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I'd disagree that it's fully on or fully off based on my experience, but I'm sure that it's different depending on country, ability for Google to judge location/intent etc.

Hi Brett, To be honest I think I learned most by really taking the time to read through David Mihm's "Local Search Ranking Factors" for 2011 and 2012. This information compiles the industry's expertise, resulting in quite a good hypothesis as to what one should do in order to rank with guidelines as to your website, Google+ Local page (even though introduced after the 2012 survey), citations, link-building, etc. Lock yourself away for an hour or two... an open plan office is not ideal to chew through all the info http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors-2011.shtml Hope this helps? Cheers Greg

Hi Chris, Without being able to look at the actual listing, it's difficult to diagnose an issue like this one. If you cannot share your client's details (understandable) can you provide further clarification as to your initial description of the type of search you're performing? I'm not quite following, as it seems you are saying you are doing a search for your client's own business name and location in Google's main search engine and that this is bringing up completely unrelated businesses instead of your client's business. This should not be happening, and I'm actually wondering if this isn't what you mean by your description. Please clarify if you can. It would be best if you could actually show me the search and results, but if you can't do that, further description would help a little. I'll look forward to your reply!

Thank you gentlemen.

From an SEO standpoint is the link from Yahoo Directory the same as a link from anywhere else with the *.yahoo.com domain or does being in the directory itself specifically give you a boost from search engines?

Hi Mark, Have you considered hiring a local SEO consultant to help you with this? The list of questions in my original response are things you need to go over with someone in person to whom you can disclose all the details of your unique business. I don't specialize in troubleshooting issues like this one, but perhaps you could book some time with someone like Andrew Shotland, Mike Blumenthal or Nyagoslav Zhekov in a consulting position to see if they can advise you in an actionable manner and in full possession of the details. Sorry I can't offer more specific advice, but this really sounds to me like a case in which you need one-on-one help from someone who is looking at your listing and history with you. Hope this suggestion helps.

Hello, The cities I've put in my examples are examples. The city I'm going to target is easy to rank for and stable. Thanks for your advice, but I will give my ideas a shot as I'm sure we can pull it off. We did it several times already and am just looking for the biggest opportunities. I agree with you that traffic means money so if you have specific good keyword ideas, that'd be great. Thanks

You're welcome! Hope that study will help you and your client decide what strategy best to use...

You are welcome, Echo. Good luck!

Hi Takeshi, I only need to get 2 redirects working, so I thought a plug in was a bit overkill. They are already present in the htaccess file from the previous site (I'm running wordpress from a sub-folder but switched everything over as per the wordpress instructions. Got the following which doesn't seem to work (any ideas what is wrong?) RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.co.uk$ [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.co.uk$ RewriteRule ^/?$ "http://www.newsite.co.uk" [R=301,L] The above should redirect from example.co.uk OR www.example.co.uk to www.newsite.co.uk and the is that is giving me a few problems is RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^newsite.co.uk$ [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.newsite.co.uk$ RewriteRule ^oldpage.htm$ "http://www.newsite.co.uk/new-page.htm" [R=301,L] That should redirect from newsite.co.uk/oldpage.htm to newsite.co.uk/new-page.htm All these are already existing redirects done previously through my htaccess file but not too sure if the coding is correct for a wordpress based site but the last one above does not seem to be working at all! Any ideas would be great and a big help! Cheers Ted

Yes, the best content is usually generated by someone who knows what they are writing about. However, most clients do not have time to generate content. So I try to get the client to do an interview, write out bullet points, write notes or anything that a good copywriter could take and spin into an informative article. If the content is generated by the client and they are a good writer, that would be ideal but rarely happens.

Sorry for the slow response and thanks for the quality answer!

You can optimize for any geo-area(s) you actually serve even if your physical address is in the next town/area.  What you can't do without violating terms of service is list your site in Google's maps (or Google+ local) for a town you don't have a physical location in.

remember if you're going to actually create another site to try to build authority and then use that site to link to your existing site you're doing a lot of work for one link. I agree Andy is a genius follow what he says to the letter. if you are linking to your self or to your own website. I Gather you are on WordPress from the blog comments am I correct? if so I would try out some of the managed WordPress hosts you can use Zippy kid to forward the domains to your existing site for you. I Believe they are an excellent value in the industry 25 bucks a month you get 100,000 page views and a CDN along with backups and flat-out excellent WordPress hosting. I Would also look at WPengine,  page.ly and web synthesis. I Have accounts at every one of them and they're all  great in different ways i think Zippy kid hands down gives you the most for your money and enterprise content delivery network along with all of security and WordPress knowledge that's normally a minimum hundred dollars month fee if you don't like any of these guys you can get your money back and I would be up front with them and tell them honestly say I'm just trying out. I In saying this simply because so many people post on inferior hosts i would take this opportunity to see what's out there. I that you'll be surprised. Thank you for the kind words I wish you all the best Sincerely, Thomas

hey Steve, are you still standing by what you said above?

Hi Maria, I see you've started 2 threads here with the same question. I've responded to the version of your question, here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/optimising-for-local-search#post-149218

Hi all, I got and answer to this question from the great folks at Wistia themselves. Yes, it is possible! They were kind enough to allow me to post how to do it in my blog. The instructions and sample code  for how to do this can be found here: http://www.danatanseo.com/2013/02/how-to-make-video-transcripts-in-wistia.html Enjoy!