Local SEO citations

[Seabrook]

Hello all

I've just started doing some local SEO citation stuff, using Whitespark. I'm wondering if it's a good idea to run different searches/listings for different keywords for the same business? For example, 'digital marketing manchester' and 'website design manchester' - or would you simply just do one keyphrase?

All help appreciated!
William

[David-Kley]

I would specify all your main services on the listing that allow you that ability. Most will only have select categories you can fit under, so on those use your main service you want to rank for / provide.

On the citation listings that allow descriptions, this is where you can get a bit more creative. Since I'm sure you spent a lot of time on it ;), use some of your page meta descriptions, and content from the site to make your descriptions. This will keep all your content and listings closely related to your subject matter, and keywords.

I would not set up different listings for different keywords, as this somewhat dillutes the purpose of the listing, which is to verify what you do, who you are, and where you are. Having a separate listing for each service will not only be harder to keep track of and take longer to set up, it can get looked at as spammy, and further dillute the "what you do" portion of info since each one will say something different.

You should be able to fit under digital marketing and web design under most listing categories. Google might even see them as similar services after Hummingbird, who knows?

[TheeDigital]

To answer your question, it's fine do queries for "digital marketing manchester" and "website design manchester" in whitespark to see if you get different citation options for each category.

As David mentioned, I would not do multiple listings within each citation that's a bit spammy and overkill, plus it might send an alarm to the citation you're building.

[KeriMorgret]

Also, Google doesn't show SEOs or web designers in the local results, and hasn't for several years.

http://searchengineland.com/google-hides-seos-web-designers-32671

[David-Kley]

I have seen a few different results where they did show a local result, such as when searching for something like "web design in city"

It seems like the word "in" makes a difference of when local listings pop up, as compared to doing a search like "web design city". Did MOZ ever do a study on this? I'd like to see results if so.

[Seabrook]

Thanks everybody for getting back to me - very helpful, and pretty nuanced....

[MiriamEllis]

Keri is quite correct about Google not showing web design companies for main local queries, and David is also correct that adding 'in' to these queries will typically bring up these local results. Why Google makes this big distinction between 'in' and not 'in', nobody knows. Presumably, the use of 'in' makes Google more convinced that the user is, indeed, searching for a local solution. Kind of an arbitrary distinction on G's part.