp’s first location targeting option is based on running ads in a radius around your business’ marked location up to 25 miles. In fact this was the only location targeting available on Yelp for a while. This kind of location targeting hinders those who provide virtual services and those who provide services in areas other than where their business is located.
After receiving this feedback Yelp introduced its second form of location targeting, custom target locations. Now advertisers are able to select places to target based on zip code, city or neighborhood.
STEP 5: LET’S TALK YELP BUDGET
First it’s important to know that Yelp charges you on a Cost Per Click basis, so you will only get charged when someone actually clicks your ad, not when someone views it without clicking.
When asked to select a daily budget, Yelp will automatically give you options based on similar businesses in your area. They will also provide you an estimate of how many monthly clicks you will receive with that budget. Even though Yelp provided you with three recommended budgets you always have the option to set your own custom daily budget for as little as $5 a day. This low minimum daily average is great for businesses that just want to test the water with Yelp ads before diving all the way in with a larger budget.
Remember that this budget is based on a daily average, so one day you might spend over the daily budget and the next day you might spend under.
Publishing
After you land on a budget you are ready to publish your ad! Now everything we have talked about so far, budget, targeting, keywords, assets, and goals can all be adjusted after you publish your ad. So don’t worry you are not committed to any one location or ad text.
These changes can be made by going to your Yelp Ads page and scrolling to the bottom to the last section titled “What changes can I make to my ads”.
Reporting
Yelp will provide you with a pretty concise breakdown of your ads performance. So concise in fact that it might have you itching for a bit more information, like what search terms you are showing up for.
That being said, let’s break down what Yelp will show you.
After your ad has started running Yelp will show you how many impressions, Yelp page views, and leads your ad has generated. A lead can be a Yelp reservation, website clicks, map view, or call.
Yelp will also break down your monthly spend, average cost per clicks, and average cost per lead.
Yelp’s final main reporting view consists of a map highlighting where your ads are reaching. You will be able to view this as a heat map but you will not receive exact numbers for each location.
Wrapping Up
And just like that you are running ads on your Yelp business account! Congratulations. Setting up Yelp ads is a pretty streamlined process, and although sometimes advertisers are looking for more control, Yelp’s current platform makes setting up your first ad a breeze!
Service area landing pages are a critical–if sometimes overlooked–tool used in local SEO.
Whether you call them location pages, town pages, areas served pages, or service area pages, they’re all essentially the same.
In this article, we’ll take a look at how service area pages fit within your SEO strategy before going over best practices.
(And by the way, we’ll assume that readers will have a basic grasp of local SEO. But if you need a primer, check out our local SEO guide here).
Service Area Pages & Your SEO Strategy
What’s the point of creating service area pages? Why do we need them?
In short, it allows us to effectively target a larger, more diverse set of locally focused keywords. For example…
Let’s say you own a moving company in the heart of Salt Lake City. Most of your target keywords are going to include queries like moving companies, movers near me, movers in salt lake, etc.
These local-focused search queries will bring up the Local Pack on the results page. If you have a Google Business Profile (and you absolutely should!), many of your website clicks will come through these local pack results.
Limits of Google Business Profile
But here’s the issue:
Local Pack results lean heavily on proximity. Meaning closer businesses will tend to rank higher than businesses far away.
Makes sense.
However, consider the consequences for our moving company example. Chances are, a Salt Lake City moving company wants to serve movers throughout the ENTIRE Salt Lake metro area. Not just those within a few-mile radius of their office.
This is the problem: Your company wants to serve this entire map, BUT your Google Business Profile listing might only show up for someone searching from point A–next to your office in the heart of the city. And you probably won’t show up for someone searching from points B and C.
This puts a huge cap on the effectiveness of your Google Business Profile listings and severely limits the reach of your local SEO and digital marketing.
So now what?
Well, in order to rank for relevant search queries at points B and C, we need to tell Google that your business serves these areas as well.
And this is where service area pages come in.
Expanding Organic Reach
In order to reach users searching for moving companies out in Draper and Park City–points B and C–we’ll need to create pages that target geo-modified queries such as moving companies draper ut.
This allows us to target both (1) users searching for geo-modified queries like moving companies draper ut and (2) users searching for generic queries like moving companies from Draper. Without a service area page, we likely would not have ranked for either of those queries.
Service area pages without a physical location will typically show up in the organic results (as in the image above) instead of the local pack.
Within our SEO strategy, service area pages generally target more specific geo-modified queries that are lower in search volume but also less competitive and, therefore, easier to rank for.
How to Build Service Area Pages
Now that we know how these pages fit within our SEO strategy, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty. How do we best design and write service area pages for SEO?
Step 1: Identify your locations. If your business has multiple brick-and-mortar locations, this part is easy. Create a page for each location.
On the other hand, if you have a single location or run a service-based business such as a handyman, plumber, moving company, construction, home improvement, etc., you’ll create a page for each town you want to do business in.
Step 2: Write your pages. They should provide a relatively comprehensive overview of the services you provide. Best practices suggest at least 300 words split into manageable paragraphs with informative header tags.
Don’t be afraid to use (but not overuse) industry jargon. Nowadays, Google expects to see more than the keywords you’re trying to rank for. They want to see ‘secondary’ keywords that are related to your primary keywords.
For example, if we want our moving company to rank for movers draper ut, we need to include secondary keywords such as household movers, international relocation, furniture hauling, full-servicemoving, etc.
Check out some of the top pages that rank for your target keywords and see what kind of language they incorporate.
Step 3: Optimize your pages. Ensure your keywords appear in your URL, title, header, and meta descriptions. For example…
Location
Draper, UT
Park City, UT
URL
example.com/areas-served/draper-ut-movers/
example.com/areas-served/park-city-ut-movers/
Title
Movers Draper, UT | My Moving Company
Movers Park City, UT | My Moving Company
H1
Draper Moving Company
Park City Moving Company
Meta descriptions
My Moving Company’s team of Draper movers provides unbeatable relocation services…
My Moving Company’s team of Park City movers provides unbeatable relocation services…
Step 4: Place a prominent call-to-action. There should be no question about how to engage your services. Whether it’s a big colorful CALL NOW button, a contact form, or directly scheduling service, clear calls-to-action will ensure higher conversion rates and more business.
Step 5: Implement linking schemes. Without links pointing to your page, Google’s crawlers have no way of finding them. Link to your location pages from a parent /areas-served/ page, from the main navigation menu, or in natural locations in page copy throughout your site.
Step 6: Add schema markup. This part is a bit more technical. If you have a dev team for your website, this is something they can help with.
Schema markup is little bits of code that tell search engines exactly what your page is about. For example, if you have your office address on your location page or in your website footer, you can add markup that explicitly tells Google that this is your business address.
This helps Google to make better sense of your page as well as provide information for Rich Results; additional information on the results page.
Local SEO is increasingly becoming an essential part of any digital marketer’s toolbox, and building a reliable location page setup is a key part of that. Leveraging local search features can help businesses reach potential customers, boosting their visibility and benefitting both the customer and the business itself.
Here is a bit about the concerns of duplicate content when building areas served pages.
With this in mind, it’s important to take time crafting quality location pages for maximum impact – something that will benefit you for years to come!
As a dental care provider, your primary goal is to provide your patients with exceptional service. Gone are the days when you could rely on word of mouth advertising as enough to build your practice. Today, it is more important than ever to build online visibility into your practice. Doing so can create impressive outcomes for any dentist. At the heart of this is the implementation of search engine optimization (SEO) for dentists.
Local SEO Overview
Why does SEO matter? Even if your current patient tells their friends about your services, chances are good that the individual will still head online to learn more about your company. A Google search could reveal fantastic information and encourage the individual to set up an appointment.
Local SEO is also critically important when it comes to helping people find your location. A person with a dental need may search for a provider within their local area that can help them. If your dental practice isn’t easy to find online, the prospective patient has no idea that you are available to them. Local SEO ensures your practice is visible when someone needs you.
Popular SEO Tools
SEO for dentists can be an overwhelming process, and whenever possible, it should be something done by professionals who can enhance your ROI. However, there are numerous SEO tools available today to help ensure your efforts get the most attention. Here are a few of them.
Analytics, such as those from Google, provide insight into who is visiting your website, how they are getting there, and how your site compares to your competitors. It allows for the adjustment of strategies to enhance outcomes.
Google Search Console is an excellent tool to help you to learn how well you rank for various terms and phrases people put into the search engines. It helps to monitor and then debug your website and then optimize the site without any need to learn how to code to improve visibility.
Moz Pro is a type of all-in-one tool that can help to improve search ranking for your company. It can help you to find SEO opportunities on your site, build reports, and track your growth over time.
SEMrush provides a dashboard that provides insight into how well your domain is working as a whole. SEO Toolkit is one component of this tool that can help you with building links, selecting keywords, and monitoring competitors.
Keyword Research and On-page Optimization
Keywords are a big part of SEO for dentists, but often not taken seriously enough in the strategy building phase. However, you need to know the following:
What phrases people use to find services you offer
How to include local components into your site to attract a more local audience
What amount of competition is present for any phrase you are using
How to improve beyond your competitors for key phrases
Much of this comes down to on-page optimization or the process of understanding your target keywords and then utilizing them properly on your website to improve ranking.
Site Health and Technical SEO
While many factors impact the overall success of a website, the overall site health and technical aspects of it can play a big role in that process as well. If you do not have a dedicated staff or a professional available to handle your technical SEO – like the use of metadata, coding, and other behind-the-scenes components, you may be missing out on key opportunities to improve your strategy.
If a website does not load properly, prospective patients go to another service that does. If the graphics do not display properly or the process of booking an appointment is complex or confusing, people simply will not wait to figure it out. Instead, they just move on. This goes beyond just setting up your website. Ongoing oversight remains critical during this process.
Google Business Profile and NAP Citations
Google Business Profile is one of the best tools for professionals like dentists. It is a free tool that Google provides. You will list information about your practice, hours, location, services, and any other data that’s valuable to your patients. Then, when someone Googles a dentist in your area fitting those criteria, your website shows up in the Three Pack – the three listings that appear on a search engine results page. This also makes it incredibly easy for consumers to book an appointment or call you without even going to your website.
Also important are NAP citations. Across the internet, your business’s name, address, phone number, and other data are present. However, if there is data on one site that isn’t accurate or has a mistake in it, that could impact the patient who is looking for service. By monitoring and improving NAP citations, it’s possible to boost your SEO ranking.
Link Building and Content Strategy
Yet another component of building your practice’s online presence is using link building and content strategy. Google values links to your website on other websites. It shows that your website is valuable and respected. That gives you a boost in your search engine results if you are being linked to from high-quality and highly valuable websites. Creating a link building strategy can empower this process.
Content strategy is the creation of content for:
Your website
Blog
Social media
Email
Other outreach tools
The goal here is to create content that includes keywords and your overall SEO strategy, but also that is valuable. It is content that people will learn from, respect, and use to make their decision on whether or not to call you for help. Content also helps create engagement for your patients on social media. They can see your business, learn about it, learn from it, and then remember it when they have a need.
SEO for dentists is a critical component of growing a practice. It does not have to be a challenge when done well, but it should be an ongoing effort. With the help of professionals, this could become one of the best ways to grow your practice over time.
Google Ads is a great advertising tool for businesses of all sizes. From international organizations to local car repair shops, Google Ads can drive revenue. With the push into automated campaigns, it may be easy for businesses to set it and go simply. In our experience, that would be a mistake.
Issues with Google’s Automated Paid Search Campaigns
While using Google Ads’ fully managed/optimized settings can be beneficial for some advertisers, there are also several potential drawbacks to consider:
Limited control: Using fully managed/optimized settings means that you are giving up some control over your campaigns. Google’s algorithms will make decisions about which keywords to target, what ad copy to use, and how much to bid for each click. While this can be convenient, it can also lead to missed opportunities or suboptimal results if Google’s decisions do not align with your business goals.
Higher costs: Because fully managed/optimized campaigns rely heavily on automated bidding strategies, they may end up costing more than campaigns that are manually optimized. This is because automated bidding algorithms may bid more aggressively than is necessary to achieve your desired results.
Less transparency: Fully managed/optimized campaigns can be less transparent than manually optimized campaigns. With less control over your campaigns, it can be difficult to understand how Google is making decisions and what changes you can make to improve performance.
Limited customization: Using fully managed/optimized settings means that you are limited to the options and features that Google offers. This can be a disadvantage if you have specific campaign requirements that are not supported by Google Ads.
Potential for misalignment: Google’s automated algorithms may not always align with your business goals or audience preferences. This can lead to wasted spend or missed opportunities if your campaigns are not reaching the right people or driving the desired results.
Overall, fully managed/optimized settings can be a good option for some businesses, especially those that are new to Google Ads or have limited resources for campaign management. However, it is important to weigh the potential drawbacks against the benefits before deciding whether this approach is right for your business.
What type of program is good for fully optimized campaigns
To get the most out of a fully automated campaign, you need to provide valid input for Google’s algorithm. The best is e-commerce/sales with a Shopping campaign. While we’ll still manually edit titles and descriptions, letting Google manage the bidding and placements usually provides good results. The returning revenue data back to Google, the algorithm has a direct metric against which to optimize the campaign.
Campaigns that should be managed manually
On the opposite end of the spectrum are programs where leads and calls are generated, but there is no quality indicator. A spam lead counts as much as a prospect. Google may optimize the spam sources because they are getting more leads. It almost becomes a game of generating more traffic rather than qualified leads.
How to Approach Paid Search Campaign Settings
Before launching a fully automated campaign, advertisers should create and manage campaigns manually. Even after the automated campaigns run (if you decide to do it), you may want to set up a manual campaign periodically to learn about the landscape. To understand the metrics you see in an automated campaign, approach the manual paid search campaign in the following way.
Search Query Reviews
Check on the queries where Google is showing your ads. Do these make sense? Should they be negatives or have their own ad group? This is a typical manual management program.
Since Google is basically ignoring your target search term match types, and even venturing pretty far afield in the queries where they show your ad, this gives you an understanding of how Google will treat your ads in a fully managed campaign. This is one of the best ways to see what will happen. It can also help you set up the rails you want to apply to the automated campaign where possible.
Paid Search CPCs
Get a handle on the cost per click for a search campaign that is managed manually. Assuming well-structured ad groups with built-out negatives, you will have a good idea of what the competitive landscape looks like. Having this information will provide an understanding of your CPC for the automated program.
We’ve seen automated paid search campaigns with CPCs that were 1/10th the manual campaign. Knowing the details of the category through manual bidding, we knew that Google was not showing the ads in the best way. This proved out with the quality of (or lack of) the leads; a lot of spam. Learn where your CPCs need to be not just to drive traffic and form fills but to gain quality leads.
Set Geos for observation
Each area of the country has a different competitive environment. This may impact search results. The CPC may be different, or the conversion rate may be different for the various search terms. You may also see that copy performs differently.
With this understanding, you may decide to be more aggressive in certain areas. With a fully automated campaign, Google will likely push your ads to where it is the least expensive. On the surface, this may seem fine. But, you lose the opportunity to penetrate more competitive areas.
Depending on your category, there may be other metrics that are important for you to understand before starting a fully automated paid search campaign on Google. Configure your search campaign settings in order to gather the data. Once done, you’ll have a better idea of how well the automated campaign is performing.
As Google pushes for advertisers to adopt its AI (fully automated campaigns), it will be tempting to let Google have your budget and run with it. Avoid doing this. Adopt a cautious approach to using AI, and gather information so you will understand the results. Absent the basic information about paid search performance in your category, you will not be able to tell if the automated campaign is performing as well as a campaign can.
We are charging into the new year and officially have one month under our belt! With the new year comes new changes to advertising platforms, and Twitter is no different.
On January 24th, Twitter announced its rollout of Search Keywords advertising. Today we are going to go over what has led up to this announcement, what this new ad type looks like, and what these changes might mean for advertisers and Twitter alike.
TWITTER’S LOSS OF ADVERTISERS
After a months-long battle of will-he-won’t-he, Elon Musk officially acquired Twitter on October 27th, 2022.
According to Forbes, the November after Musk purchased Twitter, their ad spend was down 46% compared to the previous November. And based on Media Matters For America reports, 50 out of the top 100 advertisers pulled their Twitter advertising all together.
Though Twitter was experiencing a slow decrease in advertising spend in the months leading up to Musks acquisition, November saw its biggest plunge. September down 5%, October down 12% and November down 46% year over year. Many people point to Musk’s handling of the account verification controversies and spreading of false information on the platform as reasons why many companies may have pulled their spend for Twitter.
TWITTER’S NEW AD TYPE
With the loss in ad spend over the past few months, it is safe to assume that Musk and his team are searching for ways to bring advertisers back to their platform.
Their solution: introduce Search Keyword advertising
In the past, Twitter has offered a number of ad types including promoted tweets that show in users’ timelines based on if Twitter thinks it is relevant to that user, or follower ads, which target users who already follow the company. However, none of these ad types have allowed businesses to have control over who they think is relevant based on keywords.
Twitter’s rollout of search keyword advertising is a new opportunity for businesses looking to expand their targeted reach on the platform. It allows businesses to target relevant users based on search terms, so they are only reaching out to potential customers with an interest in their product or services.
Advertisers will be able to add keywords that they find relevant to their business or exclude keywords that they want to avoid. Twitter will then serve these ads based on keywords in users’ search queries, recent Tweets, and Tweets they have engaged with.
Twitter ads that use keywords can appear in three places: users’ home timelines, tweet detail pages, and search results and profiles.
Advertisers have the choice to use a few highly specific keywords or many general keywords. Deciding which approach to use is based on your goals. If you are looking to have a high engagement rate, using highly specific keywords is the best approach. On the other hand, if your goal is to reach more people and have a higher search volume, adding many general keywords is the direction to go.
This new type of targeted marketing approach can significantly increase campaign engagement and optimize the Return on Investment (ROI).
WHERE WILL THESE TWITTER CHANGES TAKE US
Historically Twitter has never been the most popular advertising platform. In fact, according to Instapage, only about 46% of advertisers were using the platform back in 2022 compared to 87% of advertisers that were on Facebook. Will the changes to twitter’s advertising platform have an effect on these numbers?
It will be interesting to see how well these keyword ads perform and if they have a higher ROI, engagement rate, and conversion rate than Twitter ads have historically had. Now that there is more control over who is seeing their ads, will these changes convince advertisers to come back to the platform or even begin advertising on Twitter altogether?
If you’re running a small business, you know that standing out in the crowded online space can be an uphill battle. But there is hope – local SEO!
Taking advantage of location-based search engine optimization tactics can give your business the edge over the competition and draw more attention to your website and social media profiles.
With a few smart moves and a commitment to making sure your business pops up in local searches, you could find yourself reaping the rewards.
Let’s dive in and discuss how local SEO can help put your business on the map!
Local SEO vs. National SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a widely used digital strategy to boost marketing and visibility. Looking at it more closely, we can draw a distinction between two strategic approaches: local SEO and national SEO.
Local SEO is concerned with bringing in local customers and gaining traffic from people searching within your geographic area. It involves techniques such as optimizing Google Business Profile (Google My Business) listings, focusing on local keywords, and utilizing online directories tailored to your particular locality or region.
On the other hand, national SEO focuses on reaching broader audiences with expansive keyword searches for larger networks that aren’t limited by geography.
In both scenarios, the goal is achieving higher rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs), driving organic traffic to your website and increasing conversions – only at different scales.
Who Should Utilize Local SEO?
Local businesses of any size should absolutely consider utilizing local SEO in order to maximize their potential for success.
Companies with bricks-and-mortar locations, like grocery stores and shops, can benefit from local SEO as it enables potential customers to find an establishment more easily based on its geographic location – a great boon if you’re hoping to draw in foot traffic!
Local service providers such as plumbers, electricians, lawn care specialists and more may also benefit too; nearly everyone has found themselves in the desperate situation of Googling a service provider with haste!
Components of Local SEO
Let’s take a look at some of the tactics and tools used specifically in local SEO.
Service Area Pages
Service area pages are an integral part of any local SEO strategy. They allow local businesses to reach their target markets effectively by pinpointing exactly what they offer to a certain geographic region.
With service area pages, local businesses are able to tailor their products or services to areas within a city, county, state or country.
Additionally, service area pages help with search engine optimization as information from the page can be picked up by search engines and used to serve up more accurate results for people looking for services in their area.
At the end of the day, service area pages make it easier for local businesses to promote themselves and reach their customers – making them an invaluable tool for any business hoping to succeed locally!
Google Business Profiles are like the yellow pages of the internet world. A comprehensive list of all businesses, including name, address, associated keyword tags, contact information, and basic info about the services offered.
It’s an invaluable resource for consumers and a strategic tool for savvy business owners looking to maximize their online presence.
Google Business Profile is still one of the most reliable ways to boost local SEO strategy – a surefire way to stay one step ahead of the competition in terms of visibility and web traffic.
Integrating citations and link building into a local SEO strategy can seem intimidating at first, but with a bit of know-how, it can do wonders for your search engine ranking.
Citations, or NAP (name, address, phone number) listings, are simply listings of your business profile on local directory sites such as yellowpages, Yelp and the likes – think of them as like a name in the phone book!
Link building is the practice of obtaining links from authoritative websites which point back to yours, which is a key step to improve rankings.
Both strategies should play an important part in any local SEO efforts and when combined can make for some awesome results. So don’t be scared – just dive right in and see what you can achieve!
Local SEO can feel like a complicated jigsaw puzzle, with each piece having some connection to the overall picture. Taking the time to understand each piece of the puzzle and how it fits in is essential for building a successful SEO strategy.
Getting started isn’t hard—you just need an open mind and an eye for detail. With a little practice, you’ll be well on your way to dominating local SEO searches in no time!
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