SEO Copywriting is a critical facet of online marketing. We are constantly giving our writers SEO copywriting tips to help them deliver better content for our customers.
SEO Copywriting Tips from RoboScribe
As such, we’re going to start giving SEO copywriting tips right here. Some of these content tips may be more applicable to our writers, some may be appropriate for the general public.
Writers: Please give us your feedback and let us know if there’s anything you’d like our guidance on. Chances are if you have an SEO copywriting question there are many others who share that concern.
And please, feel free to share your tips in the comments.
For a while now, Google has been showing “Related Places” AKA “The Competition in places view.
Google Related Places – AKA The Competition
While looking at the results for one of our clients who has recently opened a new office for his law practice in a New Orleans LA suburb I came across this.
Paginated Google Places Results
Clearly Google is trying to offer some alternative results for “Metairie Divorce” than our guy Will Beaumont at 3814 Veterans Memorial Blvd #302, Metairie, LA 70002 – (504) 834-1117.
You’ll have to click through as I can’t figure out how to link directly.
Beyond going down the page to look at the “Related Places” (AKA “The Competition”) you can now conveniently scroll through them. And, better still, hovering over your searched for phrase at the top of the page gets you this drop-down list.
Select Your Competitor – Google Places Drop-Down List
It’s always interesting to see the outcome of the annual “Local Search Ranking Factors” study. As contributors we have strong opinions about many elements, and like you, we’re always learning as well.
Now that we’ve had a chance to review, we’ve identified:
Places where we agree
Criteria where, for us, the jury is out
Things we question
The Top Ten from This Year’s Local Search Ranking Factors Study:
Physical Address in City of Search
Manually Owner-verified Place Page
Proper Category Associations
Volume of Traditional Structured Citations (IYPs, Data Aggregators)
Crawlable Address Matching Place Page Address
PageRank / Authority of Website Homepage / Highest Ranked Page
Quality of Inbound Links to Website
Crawlable Phone Number Matching Place Page Phone Number
Local Area Code on Place Page
City, State in Places Landing Page Title
Identified Factors We Are Totally Behind
Pure Local – This is defined as results in maps.google.com and on Google.com when a 2, 3 or 7 pack exist
Place Pages criteria – those changes you can make to your Place Page
Sara Tweedy: ”A business’s Place Page is the foundation of a business’ online local presence. {don’t love this image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matsuyuki/198736304/} The targeted, specific criteria on the Place Page is essential to Google understanding what your business does”. These criteria include:
proper categorization of services/products your business provides
explicit, developed usage of the details section
basic optimization including pictures and video.
A complete Place Page sets the groundwork for a stellar local presence, which will then allow for higher rankings.
Off Site / Off Place Page
Sara Tweedy: Volume of citations is an integral component of any local presence. Citations reinforce a business’s name, address and phone number to Google. It is a necessity to obtain many authoritative citations to back up a Place Page. Without these citations, Google won’t give the deserved credibility to your business. Tweedy says, “When discussing the most recommended factors in the results of the survey, I was a little concerned that NAP consistency did not make the list. Ask anyone that works here, I am a consistency pusher. It is imperative that a business’ NAP is consistent EVERYWHERE it is seen online, and it should all feed back to the Place Page. When this does not happen, it could lead to a convoluted local presence, and will ultimately wreak havoc on rankings. “
Reviews
Amy Arnold comments, “We found that velocity, in other words, a consistent review pattern over time, is much more important than sheer volume, i.e. loading in a whole bunch at the beginning and never having reviews after that.”
Reviews are an important Local Search Ranking Factor, but in our experience website criteria may play a stronger role than volume of reviews. By no means do we suggest Reviews are unimportant. But perhaps not as strong a factor in our collective minds as website criteria. Paula Keller states, “With the new integrated or “blended” results Google rolled out in October 2010, the organic strength of your website and the correlation between the information it displays and your Place page is more important than ever in local.”
Website Criteria
In going through the Local Search Ranking Factors 2011 from David, we discussed website factors passionately! One opinion put forth was that if your phone number on site is crawlable, it best match the Place Page. I think we can all agree on this. The preference is to have the phone number crawlable on-site and accurate match.
To have the City, State in the landing page appears to be a strong factor. We have done some testing on this; it’s not 100% conclusive, but it seems to be a positive move with some qualifications.
Clearly, there are dependencies on the client’s industry and market.
For example, besides the Pizza Hut, pizza places are not super competitive in a city of <100,000 population, so we have had some obvious success with this technique with a locally-owned-pizza-franchise client in moderate sized market. As soon as the City-State landing page rolled live, the client experienced a nice bump in rankings within 1 week:
keyword 1 jumped 4 positions in ranking from position 8 to 4
keyword 2 jumped 6 positions in ranking from position 12 to 6
keyword 3 was just added to the site and already stands at position 7
Fast and effective – we like.
However, a personal injury attorney (read: highly competitive) in one of the top 30 metro areas in the country (read: more highly competitive), didn’t see as much obvious success. It strengthened the attorney’s site and Place Page, but didn’t have as immediate and noticeable impact as the pizza place.
keyword 1 — 6th, was 7th
keyword 2 — 9th, was 10th
keyword 3 — 13th, was 16th
keyword 4 — 15th was nowhere
We do have some pretty strong feelings about the strength of the website and it’s influence on the total local-online package. Website strength has so many factors:
domain age (always good)
internal links
on-site optimization
external linking
diverse and unique content on-site, etc.
All of these factors have to be built over time, and a young business with a young domain may not have all of these elements created yet. Domain age is not directly the sole effect on site authority; it’s all of the online authority that is built over time. With age comes wisdom, or … with age comes authority.
I was having a conversation today with one of our clients for whom we do Yellow Pages SEO, and I swear I was transported back to the year 2000. It’s amazing to me that more than a decade after Yellow Pages companies first started getting their feet wet on the internet, they still don’t quite get it.
“Trading print dollars for Internet dimes,” they say.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. The online opportunities are immense for well established brands like the Yellow Pages for SEO, websites, paid search advertising, social media. With feet on the street combined with the power of SEO, the Yellow Pages, if they could ever get their act together, would eat our lunch.
Some of you may not be aware of my history. In fact, I’ll bet that the majority of you aren’t aware of my history.
First things first – I’m old. I’m over 40, live my life on the Internet, and I’m an avid user of Social Media. I represent a growing demographic online. And I remember when the Yellow Pages were a valued and viable advertising medium.
For the first six years of the Internet as we know it, I built websites. I put my first website online in 1994.
At first it was simple sites for individual clients who thankfully knew less than I did. They must have, because they paid me. And then I built database driven sites used for things like distance learning, e-commerce, digital uploads, and much more functional uses.
Then I got to lead a team. We cranked out literally 2,500+ websites in the span of two or three years. In fact, we built a very early content management system, and I personally wrote the code for the first CRM I ever worked on. That content management system is actually still running today, believe it or not.
Oh yeah, that company, it was founded by a guy who got his start in Yellow Pages. In fact, my boss at the time was a visionary. He knew the internet was hurtling toward print media like a meteor. He was just a little ahead of his time.
Oh Yellow Pages, Wither Goest Thou?
After my boss, later my partner, successfully blew through $1 million with little to show for it, we had to switch gears. We built Yellow Pages online. We took the data files from those old dusty books and turned them into the online Yellow Pages.
It seemed to us at the time that the best way to transition publishers from print to online was to make an online version of the book that looked just like the Yellow Pages. SEO barely existed in those days. This was pre-Google. Our idea of optimizing for search included renaming the domain name 1A-whatever.com, submitting to directories, and stuffing the keywords meta-tags with anything even vaguely relevant.
And then came Google.
We had to figure out how to make those big fat sites that looked like Yellow Pages rank well in Google. And we did it.
Our team took the Sprint Yellow Pages from 0 to 1 million unique visitors a month in 18 months. We were so good we were actually profitable. And along came another company who, interested in our customers and our profitability, bought our company.
Yellow Pages companies of the day realized, many as early as the late 90s, that print was dying. They realized that to remain viable businesses they had to take advantage of their one real asset.
Yellow Pages have feet on the street and long relationships with advertisers. IRL.
Sellin' Yellow Euro Style
So first we sold online Yellow Pages, then we built online Yellow Pages. Yes, that’s right, we sold them before we built them. So what came next for the Yellow Pages? SEO.
We sold them, we built them, and now we had to get them traffic. And now they’re all hooked. They can’t walk away from the Internet. In some cases it’s about all they’ve got.
So a decade later, I’m talking to one of our Yellow Pages customers, and he’s got his sales force in the field trading print dollars for Internet dimes.
If only he’d come to us when he was pricing the product. We could have shown him how Yellow Pages SEO and websites can be profitable. We know from experience that, if done well, our customers trade print dollars for Internet dollars.
And the Yellow Pages knows how to sell the value! Yellow Pages have been proving the value through call tracking numbers and metrics for decades. But here again, in this “new” medium, they forget what they’re good at.
My favorite slogan from the Yellow Pages was “making phones ring and doors swing”. With those six words they told the merchant “we’re here to bring you new business”. And they weren’t afraid to prove it.
These days, the Yellow Pages, SEO, and websites are really just an extension of the old message. With 60% of searches demonstrating some kind of the local intent, it’s still about making phones ring and doors swing.
Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me Yellow Pages sales reps can’t sell online marketing.
What’s that sound? Sounds like phones ringing and doors swinging.
Never Forgive, Never Forget The Meteor
What do you think? Can the dinosaur get out of the way of the meteor?
Last week I had the pleasure of presenting on Social Media Analytics at SEMpdx SearchFest.
Most of our customers have no interest in Likes and Followers for their own sake. What we’re interested in most is Leads. In other words, do our Social Media Analytics enable us to track actionable data, most importantly, leads?
This post is republished here since the site on which it was originally published is now offline. Originally published. Many of the examples are no longer valid, but I hope the screenshots are still useful.
Barnacle SEO for everyone.
In the time since this was originally published, our number New Orleans SEO agency has gone from working almost exclusively with local small businesses to practicing Barnacle SEO on a much larger scale. Our clients today include higher education and healthcare concerns for whom the barnacles are bigger and more plentiful.
Every industry has an opportunity to leverage directories, high-authority sites, and more to catch those searchers floating by in the current.
Small business owners are generally a frugal lot.
Of course there are some who’ve got the budget to invest heavily as long as they see a return, but what about those who don’t?A long time ago someone coined the phrase “Parasite SEO” talking about the abuse of Blogger and WordPress.com to get better search term positioning. I love the term, but “parasite” is just so ugly sounding. I prefer “Barnacle SEO”.
Barnacle SEO: attaching oneself to a large fixed object and waiting for the customers to float by in the current.
As we know, there are lots of large trusted sites out there which by virtue of all those factors we know and love take very little coaxing to rank well for long-tail phrases.
And if I’ve said it once I’ve said it 1000 times “local search IS long tail search”.
So, here’s a few of those large fixed objects:
Merchant Circle (just kidding — here’s their site)
Local profiles have a lot of benefit for Barnacle SEO. In many instances they play supporting roles — helping to increase the number of web references or “citations” as David likes to call them.
The following examples are from real, Main Street, clients who pay less than $500.00 / month for SEO services. Obviously these are not our most competitive categories, but we’ve found that for many small businesses it doesn’t take a lot to move the needle.
Clearly we could, and will over time, better optimize the profile pages themselves. And amazingly, in one of these cases the site uses a bad CMS so we can’t even control the on-page content.
Merchant Circle and Yahoo in supporting roles:
Notice the client, Puroclean RI, has top billing in both Organic and on the Map for “Property Damage Rhode Island“, even with a very bad title tag, and is present with both Merchant Circle and Yahoo! Local listings. So, with a little Barnacle SEO we’ve got 30% of page 1 (and this is just one of many search terms) without breaking the bank.
Merchant Circle in a leading role:
As you can see, with the Merchant Circle listing we have 2 of the top 3 for “Accounting Firm Louisiana” for ASU, LLC in Metairie LA. And this one is very early in our process. Within 60 days or so we would expect his listing to supplant the Merchant Circle listing and hopefully knock out that top one as well.
Sara Palin Taking Aim on those Barnacles
Like all SEO it’s not a case of “build it and they will come”, each of these listings needs to be cultivated, and promoted around the web.
But, as the above demonstrate a little bit can go a long way when you first attach yourself to a big heavy object.
With Barnacle SEO, even a Sam’s Club shopper can compete with the Neiman Marcus set in local search engine optimization.
Will Scott is president and founder of Search Influence a website promotion company in New Orleans, LA focused on local search engine optimization for small business.
We’d like to congratulate the winner, chosen at random, from our respondents to the first-ever Foursquare advertiser study.
Environmental Education Programs – The Urban Ecology Center
In order to be completely fair, we picked the entry at the halfway point (#65 of 130 respondents). And the lucky winner was Jeff McAvoy of the Urban Ecology Center.
Social Media Widget
The Urban Ecology Center offers Environmental Education Programs for Milwaukee residents in two Milwaukee County parks. These guys are clearly very social media savvy with a presence on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn and an email list.
As we speak, a $200.00 gift card is speeding to Mr. McAvoy just for taking part in our survey.
We’d like to thank all the survey participants for helping out!
But wait, there’s more! As it turns out, we have very little time to refresh the data for comparison for next week’s SMX East. Please, please, please, if you get our email, TAKE THE SURVEY!
Thanks again to Jeff, everyone who took the last survey and those of you about to take the revised survey!
This is the first of what I hope will become a regular series in which you, our readers, get to know a little more about the most important thing at Search Infleunce, our team members.
Rodney Hess keeping Angie Scott entertained at our night out on / at Oak
Rodney Hess is on our Account Management team, supporting Paula Keller and maintaining customer relationships and strategy for his own group of customers. Additionally, Rodney is the guy who is leading the charge to get our other teammates (you know who you are) to blog more. In fact, due to Rodney’s efforts, a brand-new team member Sara Soriano penned her first post in her first week on the job (way to go Sara)!
Rodney is a fine fellow, quick-witted and very involved. In addition to his support of our clients, Rodney is a videographer, occasionally helps with video projects in-house, a husband and a very strong contributor to our team.
I asked Rodney to do the first of these profiles for a couple reasons. In addition to being our blogging cheerleader / whip-cracker, he is one of our most prolific bloggers. And, in support of his cheerleading efforts he has produced a series of composite images which are hilarious and I needed an excuse to blog about them. So without further ado, Rodney in his own words (and images):
I Want You to Write Blog Posts
So, Rodney, what do you do around here?
My official title is Account Associate but I like to think of myself as a budding account whiz and blogger extraordinaire.
What excites you about coming to work each day?
I’m a laid back guy and I dig the similar vibe of the office. Nobody takes themselves too seriously, which allows me to make a fool of myself on a weekly basis through these pics.
Please Sir May I have Another Blog Post
What do you think are your greatest contributions?
To the office? I’m always willing to help anyone out and thrive on being a “go-to” guy. To the human race? I am an incredibly considerate person and I show it. I also have a never-ending thirst for knowledge and love sharing it with people. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy being the blog guy so much. I suppose the two answers are one in the same.
All Work And No Play Makes Rod A Dull Boy
What would you like to do more of?
In a perfect world I would sit around, write blog posts and edit videos all day. I also thrive in a collaborative environment and I love brainstorming, which is probably why I enjoy SEO so much.
What are you some kind of wise guy?
I prefer the term “Goodfella,” thank you very much.
Say Hello to My Little Blog
Do you feel like your efforts to motivate your colleagues to blog are working?
They were at first. When I initially started I got a few bites, mainly from the newbies. Now I think I’m doing it for my own amusement, which is fine with me. If I can make myself laugh, I’ve succeeded. Being a married man I’ve gotten used to it by now.
I'll Get You My Pretty… And Your Little Blog Too
What do you think we as an organization could do to get greater buy-in from the team to blog?
The simplest answer: if you want a greater buy-in, you have to “buy them.” If it isn’t in the job description, people are less inclined to volunteer. However, if there is some sort of gain- say, blog with the most comments gets a prize- they may be more inclined. It sounds kind of childish, but it works. B.F. Skinner, reinforcement, all that jazz.
I've Always Depended on The Kindness of Bloggers
I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Rodney for all his hard work on the blog, both blogging and motivating his fellows to put it all out there.
We are exceptionally fortunate to have such a strong and conscientious team at Search Influence and I will take the opportunity to eventually profile every one of them.
And finally, I want to be clear, the images associated with this post are 100% a product of Rodney’s immense creativity. We’re very happy to have it on loan for as long as we do.
CityGrid Media, who recently invested significantly in Orange Soda (an SEO/PPC firm out of Utah) has chosen to use the favored tactic of Nigerian princes and Offshore Link-Exchangers to drum up business for their new partner Orange Soda.
CityGrid Media (Orange Soda) Form Spam Image
I’m very surprised to see this kind of thing from a company of this stature.
I’m glad to see that the address is in New York and not American Fork Utah as I’m fairly confident the folks I’ve known at Orange Soda wouldn’t condone this behavior.
Full text of email message follows:
Good afternoon, I wanted to reach out to you about your placement in online search. Citygrid is the largest local content and marketing network on the web. I noticed that you are not populating on the major search engines for a few key search terms. Your competition is capitalizing on this and I wanted to discuss how to take some of this market share. We gain placement on Google, Bing, and Yahoo and offer clients 86% of the local web. As part of our SEO, SEM, (Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing) and content network campaigns we provide phone call tracking, stats, and other comprehensive data to directly track ROI. We will optimize your website to come up on the first page of Google, driving people looking for your services to your business. I’d like to set up a time to speak about this and go over your options to determine if this would be a good fit for your business. Please reach out with your availability. Thank you. Best, x-x-x-x Senior Account Executive P: 212-373-7798 F: 213-351-7011 E: [email protected] www.CityGridMedia.com 555 West 18th St. 5th Floor New York, NY 10011 The largest content and marketing network on the web
This is shameful behavior from a reputable company. I expect better of both CityGrid and Orange Soda.
Website strength has so many factors:
