Updated My Business Profiles & Still Not Ranking in Local SEO... What Next?

[t1kuslik]

Thanks Matt. I will definitely be looking more at the guide.

[t1kuslik]

Thanks Gregory, I just made some changes based on your suggestions.

[t1kuslik]

Miriam, thank you so much for the detail. I will respond more tomorrow. I sincerely appreciate the depth of answer.

[MattJanaway]

Fantastic response, Miriam.

[MiriamEllis]

Thank you, Matt. That's very nice of you to say!

[MiriamEllis]

It's my pleasure, Todd. I'm here to help!

[t1kuslik]

Hi Miriam,

As a follow up, here is some more detail.

1. I have a well written blog post that is locally optimized (http://healthcareassociates.net/5-reasons-home-health-care-in-grand-rapids-michigan-is-the-epitome-of-care/). It is well liked and shared. Do I need to focus more on optimizing the home page?

2. Yikes. I had no idea. I will have them remove the reviews.

3. Yeah, we have a tracking number to measure people coming from the website. I am having my web guy change the footer number. Does the number at the top need to change too? Its an image. We really do need to track people and figure out how they care calling us.

4. We meet with our clients in their own home. They rarely come into the main office.  So I should hide my business' address? How will local map work then?

5. How much does it cost for a professional audit?

Thanks again!

Todd

[t1kuslik]

Also, I checked my excel doc for local search listings and I did create a listing for Yelp, Nokia and eLocal. Is there a lag time with GetListed?

Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/health-care-associates-and-community-care-givers-grandville

Nokia: http://here.com/primeplaces/places/show/840dpeh0-7d7af180af71446ba3ab8b5a54ab7c03?tab=edit

eLocal: http://www.elocal.com/profile/health-care-associates-of-grand-rapids-13605570?utm_source=GetListed&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=GetListed-Submissions

Todd

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Todd,

Thanks for your detailed reply. I'll answer, one by one:

1. All main pages of your website need to be optimized with your geography in mind. Remember - you are not trying to rank for 'home health care' or 'visiting nurses' - you are trying to rank for your keywords+your city name. You don't care if people in Texas find you. You care if your neighbors can find you and the local optimization of your website is a big part of what will make this possible. I am going to link you to a guide I give to all of my new Local SEO clients. I think it will be a helpful read for you:

The Rudiments of Local SEO

2. Good idea!

3. Call tracking numbers are taboo in Local Search, unfortunately, because they cloud the purity of the NAP (name-address-phone number) signal you need to be sending to bots and humans. For more on this issue, read this article by Chris Silver Smith (http://searchengineland.com/for-local-seo-lack-of-call-tracking-solution-spawns-cloaking-70198) and this more recent one by Mike Blumenthal (http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/05/14/a-guide-to-call-tracking-and-local/) to get the history and current understanding of this issue. These articles will teach you what you should and shouldn't do with call tracking numbers.

4. If the majority of your business is being transacted at clients' locations then you are an SAB and should be hiding your address. It's estimated that Google has penalized thousands (likely more) of businesses for failure to comply with this rule since they announced it in May of 2012. How you comply depends on whether you have the old or new Places dashboard. The new one makes the procedure more automatic, but I'm not sure which dash you have, so this is something you should research further.

5. Many good Local SEO firms offer audits, but their rates will all be different. You should expect to invest at least a few hundred dollars in a good one. I recommend that you visit that Professional Assistance page on GetListed and contact a few of the providers there to inquire about their rates.

Hope this helps!

[t1kuslik]

Again, super helpful Miriam! Just read the article on Call Tracking numbers. Ugh! I changed the phone numbers in the content but left the tracking number in the image at the top. Yet, now I am worried about Google's Optical Character Recognition. We're trying to track how many potential customers call us from the site, which can only be done with a tracking code. But I certainly don't want to jeopardize our Local SEO.

Todd

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Todd,

I would not be concerned about Google's OCR regarding images in your header. That is not my understanding of the purpose of OCR. But, I would definitely search the Internet for that call tracking number. Because you had it published in real text on the site, it may exist elsewhere on the web. You need to find all instances of it (if any) and edit them to reflect your authoritative local business number. Good luck!