Newsletter #32

Step Up Your Local SEO Game With These Tips & Tricks From the LocalU Advanced Workshop

November 22, 2017

Whitespark's Monthly Local Search Newsletter

Local InsiderNovember 2017

Local U Advanced in Santa Monica was a great success last week. We've rounded up some tips, advice, and quotes from event speakers that resonated with us (in no particular order). Joy Hawkins (Sterling Sky) For your GMB listing, ensure the landing page you are linking to contains the keywords are you are targeting. This can make a difference for your listings' ability to rank in the pack. Take time to review categories regularly as they are always changing and there may be additional opportunities that come up for your business. If you are reporting spam on Google, you need to show clear, detailed evidence. It’s on you to prove what you are reporting, so use videos and photos.Joel Headly (Patient Pop) Put your JSON-LD in a block at the bottom of your page. Structured data is only as useful as the features it drives in search. Google wants all the information:

Marissa Nordahl & Allyson Wright (Google)

  • Businesses with photos get 40% more requests for directions.

Mike Blumenthal (Blumenthals)

  • “Photos are a conversion factor but not a ranking factor. ” Photo optimization is the cheapest way to get more mileage from your Google My Business listing. 

Aaron Wieche (GetFiveStars)

  • Consumers need to see at least 10+ (average is 34) reviews before they trust the average star rating.

  • Stop obsessing over 5 stars:

Mike Ramsey (Nifty Marketing)

  • Get more targeted reviews: 

For even more local advice from the event check out #localu on Twitter and stay tuned to the Whitespark blog for a detailed post.Cheers,Team Whitespark

From the Blog

The Reputation Builder now monitors your reviews on more than 20 third party sites! Keep a close eye on both mainstream and industry-specific review sites.

Around The Web

 

Facebook has rebranded their standalone events app to "Facebook Local". The update combines events and permanent places into a single search engine. If promoted by Facebook this could become the alternative to Yelp or Foursquare. 

The team at CXL teamed up with Belron® International to study the impact that review stars have in search engine result pages. This study showed that review stars improved click-through rates by up to 35%! Ben Labay shares the study details and findings in this post. 

Check out Brian Dean's latest resource guide for upping your SEO game in 2018. These are tested strategies that are have helped businesses dominate the SERP's. 

Can using Google Posts for your GMB listing help move local search rankings for your business? Joy Hawkins shares the results of a recent case study trying to determine this. 

Apparently, Yelp will go to all measures to stop the practice of asking for customer reviews on its site and other third-party review sites as well. 

Don't let misconceptions about PPC or CPC advertising deter you from incorporating a paid advertising strategy for your local business. Carrie Hill shows you some options available for hyper-local targeting that are simple to implement. 

Thinking about creating a site through Google My Business? Before you do, check out this extensive research by Bill Hatzer. He points out a lot interesting observations, causes for concern, and you can access his full analysis for free. 

In this Local U Deep Dive you can listen to Darren and Nyagoslav discuss the 2017 Local Search Ecosystem in great detail. 

Upcoming Conferences

DIGITAL SUMMIT December 5-6, 2017Dallas, TX

GROWTH MARKETING CONFERENCEDecember 6-7, 2017San Francisco, CA