I’ve chipped in my 2c from time to time on the recent discussions, but having read back even a week or two I see small businesses being advised to do some pretty ridiculous stuff.  Its nuts – people are being advised by “experts” to churn out thousands of pages (one per town) just to target different locations. 

I can see the logic from a marketing point of view – conducting local campaigns offline requires location specific targeting – fair enough.  But do we really need mom n’ pop sites creating what are essentially doorway pages to target local areas?  That’s just going to lead to a world of pain for them.

I wrote an article on optimising for local terms a while back and I generally point people to that – I think that’s a pretty good start for small businesses to begin with as it doesn’t directly lead the less savvy to the conclusion that they need to churn out loads of content to target loads of local terms.

That’s the key IMO – keeping the less savvy tamed so they don’t run off and do something silly (which is perhaps one of the most common causes of SEO problems for small businesses – DIY SEO gone awry)…

• Tell people they need keywords on the page – that can lead to keyword stuffing or hidden text.
• Tell people they need different pages to target different keywords – that can lead to doorway pages or crap content pages.

We need to educate our market – but we need to educate responsibly

The amount of rubbish that is being sold as “fact” around the SEO world is becoming ridiculous.  Just in the past week I’ve seen the following “facts” being posted on forums by people offering professional SEO services:

1. Big directories aren’t well optimised – they just rank well because of their homepage PR.
2. Directories are well optimised – you need to add more keywords to your page to compete.
3. Keyword domains rank better than non keyword domains.
4. Just get deep links to compete with larger sites targeting local areas.
5. The more pages you have the more keywords you can target.  I have thousands of pages for (mid competitive key term) one for each town in the UK.

OK, these aren’t necessarily bad statements – but taken in context they can be very dangerous for small businesses.

These statements are made by low experience SEOs probably based on some mild success they’ve had.  Fair enough – but in most cases the advice is grossly inappropriate for the situation – the SEOs simply don’t have a sufficient understanding of how search works to be able to give out solid advice…

1. Yeh, big directories may have a strong homepage PR – that doesn’t necessarily mean that all their local rankings are a consequence of that.  Sending out this message to a small business will only result on them embarking on a quest for PR which would be a fools errand and potentially risky (if they start messing with paid links, cross linking sites, hording PR and so on).
2. Yeh, some directories may be well optimised but telling a small business site to add more keywords to their page is plain stupid.  There’s a sweet spot to hit with on page optimisation and if you don’t make that clear to small businesses they WILL take it to extremes.
3. Yeh, keyword domains may rank better than non keyword domains – that’s just down to people linking to them using the site name (keywords).  Sending out this message will see small businesses sacrificing branding and reputation for keyword domains which is crazy talk.
4. Yeh, deep links can help certain campaigns but they aren’t a prerequisite for success and IMO are entirely unnecessary for UK local campaigns (with the exceptions being high population areas or high £££ markets).  Why send small businesses out looking for deep links when solid on page optimisation and decent homepage link building will suffice in most cases?  This one particularly annoys me as I see “deep linking” being presented as a solution for poor site architecture or on page SEO all the time.
5. Yeh, the more pages you have, the more terms you can target.  But do you really want to have 1000 pages conveying a single message?  How much variation in content can you really achieve?  I don’t care how superb your copy is – if you have 1000 pages saying the same thing it is spam.  The guy suggesting this had his SEO site targeting obscure towns – the pages (optimised for SEO + town terms) had decent copy – but it was all irrelevant (non SEO) information like the population and history of the town.  How is that a good result?  And same problem again – 9 out of 10 small businesses won’t go to the lengths of writing decent copy on this level – it will just be regurgitated crap which ends up as a crap result for searchers.  See my article on SEO agency copywriting sins too!

The key problems:

• Inexperienced SEOs offering opinion as fact. 
• Inexperienced businesses taking SEO too far.

These are issues that really need to be addressed.  There was a time that almost 50% of my consultancy business came from fixing other peoples work – that is not a good state of affairs for our industry to be in.

The problem is that it is easy for anyone to build up credibility as a SEO on non SEO forums – there’s generally a similar level of SEO knowledge and experience on the forums and it’s not like the advice given out is bad – it’s more that the manner in which it’s given out is inappropriate.

Here’s my suggestion for a solution:

All you experienced SEOs out there – take the time every now and again to visit your preferred local / small business forums and help out answering a few questions.   It’s not like the noise factor on some SEO forums – small business owners are all usually very grateful and if we do it enough then perhaps we can undo some of the damage done by the less than reputable members of our industry.

And as for all you folks with less SEO experience - I’m not saying don’t help people out – all I’m saying is that we really do need to be careful how we give out advice.  Small businesses asking for advice are usually about to attempt some DIY SEO – the responsible thing to do is to ensure all the risks are outlined and that you really are confident that what you are saying is accurate (if not, just say so – that’s the right thing to do). 

Small business SEO advice is a very delicate process – it’s not like people are optimising a blog or Adsense site that they can chuck away if it goes wrong – in a lot of cases their business website is core to their living – you need to treat it with that level of respect, especially if you are selling yourself as an SEO professional.

Lastly, to all those non-SEOs-but-like-to-dish-out-advice-because-they-optimised-their-own-blog – stop it!  I don’t care if you got your poxy little site to number 1 for a competitive term – that doesn’t make you an SEO and it’s incredibly arrogant to assume you are qualified to hand out advice.  Yes, you!  The “SEO is easy” crowd.  I mean, seriously, I’ve seen professional printers advising small businesses reliant on their site to change their existing site to Wordpress because “they once optimised a blog and got some traffic”.  Just stop it.  Yes, you people who self-scored a 6 on the SEOmoz level of SEO professional test even though you’ve only ever optimised your own crappy little blog.  Stop it now!

Scott

 

Pretty neat huh?  I’m seeing the additional search box added to quite a few SERPs today – seems to be only for site names just now.  I know TheBestOf use the Google Search Appliance for internal searches and I also see the search box on results for Youtube, Amazon and a few other big names.

Searching using the additional search box simply carries out a Google search for the keywords + site:domain.com, rather than producing customised search results from the company using the the search appliance (which would have been cool).

What’s worrying is that it is a slight step onto the toes of webmasters here.

• Say someone searches for your company name and they get this secondary search box that prompts them to “search your site”.
• Say then they decide to search your site.
• How do you feel about them getting these results:

Yup, 10 nice local results in what is essentially a refined site: search.

Explain to me the relevancy of that for users please Google?  They search for a business by name and instead of serving the right information, Google prompts to refine the search and plasters in some more results from other sites.

I guess as a new feature it’s pretty cool, but you have to wonder if everyone will be happy about the potential use for this.  It’s all very well Google setting out on a mission to index the web, but surely there has been a line crossed when Google can potentially show results from your competitors when a Google user is…

1. Specifically searching for YOUR business…
2. Wanting to search YOUR site…

What do you think?  Would Search Engine Watch be happy if a user used their site search and was returned results from Sphinn? Hmmm.

Scott

This new scheme looks pretty cool and seems to be somewhat of a competing service to Google’s Universal Search / Local Search / etc.  Check out the screenshot on the Y! blog – basically it means your Yahoo! search results could include more features and deep links to your site, including reviews, photos, contact details and price information.

From the Yahoo! blog:

Because the platform is open it gives all Web site owners — big or small — an opportunity to present more useful information on the Yahoo! Search page as compared to what is presented on other search engines. Site owners will be able to provide all types of additional information about their site directly to Yahoo! Search. So instead of a simple title, abstract and URL, for the first time users will see rich results that incorporate the massive amount of data buried in websites — ratings and reviews, images, deep links, and all kinds of other useful data — directly on the Yahoo! Search results page.

Not only is this an interesting (and pretty clever) move from Yahoo!, it also indicates a shift for the future of search and search engine optimisation.  I love the revised look for the Y! search results – I think this rolled out to the live SERPs would be a great change for Yahoo! and will most likely force the hand of MSN and Google who will need to keep up (although in fairness, Google has led the way in the past with new features like this).

It will take a bold step from any search engine to make the move from old school SERPs to new SERPs – Google have gone some of the way over the past year or two, but having been playing it relatively safe by keeping everything under the “beta banner”.

More doors opened though, means more ways for people to spam!  I know Google Local do keep a tight control of data that powers local results in listings – but that’s just a few big sites providing most of the information, with loads of small sites providing a small proportion of the listings.  By allowing webmasters to dictate so much data that will be reflected in live SERPs, Yahoo! could be setting themselves up for a lot of work to keep a solid level of quality control over the process. 

A lot of work?  Yes, but I do think it is entirely within the realms of any of the big search engines to manage this well – and I also really do think they should do it.  

For SEOs it could make for an interesting future.  More data to play with + more control over SERPs = great for us.  But think about it:  more data on page 1 = less people browsing to page 2 (or even to below the fold on page 1).  Where title tags influence click through rates now, user reviews, contact details and other supplementary information might influence CTR in the future.

Not a bad thing, but certainly may offer a larger challenge for the Internet marketing community.  What do you reckon?

Sign up for more information about the release here and WebmasterWorld discussion here.

Scott

(minor gripe – why do Yahoo! still have a link to Threadwatch on the blog roll?)

I’ve seen a few examples lately where people simply have tried to replicate the same content for countless local areas and all they have done is change the town name.  This doesn’t work…

The main reason this is the wrong approach is the obvious duplicate content issue that it creates – in fact, I’d call this a rookie mistake.  You simply can’t rank the same content on different pages for different keywords.  This was the standard technique used by autogenerated spam sites back in 2002 – 2003 before Google really started clamping down on duplicate issues.

So local SEO then – what’s the best approach?

Well, keeping the duplicate content issue in mind, consider that Google doesn’t want people to find the same content (using different URLs) for different searches, but finding one page for different searches is OK (when the page is relevant).

So that leaves your business with two clear options:

1. Optimise a single page for multiple local terms.
2. Optimise multiple pages for your terms, but keep the content different on each.

Let’s look at both approaches to check out the best approach you can take to apply both to your site.  In the interests of keeping it simple, let’s assume our site is a small business offering services in their home town and surrounding areas.

1.  Optimising a single page for multiple local terms

This is easier than it sounds.  Remember most local search terms aren’t that competitive (as there can be minimal traffic there), so you don’t need to go the full hog in terms “on page optimisation”.

- Optimising your “about us” page

A good page to optimise is your “about us” page.  Naturally you have some copy on the page that tells your visitors about your business and through the process of writing this you have also included notable key terms (your business industry, your services).  Ideally we want to target our “about us” page with our main key term + local areas.  So this will most likely be our main service and the keyword that has been targeted on the homepage.

Let’s assume for this example that the keyword is “widget services”.  We want to target this in our Page Title, Meta Keywords and Meta Description, as well as including the phrase within our body copy and potentially even H# headings – but let’s avoid being too “SEO” about it – no need to go overboard with keyword density – write good copy first!

So your “about us” page has a couple of paragraphs about your business – next we add in a second section entitled “areas we cover”.  Very easy – all we need to do here is add a short sentence or two explaining these are the areas that our business can service.  Then a simple bulleted list with local town names.

In our example (small business servicing only a few areas) this will look clean and not too spammy as the list will be short.  All we need to do next is add those town names to our Meta Keywords and that’s us done.  Very basic local search engine optimisation to cover our service areas.

NOTE:  Obviously certain business areas will be more competitive so this very mild version of SEO will be less effective, but it is a good starting point.

- Optimising your testimonials page

Very easy again – one or two pages with client testimonials – the testimonial copy naturally contains your target keywords (write it yourself and ask your clients to OK it) – simply sign each testimonial off with “A. Person, Business Name, Town, Region”.

If you have enough testimonials then split them down to separate pages and try to get clients from different regions and towns to sing your praises.

One note here – while a testimonial page is a pretty good landing page for a searcher (they are instantly exposed to good vibes about your company), it’s worth ending the page with a small paragraph or navigation area directing users to your service pages.  The user process should be natural – search for a local service > find your page > read your testimonials > find out about your services.  Don’t make it hard for them to get to the last part.

2. Optimise multiple pages for your terms, but keep the content different on each.

This is tougher, but there are a few simple things you can do to start off with:

1. Include your address details on every page.  This is good to help increase user confidence in your business as well as adding local town and region keywords to your pages.
2. When writing copy for your service pages – add in some real life examples of your product or service use and try to include a local town name within the anecdote.
3. As long as you aren’t targeting dozens of town names, it can be OK to add a small tagline to each page stating “We offer widget services in the following areas: one, two, three, etc“.  Anything more than a handful of terms will look rubbish though.

The hard part is when you need to target a lot of town names and are really struggling when writing content for them.  Here are some ideas:

1. Create a page for each region and breakdown your town’s covered on that page.  It’s easier to write unique content for 6 regions rather than 60 towns.
2. Include directions to your business for each location – this is all unique content.
3. Do an “office overview” with some staff bios for each of your locations – this will give you plenty of content so you can target local areas on different pages.
4. As said before, include client testimonials on each local page.
5. Grab some news feeds for your local area and stick them on your locally targeted pages – TheBestOf offers RSS feeds for every local town in the UK (eg, TheBestOf Solihull or TheBestOf Ireland).  This adds a little more content to each page and keeps them all relatively unique.

If you are so inclined, you can also get a little bit creative when creating your local pages:

1. Create an area on each page that randomly displays a product or service – this varies the content on each page.
2. Do the same for staff, news, events, product use tips and so on.

Dynamically adding content to otherwise boring and static pages can really brighten them up and add useful information for users as well!

The bottom line

Local search engine optimisation isn’t that hard – you just need to have a good look at how your business and website approaches local marketing and decide which approach to SEO you want to take.  From there, it’s really just a case of coming up with the ideas.

MG

Accountants in Edinburgh:

Electricians in Solihull:

I’ve seen these results in random local searches before but as of today they are showing in pretty much any town or city search I’ve tried so far.  Looks like local search on Google just got a little bit more competitive – it’s the top spot or nothing now guys!  Let the spam begin!

Now with a standard screen resolution, there are only 2 organic results on the page before you have to scroll down – and around 12 paid for results (Google Local + Adsense) – I guess you can buy your way into Google after all!

ADDED:  Google Blog mention it today as well. 

MG

ADDED:  I’ve knocked together a local search engine optimisation guide – anyone looking at local SEO for their site should check it out.