Local search advice?

[Bristolweb]

Some sites i promote limit their services to 50 miles around their location how best is it to optimise their websites.

Currently they don't rank very well for  non localised search terms but they do  very well for term which include their local area.  is this something they should be concerned about?

Any tips and advice  on optimising for local search  are greatly appreciated.

thanks

[Thos003]

If they only service a 50 mile radius then they should only be concerned about localized search terms. If they are ranking well for their area then that's a good sign. Clearly claiming and optimizing their Google Places should be a top priority. Adding citations for their name/address/phone number is going to help. Sprinkle on a few good links and they should be happy. Their best links are going to come from other local businesses in their area.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Bristolweb,

I'm the Local SEO Associate here in Q&A. Your question is an important one. I have several points and tips to share. I'll number them for easy reading.

1. It's critical to understand that local search hinges on 3 key factors: business name, physical street address and local area code phone number. The city in which the client is located is almost always going to be the city for which Google considers him to be a most relevant answer. So, if the client's office is in San Francisco, then his best chances of ranking in local or blended local/organic results will involve 'San Francisco'. San Francisco will  be the most important geographic keyword term on the client's website and it will be the location for which he is permitted to create a Google Place Page and other local business index listings.

2. As you have said, many clients will have go-to-client business models (contractors, painters, carpet cleaners, chimney sweeps, etc.). Within their service radius, there are likely to be a number of towns and cities. The San Francisco Carpet Cleaner may also serve in Berkeley, Oakland, Mill Valley and San Jose. These other city names are going to be his secondary geographic phrases.

3. In rural areas or for business models that are truly unusual and are therefor doing business in an atmosphere of little to no competition, the client may well be able to get true local rankings in his service cities, just because Google has nothing else to post as an 'answer' to queries. If there is only one tortilla shop delivering baked goods to 5 different towns in Idaho, then Google may show a true local result to anyone searching for 'tortilla shop' in any of those 5 towns simply because the shop is really the only thing on offer. Or, Google may decide the search isn't really right for local results because there is a paucity of data and they will simply show organic results instead.

4. In most cases, however, your clients will be in situations of moderate to high competition, in which case, what you will be competing for outside of the client's city of location is secondary rankings (generally organic) for each of his service cities. In most cases, the carpet cleaning company with an office in San Francisco is not going to outrank the one with an office in Berkeley when someone searches for 'Carpet Cleaning Company Berkeley'. *See point 1.

5. So, as the Local SEO on the project, your job is to come up with a strategy for highlighting your client's work in different service cities with the hopes of gaining secondary visibility for him. You will be doing this through a combination of content development on his website and, likely, off-site efforts such as link building and review acquisition. This is the work that is ahead of you in helping clients in this area.

I hope this gives you a general sense of the work involved. If you are going to be doing Local SEO for clients, I highly recommend that you spend time every day reading up on this topic. The key challenge in Local is its ever-changing nature. You literally need to be a daily local news reader to keep on top of these changes and put your knowledge to work for your clients. It's a truly fun field and one that keeps you on your toes for sure!

Please, let me know if you have any other questions and good luck!

Miriam