Link building to Google+ profile: any local SEO value?

[tonyflorespsa]

Has anyone found value in building links to Google+ profile for local seo rankings?  My gut tells me that it will, but I am not 100% sure.

If it does, then does that mean that all the traditional SEO factors that would go into ranking a site organically also work for ranking locally for certain keywords?

So far, I have found that the best thing for moving up rankings is reviews on Google+, but then does that make local SEO (from a high view point) just a race for high reviews and building the most citation?

I am feeling like the differentiator for local SEO is UN-structured citations and links to Google+ profiles.  Any thoughts?

See you at MozCon!

[RobertFisher]

Anthony,

I am not sure I am even understanding your question, but I will try to help. First, Your Google + profile is not statically local. Are you talking a human Google + or a business Google + profile? Either way, think about authorship and being a contributor to various sites; that is linking and that does increase the value of your Google + site. When you have a G+ that is gaining authority and you link to a site, you provide link juice the site. But...

You follow that with:

_If it does, then does that mean that all the traditional SEO factors that would go into ranking a site organically also work for ranking locally for certain keywords? _The answer to this is No. Local and organic ranking are two very specific animals and they have many specific requirements. Yes, you want the same types of things as organic for local but then there are many more issues and requirements. Also, it changes about every ten minutes with Google. If you are not familiar with the Carousel "beta test" wink wink that Google is doing, do a search on your city and hotels or restaurants or service stations. That in itself will show you what people who handle local are up against.

As to this question: _I am feeling like the differentiator for local SEO is UN-structured citations and links to Google+ profiles.  Any thoughts?_My thoughts are these: Start reading things from people like Miriam here on moz, Linda Buquet, Mike Blumenthal, etc. Don't "feel" as that is more akin to guessing. Follow the guidelines they put out and read all you can on local. If you do that, and if you work on about 50 to 75 local listings, make mistakes, learn, etc. you will begin to know a bit about local. Trust me when I say it is its own animal. Telling you how to rank for local in a Q&A setting is nearly impossible. I hope you understand.

Good luck,

Robert

[tonyflorespsa]

Robert,

Thank you very much for the response.  Yes, I agree that it is indeed its own animal.  I also feel as though the ranking factors are very inconsistant, as you mentioned.  I am going to follow those people, definitely.  Thanks again!

One last thought, as I am just a little unclear.  Do you think that Google authorship plays a role in the local SEO game (or "publishership")?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Anthony,

I want to link to some resources for you to investigate here.

Back in early 2012, I had a conversation with Mike Blumenthal which prompted him to write a brief piece on the then-common advice of building links to the old Google Place Pages. He accurately summarizes why this practice was a poor idea:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/24/google-places-myth-linking-to-your-places-page/

However, a lot has changed in the past year. A lot! Here is a more recent conversation on this topic at Linda Buquet's Local Search Forum, presenting differing opinions on linkbuilding in the new +Local environment:

http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/local-search/202-any-benefit-link-building-google-local-pages.html

Your question has inspired me to ask Mike B for an update on his 2012 piece. I don't handle linkbuilding in-house at my company, and I think what you've asked about is really important. I'm going to suggest to Mike that he do a follow up (if he's not too busy) and let's both stay tuned to see what he says. Also, stay tuned for the new iteration of David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors 2013, which is coming soon (and eagerly awaited!) Hope what I've linked to helps, and I do plan to shoot Mike an email to see if he might have time sometime soon to do an update on his earlier much-cited piece.

[tonyflorespsa]

Mike over at Nifty makes a remark similar to the remarks made in the links you provided me above (reference question #21).  Not only does he say that it will probably only help your map listing rank higher for your brand name, but he also flat out says: "The type of links that help your map listing rank higher are ones that point at your website."

http://moz.com/blog/40-important-local-search-questions-answered

Thank you for the resources above I think in a weird way they validated what I am seeing with my small, single client lol.  At a certain point, there are only so many "quality, niche, location-based" (all or either) directories that you can submit to, and if links to the G+ page are superfluous, then it becomes a matter local links/local unstructured citations for your website, and reviews for your G+ (along with any centroid bias you may be benefiting from, or having to overcome).

This is what I have observed, granted that this is one client in one region, and not nearly enough data to make a strong statement regarding the validity of this claim:  I did all the NAP stuff, I submitted to all the directories, I optimized the website, I did all the stuff that we are supposed to do.  Once all that was done, I told the client to adjust their business in order to easily facilitate reviews.  They already had reviews, but they were kind of just stagnate in the local results.  Each review they received after I was done doing my stuff gave them at LEAST 4 slot bumps, each time.  They are now in the middle of page two of maps, and they have shown no slowing down in movement upward with each review (I assumed the shifts upward would slow down the closer to the top we got).

Now, we are competing against people that have one or two GOOD local links/ local unstructured citations, which appear to have been earned from good old fashion marketing.

I think this may be where things slow down a bit, but I have my local NAP targets and I will keep this thread up to date with what happens moving forward.

Thank you both for providing me great resources I hope to see you guys at MozCon! (I already mentioned that above but I'm just really excited.  If my summer school financial issue didn't occur I would not have been able to go!)

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Anthony,

Fantastic you are attending MozCon! Thanks for your follow-up comments, and do keep checking Mike Blumenthal's blog for more on this. I believe he may soon publish a piece on this topic that should be really good!

[MiriamEllis]

Good news! Mike Blumenthal decided to write his follow-up piece on this. Check it out:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/07/02/should-you-do-linkbuilding-to-your-g-page-for-local/

I hope everyone who participated in this thread and all of our members who are into Local will take a few minutes to read this post. Well worth the time!

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/07/02/should-you-do-linkbuilding-to-your-g-page-for-local/comment-page-1/#comment-652070

[tonyflorespsa]

He may have literally covered every question that could have been asked

Thanks for reaching back out and sharing the article!

[MiriamEllis]

Totally! What a great article. So glad to be able to share it here, Anthony.