How can we compete ???

[BlueNinja]

Hi Guys,

We are new to MOZ and just getting some data on one of our projects Shottle Hall

This is a wedding venue in Derbyshire and as you can imagine it's quite a competitive niche.

We have been working with them to help build website content and build natural links.

However we are against a lot of sites that have obviously had lots of "questionable" SEO work done in the past and these sites are still ranking above Shottle Hall

One competitor has lots of links from very low quality blogs - that they have obviously made themselves

http://derbyshire-attractions.blogspot.co.uk/

Another site is ranking well and is buying banner links that pass page rank

http://whimsicalwonderlandweddings.com/

This really makes me think should we be doing these tactics ??

We are told by Google that this is not the way to rank but I am very disheartened by these facts!!

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Blue Ninja

I have had a quick look and it appears that you do well for 'wedding hall derbyshire' so you are doing something right there. Alternatively, if I search for 'wedding venue derbyshire' which is likely the more popular term I don't see the Shottle Hall site but I do see some localised results and a four pack of listings from Google Maps.

That localisation looks like an opportunity to me and one that you can certainly compete in. From the quickest of reviews the sites returned are not really doing anything from a Local SEO perspective and they have not claimed their profiles, encoraged any reviews etc (which would indicate they were going after local search).

How do you compete?

• Well carry on keeping it clean. You have no evidence these bad links are working and if they are they won't for much longer
• Try and add some local SEO into your approach to drive more visibility with local users
• Ensure you are well listed on important industry verticals like hitched.co.uk as they can drive a lot of visibility (and will kick back into your local SEO)
• Consider some GEO targeted PPC to pick up some leads from paid search
• Round out your strategy a bit - try to build social followers, build solid evergreen locally focused content, engage with your social audience, consider some retargeting adverts, social adverts etc

I think there is plenty you could do here with some options being something that can start working straight away (social, hitched.co.uk & PPC / remarketing) and others that will take a little more time (organic & local listings).

Hope that helps! 
Marcus

P.S. UK based?

[KarlBantleman]

I would stick to the local SEO strategy but think about contacting influential bloggers from around the area, maybe look at Yorkshire and even Lancashire because people will be willing to drive a couple of hours to a nice hotel. I know you won't be able to target those location keywords onsite but in terms of your outreach, it may be better for you as people in Derbyshire won't necessarily be looking for a hotel there.

Whatever you do, don't go down the black hat road, Google is far too smart for that now and you WILL get penalised. I'm assuming you have done a backlink analysis on the competitors to see what links they have, well don't forget they could have disavowed these links and they would still show up in OSE etc so don't believe everything you see when it comes to backlink analysis.

I'm not a huge advocate of PPC, even with the (not provided) problems we are having, but you it would be interesting to test a PPC campaign out to see the response and you can use these results to help you in your SEO campaign.

[BlueNinja]

Thanks for the reply Marcus,

We are increasing our PPC at the moment as we can measure this and it seems to be quite effective so far.

Our site was always ranking first position of Google Maps but has recently dropped so got to try and figure out why ??

The strange thing is we now have a vanity URL on Google+ and out of most of the other local venues we are really the only ones active on Google+ ??

Regarding hitched.co.uk we came off a few of the big directories a few years back as they just just kept pushing the prices up and at last they were trying to get us to pay over £1,000 per year for a listing!!  and I assumed as these were no-follow probably not worth the money ??

We have a website refresh planned soon and I am hoping to add some more video content and of course we plan to keep producing high quality blog content.

Thanks agin for your input and advice I was feeling a bit disheartened earlier

[BlueNinja]

Thanks for the reply

it's a good point about the disavowed links I had not thought of this

Blogger outreach is something we are keen to look at further, however many wedding bloggers will only offer sponsored content or side bar adverts.

Other websites seem to be paying for these do-follow links but I was keen to try and avoid anything that may lead to a future penalty ??

It's annoying that others seems to be doing this and getting away with it!!

Kind Regards

James

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Karl, Ninja

One quick clarification here from my original post - when I say local I mean folks searching in and about Derbyshire. Important clarification as quite rightly as we want to target everyone looking for a wedding venue in that location.

Your Google+ Local page is actually really nice but a few things jump out at me.

1. Potential issue with page name using 'Wedding Venue' - this is a violation and whilst some folks get away with this it's uneccessary and something I would try changing

2. The rel=publisher tag is not set so I would implement that: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1708844?hl=en

3. Reviews - we could always use more reviews from real (and happy) visitors

4. NAP Consistency - from the quickest of looks I see some NAP consistency issues. Different names for the hotel (Shottle Hall Country House Hotel), different phone numbers, address variations. Getting your NAP really consistent is one of the easiest jobs to help overall and will impact in a positive way and remove some negative effects. This ties back into the use of the name on the profile page as 'Shottle Hall Wedding Venue' and 'Shottle Hall Country House Hotel' elsewhere (as they could be two different things entirely).

5. Sites like hitched.co.uk are highly visible and if profiles are well configured they should drive lots of targeted leads. Think beyond the link / citation and consider this a potential source of revenue and ensure you are measuring so can assess the ROI - wedding venues charge a pretty penny so if these sites generated one confirmed sale per month at £1000 PA they are likely providing a strong return on investment and an additional channel.

6. PPC - yep, it's brutal out there but again, it's just another channel and if you can measure it and it does not bite into leads from other channels then in many competitive industries it can be somewhat essential. Even if you only use it for some display / retargeting after organic visits to keep pushing the venue PPC is worth exploring (and measuring).

Hope that helps!
Marcus

[BlueNinja]

Hi Marcus,

Thanks so much for adding some more really great suggestions to this post.

The NAP consistency is something I will look into ASAP

Kind Regards

James