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Local SEO

Step By Step Guide to Local SEO

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SEO Infographic

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If you run a local business then you don’t need us to tell you how competitive it is out there these days.

You’ve been running a local business for years. You work really hard and your customers love you. You love what you do and you’re a proud member of your local business community.

But there’s one thing that’s really bugging you. You’ve noticed that some newer competitors have sprung up and they seem to be getting the top rankings in the search engines.

How are they doing that? You’ve been around for years – surely you should be getting the top ranking.

But you’re really busy and the online marketing side of things isn’t really your thing.

But what if I told you that there is a predictable formula for getting top ranking that you can use.

Now I know you might be skeptical about this. You might be thinking that this is either going to be too complicated, too time consuming or too expensive.

But bear with us. I’ve prepared a step by step process that anyone can do. You can do it in your own time and at your own pace and it will give you amazing results.

So, are you ready to claim the top ranking in your area? Well read on because it’s all here in our Definitive Guide to Local SEO – print it off, stick it on the wall where you’ll see it and just tick off each step as you do it.

 

Set up And Optimize Local Listings

Here we’re talking Google My Business, Bing Places for Business and Yahoo Local.

But don’t just create your listing and think it’s done. You need to optimize it fully. That means adding all the information possible. As well as the obvious like name, address, hours of business and a map you need to add all the extras like keywords, photos and videos.

Get Reviews

Do a search on your industry and town in Google. Notice something that the top ranked sites have in common? You got it – reviews. The websites with the top listings generally have more reviews.

Just get into the habit of asking for reviews. Start with your best clients. You know who they are and the chances are they’d jump at the chance to give you five stars.

Don’t go crazy in the first week and get fifty reviews though or Google might think you’re trying to game the system. Just commit to picking up reviews steadily over time.

Get NAP Citations

NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone. Citations are just mentions of your business in local business listings that Google trusts.

Most of these are free but some will charge a fee. You need to make sure that your listings are correct and up to date so if you change your address or phone, be sure to update these.

There are dozens, even hundreds of NAP sites to choose from. Again, no need to go crazy, just choose the ones you want to go for each month and get listed there. Easy!

Industry/Niche Directories

Is there a specific industry directory that you can get listed in? Run a search in Google for them. Also check where your competitors are getting listed.

Getting listed in these directories sends strong signals to Google that you are in that industry or sector.

Maybe you have a professional or industry accreditation. Again, check these because they will usually offer you a free listing as part of your accreditation.

Or are you a member of a trade association. Again, double check these as they are quick easy wins for getting a valuable trusted link back to your site.

Create Separate Service Specific Pages

Check that you have a separate page for EVERY service that you offer. Don’t bunch them together on one generic ‘Services’ page.

The reason is that you mustn’t spread your content to thinly. If you have a particular page for each service then that sends a strong signal to Google to present that page when someone is searching for that service.

For example, if you are an printer and you offer lithographic printing, digital printing, poster printing, business card printing, t-shirt printing, etc., create individual pages for each rather than one page listing them all.

Add Content To Your Pages

Now that you have individual pages you need to add more content to them. A minimum of 500 words, but ideally 1000 words. Yes, you read that correctly.

Why? Google loves long pages with loads of relevant content.

Where do you get all that content? It’s probably on your hard drive, in your outbox, or up in your head.

Look at presentations you’ve done or think of frequently asked questions. Or just have an imaginary conversation with a prospective new client and write out the answers to the questions. This type of content is perfect for your service pages.

Optimize All Pages

Don’t let the jargon worry you. Optimization is just the process of presenting your website’s pages so that Google understands them.

Use the following list to guide you:

  • Identify a keyword for each page (printer in TOWN)
  • Create Metatags for each page (these just tell Google what that page is about)
  • Add the keyword to the URL of each page (e.g. www.yourdomain.com/digital-printing-TOWN)
  • Create an H1 Heading with the keyword for that page (Headings are like the ones you use in Microsoft Word or Google Docs to give structure to the page)
  • Add your keywords to the text in a natural way and around 2 to 3% of the total text
  • Link to the other pages from the text

Get Some Backlinks

Backlinks are when other websites link to your website. Google notices this and good links are a major factor in your ranking. Start with easy backlink wins. Things like:

  • Your social media profiles allow you to link to your website
  • Give testimonials to local suppliers and say they can link back to you to demonstrate it’s a genuine testimonial
  • Consider high authority paid directories like Business.com

Get Fast, Secure Hosting

These days Google prefers faster, more secure websites. In fact both speed and security are Google ranking factors.

For faster hosting look no further than SSD Hosting. SSD stands for Solid State Drive and these are the future of data storage and are hundreds of times faster than traditional hard drives.

For security consider switching to HTTPS by setting up an SSL Certificate.

Go Mobile

The web is going mobile. Mobile is clearly the direction of travel and your customers and prospective customers are no longer just sitting at a desk browsing. They are out and about with their mobiles, tablets and other mobile devices.

Again, Google favors mobile friendly website design, so the sooner you get this sorted out the better.

You can either switch to Responsive Design or if budget is an issue then get a side by side mobile version of your website.

Get Blogging

Google prefers websites with more content. A blog is the best way to achieve this.

WordPress is free and is usually available as a one click install with most hosting companies.

Think of your service pages as being the sales pages of your website but your blog is an ongoing conversation with your customers and prospective customers.

Use your blog to post content of interest such as answering ‘How to’ type questions and use proven types of popular content such as:

  • List based content
  • Expert RoundUps
  • Buyers Guides
  • Product Reviews
  • Local Guides / What’s On Guides
  • Seasonal Content
  • Product / Service comparisons
  • ‘Best Of’ Content
  • Best Practice
  • Case Studies

The important thing is to create content consistently and regularly.

When you create content, make sure you optimize it in the same way you optimize your service pages using the checklist above.

Use Video

Video is very underused by local businesses. But there is a huge opportunity for those local businesses who take the time to create videos.

The reason is that there is much less competition. These days most mobile phones have excellent quality digital cameras so it could be as easy as videoing a quick repair or showing how to do a particular task or a short video where you explain a tip.

Keep them short – one to two minutes is fine. Once you’ve got them upload them to YouTube and then get the embed code from YouTube and add them to a blog post and transcribe the audio into text so that you have more written content.

Conclusion

Getting a high ranking in Google is achievable for any local business. You just need to approach it methodically and patiently.

Start with the local listings and make sure you optimize them. Start to pick up reviews and get them consistently. You’ll need NAP Citations and links from other websites. Start with industry websites and local suppliers.

Make sure you’re not spreading yourself too thinly – create service specific pages and make them long – minimum 500 words. Optimize all of your pages too so that Google can understand the content of each page.

Google like fast, secure websites. Switching to SSD hosting and get HTTPS hosting with TurkReno will give you a tick in each of these boxes.

Google rewards websites that create useful and engaging content on a regular basis. Adding a WordPress Blog section to your site will allow you to do this. Finally, start using video on your blog and include in your blog for extra content.

These are all realistic targets for any small business and over time you will definitely start to see positive results.

If you’d like for us to help you out, take a look at our Local SEO page on our site and grab a free site analysis.

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Website Hosting Server

Website Hosting – What Does It All Mean?

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We understand the terms and products relating to running your own website may be new to many of you. In this section, we will attempt to explain what all of this means in order to assist you in determining which products you need. If, after reading the information contained here you still aren’t sure, you may email us and we will offer recommendations.

Domains
A domain represents the unique name assigned to an organization or individual on the Internet. For instance, we are all familiar with names such as google.com, microsoft.com, and so on. A particular name (domain) may only be owned by one person or company. To use an analogy, a domain represents your “street address” where you live on the Internet.  A domain is the “home” address where a particular website resides.

The domain name is comprised of several parts. The last part of the domain (.com for instance), is referred to as the top-level domain (TLD). In theory, the TLD represents a type of entity: for instance, .com stands for “commercial”. It was originally meant to be for commercial enterprises (business), but has become something of a misnomer as even people with personal websites use the .com TLD.

Other popular TLDs include:

  • .net – originally meant to signify Network orgainzations such as Internet Service Providers (ISP)
  • .edu – Education establishments (colleges/universities)
  • .mil – Military
  • .org – Non-profit organizations
  • .gov – Government organizations
  • .biz – a business
  • .name – individual/person
  • .info – information service There are others as well such as .aero, .pro, .coop, and so on. In addition, there are TLDs assigned to countries (e.g., .ca for Canada).

If you plan to have a website on the Internet, you will need a domain name for that site. If the name you want is already taken, you will have to find a different one. For example, if you wanted the domain CandlesForSale.com, that is already taken. However, the name CandlesForSale.biz is (currently) available. You could select the .biz name, or try to find an alternate such as Candles4sale.com (which is also currently taken).

There are literally millions of domains already taken so you may have to be creative in finding the name you want. But if you plan to put your own site on the web, you will need to identify an available domain. Once you do so, you should register that name immediately as it may not be available the next day.

When you go to our Domain Name purchase page, you will find a feature that lets you look up a name to determine whether or not it is available. It can be frustrating so be patient.

Hosting Plans
In order to make your website available it must be located on a “hosting server”. The type of hosting service you need depends on a number of factors:

  • the number of pages you plan to have
  • if you will have large files such as databases or numerous graphics or pictures
  • the number of visitors you expect each month
  • whether you plan to use your site to sell products
  • whether you plan to design the site yourself, or have someone do it for you
  • whether you plan to use scripting languages such as PHP or ASP
  • what type of database support you require (if any)
  • whether you have a preference for a Windows or Linux server

All of the plans offered by TurkReno include a significant amount of Hard Drive space, more than most people will ever need. This is the space on the hosting server reserved for your content (HTML, graphics, pictures, databases, etc.). Even the lowest priced plan provides for significant storage space. In most cases, this is more than enough for a personal website, even if you plan to include a large number of pictures. For instance, if you plan to post photographs with an average size of 100k, 5GB of space would allow you to store nearly 500,000 photos!

Database files (MS-Access, MySQL, etc) are typically very large. However, even if you plan to offer several applications using MS-Access or MySql databases, 5GB would ordinarily provide more than enough space. Also keep in mind, if you find that you require more space than you anticipated, you can also upgrade your hosting plan at a later date.

The amount of “bandwidth” you may require on a monthly basis is also a factor in deciding which hosting plan you need. You can think of bandwidth (or information sent out from the server) as a water pipe. The more water you need to put through that pipe during a given timeframe, the larger the pipe you need.

For instance, let’s say the total size of your site content (text and graphics) is 1 Megabyte (1 Mb). If you expect 1,000 visitors to your site each month, and assumming each visitor viewed every single page on your site (a BIG if), your bandwidth requirement would be 1 Gb per month. On the other hand, if the total size of your site was 10Mb, you would require 10Gb bandwidth for those same 1,000 visitors. In short, your bandwidth requirements will be determined by the total size of your site, along with the total number of monthly visitors.

If you plan to develop applications that run on your site (e.g., database access, games, etc.) you will need a hosting plan that supports the particular programming language those applications are written in. These would include PHP, ASP, and others. It doesn’t matter if you code these applications yourself, have someone else code them for you, or purchase/download the application from another site (and there are quite a few free applications available for download), the hosting service will need to support the language the application was written in for it to work on your site.

All of the hosting plans offered by TurkReno Incorporated already provide free forums, blogs, and other common applications so you may not need to add any additional ones. If you do, we offer plans that include PHP, Perl, ASP, ASP.Net, and Java. We can also provide other prepackaged applications such as shopping carts.

If you plan to run one or more applications on your site that require database access, you will need to make sure the hosting service you use supports that database. Depending on the hosting plan, we offer support for MS Access, MySQL and SQL Server 2012.

If you plan to sell products from your website, or if you will be taking personal information, you need a SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate. The SSL has two major functions. First, it let’s the people who visit your site know that you are in fact who you say you are (by verifying your certificate). Second, it encrypts (or scrambles) any personal or sensitive information (such as credit card numbers) before that information is transmitted over the Internet. If you have ever shopped at eBay, Amazon or other such sites, you have probably noticed the “key” or “lock” that shows up in your taskbar. This tells you that you are on a secure connection. That secure connection is a result of your SSL Certificate.

Another consideration when trying to decide what hosting plan you need is the number of email accounts you require. For a personal site, you may require very few email accounts, if any. The 500 accounts that come with the smaller plan should be more than enough for your family and friends.

If you plan to use your website to run a business, you may require more email accounts. If that is the case you can either purchase one of the other plans, or you can simply purchase additional email accounts for a small annual fee. In any case, your email accounts will allow you to have an email address with your domain name (e.g., turkreno@mydomain.com). The email accounts we provide are web-based so you can access them anywhere you have Internet access. As with the other items, you need to think through how you plan to use your site.

We also offer both Virtual Dedicated Servers and Dedicated Servers. Both of these give you full control of the server (as if it were located in your home or business site). Dedicated Servers are usually required by larger business or those wanting to provide hosting to other people. If you need additional information on our Dedicated Server plans, you can check out the plans in our “product store”, or email us at the link below.

Shopping Cart and Merchant Account
For those of you who plan to use your site to sell products, you will need both a shopping cart and a merchant account (if you don’t have one already).

The shopping cart allows you to build an online “store front” and product catalog similar to what you see at Amazon.com and other sites. We offer an inexpensive application called QuickCart that should fit your needs.

The Merchant Account gives you the ability to accept credit card payments online (through a shopping cart or other means). If you are already running your own “bricks and mortar” business you probably already have a merchant account. If that is the case, you will need to check with them regarding the ability to take online payments. If you don’t currently have an account, or you are just starting your business, you may want to check the Merchant Account we offer.

Search Engine Optimization
There are literally millions of businesses online. In order to compete with these, you will most likely want to ensure that you are placed in “Search Engine” results with the highest ranking possible. One of our products, Search Engine Visibility, will do that for you. It will evaluate your site and make suggestions to give you the best search engine rankings possible. You can also use Search Engine Visibility to submit your site to Google, Yahoo and dozens of other search engines, as well as web directories. One of the really great features in Traffic Blazer is an Search Engine Visibility tool that will tell you if there is a problem with your site that would prevent it from being listed in the search engines. For instance, many of the search engines will not list sites that have internal “broken links”. Search Engine Visibility will notify you regarding issues such as that.

Google AdWords
AdWords is a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising feature that will allow your site to be listed in the Google “Sponsored Sites” area of their search engine results pages. If you aren’t sure what this is, just go to google and search for “candles” or some other item. You will see the sponsored ads on the right. These can be highly effective depending on your type of business.

Placement of AdWords links are based on how much you “bid” for each click. That is, if you bid 35 cents for each click you will get a higher placement than if you bid 25 cents. The amount for each bid is deducted from your total credits only when someone clicks on the link to go to your site.

Closing
If you still aren’t sure what you need for your particular site, please feel free to contact our support staff.

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Heartbleed Bug

Heartbleed and the Information Security Nightmare

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Here’s a scenario… you get a notice, you see it on social media or on the news, something else about changing your password. You put it off because it’s not a matter of national security in your life. A few weeks later, something worse happens — a major breach of a financial institution happens, maybe your bank or credit card, or a social network gets breached. Yet again, you don’t get a phone call or you know it doesn’t affect you so you just leave your password the same. You don’t have time to go change and memorize another password. It’s just too much. Then you hear of the worst vulnerability affecting the known Internet. It’s called Heartbleed, aka CVE-2014-0160. That’s a snappy name, you think to yourself. Not a big deal. Now it’s the “most dangerous security flaw on the web,” according to The Verge.

This scenario happens all…The…TIME. Major breach, no one cares. No one really cares until someone in Information Security makes you care. When all of the yelling and screaming at Tier 1 support is over because there’s really no one to blame except some “magic man in a cloud” that pushed a button (or forgot to), no layman really knows what happens next. This time, we have an even greater nightmare. Absolute panic should be occurring online right now, but no one cares. It’s not important because it’s just digital life that depends on it.

Panic, you say? Yes, PANIC for any decent Internet Service provider. The panic is based on the fact that just because you change your password, or get notice to change your password, that it doesn’t mean that the breach is fixed. In this particular incident with Heartbleed, it was only yesterday that SOPHOS updated UTM and SAV for vShield. COMODO, an SSL provider, is just now sending out word. It was two days ago that the media really took wind of it. Looking at this like a virus spreading, we’re still just over 72 hours from Zero Hour on April 7th (considering when it was announced and announcing it being the moment that people both use the vulnerability for good and to respond to the call-to-action). But that news media article or spot only made it worse. Panic. That’s not all even still. Heartbleed was affecting the Internet since December 2011. Even more panic. This makes my head hurt, you think to yourself.

The exact problem here is that while the vulnerability was exposed, only a handful of services and sites had time to respond to the threat. In the time that it takes to respond to a threat such as Heartbleed, a lot of things need to happen. SSL certificates, private keys, internal passwords and security procedures, not to mention the OpenSSL module and Apache, all of which have to be updated. But you got the news yesterday. The amazing power of the Internet told you that there was a problem and you went and updated your password because you were sick and tired of that next Target security breach they were talking about last Christmas. And now, NOW you need to go change your password all over again even after you spent two hours yesterday making sure that everything was “safe,” or so you thought. You give up — and you likely should — because a typed password that a human can use is no longer truly safe.

Passwords hurt my brain, you think. Well, that’s fine. Because this breach is bigger than just your password. It’s your phone, your tablet, your printer, your laptop, your wireless router, your Smart TV, and that Starbucks hotspot. It’s also the fact that when you use OAUTH to sign into Pinterest from your Twitter ID or save your favorite Epicurious recipe by logging into your Facebook account that the session can be hijacked. But you like to stay logged in to your favorite sites for hours on end even though you only stay online for about 20 minutes — tops. It’s just so darn handy to not have to log out. Well, that’s what it’s going to take. You need to log out and wait. BUT I CAN’T BE BOTHERED TO DO THAT… and the cycle continues.

Perhaps it wasn’t clear enough. Nearly everything that you use a password on is affected. Unless it doesn’t connect to the Internet, like your garage door opener from 1981, chances are it’s affected. But we can’t have our customer base freak out! Yep, I’ve heard that one too. So fix OpenSSL and reset their passwords for them. But wait, that’s not a good idea because all of those GMail addresses have the same password or XYZ provider is about 8 days behind Zero Hour and they’re just going to login to a unsecured secure server. Well, we can’t all rely on the media to tell us when to do things. Or maybe that other site I like… NO, because they’re affected too.

So how do you handle Heartbleed if you’re not some Information Security guru? You log out and you wait until EVERY SITE you use has something up about actually changing your password. Your password has been vulnerable for over two years now. That’s not some wise indication to not care and login anyway and people in Information Security would seriously frown on you doing that. Use a sticky note to remind you to go check the support section of your favorite websites to see what they’re saying. Log out. Give the Internet a break for a day or two. Heartbleed and all of the other nasty things that bother the Internet will still be here when you get back. Until then, here’s a list Mashable has put together of sites that are affected.

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