I was wondering if anyone had any advice on Hyperlocal Searches and optimizing for them?

[PeterConnor]

We're planning on building our own directory. Does anyone here have any experience with using directories to drive inbound traffic? Any advice in general on Hyperlocal Searches?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Chris,

I think I may need a bit more information to provide a helpful answer. Please, provide answers to these three questions:

1. Do you mean you are developing a general local business directory (like Yellow Pages, CitySearch, Best of the Web) or some other type of directory?

2. Where do you want to drive inbound traffic to? The directory or something else?

3. Please define what you mean, exactly, by 'hyperlocal searches'?

The more information you can provide, the better answer you will receive from the community. Looking forward to your further details.

[PeterConnor]

Hey,

That's great Miriam, thanks for your help. I'll answer your questions below.

1. Do you mean you are developing a general local business directory (like Yellow Pages, CitySearch, Best of the Web) or some other type of directory?

**Ans: **What we're looking to do is create awareness of our product (online accounting tool for SME biz) to accountants. People who a search for 'Accountant London', will find a simple landing page (like yelp/google) with the accountants details, map etc. There will be a big contact us button, which will send the contents of that form to the accountant. Remember accountants are pretty poor at this stuff, so it's not like we're trying to take on an SEO rich group.

From a customer point of view, we're giving them what they want 'a list of accountants from London', but also exposing them to the product. Answering questions etc?

2. Where do you want to drive inbound traffic to? The directory or something else?

**Ans: **To the directory, from there we'll capture information and use for outbound

3. Please define what you mean, exactly, by 'hyperlocal searches'?

**Ans: **People contact us a bit looking for 'a good accountant in dublin, monkstown', so we're looking to capture that search. We have a problem with content in that, if we write about accounting nobody will read them as a result we're losing out on SEO (Although we're working on that, any suggestions welcome)

The more information you can provide, the better answer you will receive from the community. Looking forward to your further details.

**Ans: **Thanks again M, this has been a great help.

Chris

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Chris,

Thanks so much for the detailed response. As you know, the local business directory field is pretty saturated and is dominated by major players (think Yahoo, Yelp, etc.). That being said, at least you are focusing on building a niche directory (for accountants) rather than a general one (for all local businesses). This does cut down the competition, but it is still going to be a massive undertaking trying to get Google to rank your directory pages well if they already have older, larger sources to choose from, in addition to their own delivery of local pack results for searches like 'accountant dublin'.

Here are some suggestions for what you can do to begin building a good directory:

1. Allow accountants to create listings with a significant amount of unique content on them. For example, have a large business description field for each listing, and specify that the content the accountant uploads to it be unique. Also, create fields for things like professional associations and certifications and anything else you can think of that an accountant might list about their services, their policies, their business model, their location, etc.

2. Allow for UGC in the form of reviews on each listing.

3. Be sure you are using Schema properly to markup both the listing data and the reviews.

4. Develop a blog on the directory, perhaps with guest posting opportunities for accountants.

5. I understand that accounting may be one of those dreaded so-called 'boring' industries, but you've got to discover a way to come up with interesting content that has the potential to be shared and bring traffic and links. We had a good YouMoz post on this very topic about a year ago. See: http://moz.com/blog/the-guide-to-developing-a-content-strategy-for-boring-industries

6. Designate a staff member to participate in/speak at relevant industry conferences. If there are conferences accountants attend, your designated member needs to be there, helping at the same time as exposing attending accountants to your brand.

7. Discover which social media platforms your listed members utilize and develop a presence there so that you can participate/offer help in some way.

In my opinion, it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of giving of your time to begin to brand your venture as something accountants need to participate in. The more accounting firm listings users build into your index, the larger it can grow and the more valuable a data source it will become to search engines.

[PeterConnor]

Hi Miriam

Thank you so much for such a comprehensive response. You've given me amazing insight with great ideas I can truly progress!

Greetings from Sunny Ireland

[MiriamEllis]

I'm so glad my answer was helpful, Chris. Best of luck with your venture!