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Most of the data about the keyword + "near me" keywords came from GA - or its integration with the Webmaster Tools. This means I've got data about what the keywords are, where, and how many times, we've been in the SERPs, the # of clicks, & the click-through rate. Of course, the CTR is not super useful for comparison with other keywords if they're not at the same position in the search results. Is the idea of running a small PPC campaign to see how well the "near me" version of a keyword converts vs. the non-"near me" version? That seems like a good idea, (I'm fairly new at doing any active SEO or Keyword Research). Once I've got that info I should be able to see if it's worth devoting resources to tracking "near me" - heck, I could even add a few geographic areas as well, so I would see how "tire repair near me" compares to "tire repair" compares to "tire repair nyc." Thanks for the insight.

Great question! I would love to hear more answers to this as I have a client in medical waste disposal. I guess you can say I'm in a similar predicament with link-building :).

This is popular question for multilingual or multi-regional sites. And answered many times: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en The main problem is that this questions have many answers. And all of them are right, some more, other little more. Just don't forget that no matter what way you select you need to keep relevant language links to each language site. And keep hreflang to other language sites too. https://moz.com/learn/seo/hreflang-tag https://moz.com/blog/hreflang-behaviour-insights https://moz.com/blog/open-source-library-tool-check-hreflang https://moz.com/blog/using-the-correct-hreflang-tag-a-new-generator-tool

Many thanks Moosa, that's pretty much what I thought. thanks Pete

Hey Bob, Okay, I won't tell you to sell but remember, you're a business person, and there's nothing wrong with selling a service that's genuinely of high quality. You can be proud of what you have to sell if you know it's really going to help your customers! But, a blog that just plugs your services isn't likely to be of much interest to read, so I'm with you on that, for sure! I have a couple of thoughts on this: First, let me show you something. One of my favorite bloggers in the Local SEO space is a fellow named Phil Rozek. He has become a favorite of mine because of the regularity with which he covers very important industry topics. He's thorough, generous and dedicated to sharing what he knows. And, though his blog isn't updated daily, it's updated frequently enough for me to find it worthwhile to check it out every few days in case there's something new there. Now, with that background in mind, check out this recent post of his governing a pain point all Local SEOs and local business owners are experiencing right now surrounding Google based reviews: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2015/11/18/asking-customers-for-google-reviews-in-the-new-google-plus-what-are-your-options/ I recommend that you read through the post, actively evaluating it for friendliness, generosity and authority. I think you'll come away with the feeling that this is a fellow who not only knows what he's talking about, but that he understands the needs of his readership and is sharing everything he can think of to help them. Now, there's one other thing I want you to notice as you read through that post. It's this statement: "I’ll probably have to update my battle-tested instructions for the 4th or 5th time since 2011, at which point you can order a slick one-page PDF that makes a frustrating process simple as possible for customers." So, there's a little bit of a potential sale going on in the post, but it is totally inoffensive, in my view, because Phil's blog is about 99% free tutorials and about 1% mentioning that you might want to invest in something he's offering. Given the way he is continuously demonstrating his authority, letting you know he's going to make something you can buy feels more like doing you a favor rather than pitching a hard sell, doesn't it? Buying something Phil has created could save an agency or company a lot of sweat and time. So, I suggest you thumb through Phil's blog over the past year or so and see how he's demonstrating a spirit of giving while also positioning himself as someone any local business owner would be very fortunate to consult with. Imagine if you could do that for your own business. My other thought is that you have a special opportunity if you are dedicated to focusing only on Boise as your market. In addition to penning those Phil-type tutorial posts you'll be looking at, above, your blog can become a showcase of your participation within your local business community. There will be opportunities you can either latch onto or create from scratch to put you in one-on-one contact with local business owners. Think workshops, conferences, seminars, classes at Park & Rec or senior centers, visiting high schools or community colleges, church group events, etc. If you have business knowledge to share to help your neighbors market what they do, then showcasing your participation in events on your blog will be simultaneously marketing what you do. Event by event, you will be building Boise-based blog content as you are also getting your name out there in the business community as a resource for your services. You'll be giving Google a reason to pull up your posts in Boise-based-or-related searches while also giving the plumber you built a site for a reason to tell his friend the dentist about what you did for him. So, these are the 2 things I'm thinking of off the top of my head, and I hope that you'll get lots more feedback from the community.

My pleasure, and good luck with your further research!

Hi Ruben, One of our staff members wondered if setting advanced Google search parameters in the Moz Bar and combining that with a GPS emulator might get you further along in the process. There are such apps for mobile devices, but I'm not sure of one for desktop. I will say, I'm more used to approaching this from a citation angle, where you are looking for the top ranked sites for specific terms in hopes of hopping aboard there, but I think what you're describing is somewhat similar. I hope these thoughts are helpful.

'20 campaigns for 1 person, I can't believe that's a good thing.' I feel the same way. I am hoping in the future to move away from monthly projects towards more one-off campaigns/services, but nevertheless this is the job I've been given. That is why I am trying to squeeze the most out of my time and find a process where I can be strategic and focus on/prioritize for x,y, and z. Automating my reporting seems like the most obvious place to begin but can you believe I have yet to even start there. I'm making it a priority for Monday, done! I was hoping someone would have a monthly maintenance schedule/guideline they use and would like to share. Like Xhrs Analyzing/Reporting Xhrs Fixing Technical Issues Xhrs Link Building Xhrs Content/Blogging, etc..

Thank you very much for your help, Miriam!

I really like the business book idea, too! Nice one, Kevin.

Many thanks Miriam and Eric.. Another Audit following your resources and a think again with content. Kind Regards Carrie

Location of your server isn't really important - check https://www.seroundtable.com/seo-geo-location-server-google-17468.html: "For search, specifically for geotargeting, the server's location plays a very small role, in many cases it's irrelevant. If you use a ccTLD or a gTLD together with Webmaster Tools, then we'll mainly use the geotargeting from there, regardless of where your server is located. You definitely don't need to host your website in any specific geographic location -- use what works best for you, and give us that information via a ccTLD or Webmaster Tools." Similar message here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182192?hl=en: Server location (through the IP address of the server). The server location is often physically near your users and can be a signal about your site’s intended audience. Some websites use distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are hosted in a country with better webserver infrastructure, so it is not a definitive signal. Specifically on CDN's - John Mu indicated "At any rate, while moving to a CDN may result in small temporary fluctuations, making your site faster will frequently help your site much more. Some studies have shown that the faster your site is, the longer visitors will stay, and that's generally a good thing :-). As I mentioned above, if you're seeing significant changes in ranking, then I'd look for the issues elsewhere" (https://www.seroundtable.com/google-cdn-13117.html) Dirk

Hi Peter, I am very glad I could be of help. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for you sincerely, Thomas

Hey There! Have you checked out this recent Whiteboard Friday? https://moz.com/blog/how-to-hack-the-amplification-process-whiteboard-friday I believe it may give you some good ideas!

Hi Nik! Google's local results depend entirely on having a physical location in a specific city. Right now, you have a physical location in Sydney, so you're doing well for these Sydney-based-or-related searches. But, you don't have an office in Perth or Melbourne, so there is no reason for Google to rank  you locally for these cities. Simply stating in your Google My Business description or service radius that you deliver nationwide is not going to override Google's bias toward physical location. So, what this leaves you with is working to earn organic rankings for terms that relate to these other cities, and the main struggle here will be determine if it's logical for you to do so and then discovering content topics that make sense for the effort. Creating a bunch of pages that say 'we deliver to Perth', 'we deliver to Melbourne' will not be enough. It's not interesting and not a good reason to create a page. So, rather, you might need to think in terms of customer testimonials, stories about customers' use of your product, if you install your product then maybe video/text coverage of your installation projects, showcases of gardens in the different cities featuring your mirrors, contests in the cities, etc. You'll need to find reason for writing about these cities beyond simply delivering to them. Then, you'll likely need to earn some good links to these pages. And, hopefully, that will lead to some organic visibility for these other cities where you lack a physical location. Hope this helps!

Unfortunately, Google has had a very spotty record of policing their local-organic results since day one. I totally get how frustrating this is. The only thing a legitimate business owner can do in a scenario like this is work hard to be SO much better than the spammy stuff, that they eventually surpass it. If local business listings are spammy, they can be reported to Google, of course

Like Miriam mentioned - use the real number on citation sources and major offsite areas. The only ways I would suggest using a vanity number on your site is through javascript swapping (think CallRail phone tracking), or by using it in an image with the alt text being the real (non-vanity) number. I would A/B test with the javascript method on your site. That solution would use a find & replace function depending on the click source (organic, direct, ppc, social, forum, etc), and swap in the tracking number/Vanity number. Test that for a while and compare phone call volumes. I think if you are a local business that would hurt NAP consistency, so that would need to be monitored pretty closely as well to make sure that vanity number doesn't cause damage.

Thanks Joey! Luckily for me, we're running this at WPEngine and using a CDN so it's going to be very well cached and as quick as possible. I now need to get my head around exactly how I am going to organize everything. Thanks again for all the advice!

Hey Kevin, Mike & Phil would be good guys to reach out to, for sure. I'm glad if my reply was somewhat helpful and I'd love to see more recent data on this. Good luck with your client!

Wow, never caught that before; just saw the similar thing that lists them but doesn't do anything about them down in the crawl section. Thanks to you as well! Hopefully that'll raise some flags that this stuff needs to not be around anymore when they make another pass at it. You guys are so helpful and encouraging!