Welcome to the Q&A Forum

CleverPhd, Robert Cialdini is fantastic! Thank you so much for introducing me to him.

Bob, It looks like you are doing a good job on link building.  Here are some other things you might consider: Use Spyfu recon files to find out what content is getting clicks for your competitors.  Adjust your content plan to reflect this. Up to 40% of your ranking can be reviews. Get at least 10 reviews on Yelp, Google and Bing Do a case study on successes and give some sort of incentive if the blog gets 25 or more comments. For example a wedding photographer I know gives a $100 discount if the featured wedding party blog gets 25 comments. Have owners and staff set up Yelp, G+ accounts with their workplace set up and get them to review other local businesses (the search engines are using these reviews as minor citations; strange I know ). Set up google authorship. Hope this helps, Ron

Thanks Miriam!

http://feedback.rapportive.com/forums/42557-general/suggestions/3312261-support-for-new-google-compose-layout I was able to find the thread growing for the request-to-fix but no one has mentioned any workarounds, and no comments from the Rapportive team, and now that they are aquired by LinkedIn it might make this process a bit slower. But I hope this will take place soon, or Google gives us the old compose back

Likewise.

Could I get some additional suggestions here. It was originally a Moz Associate that said to try phone calls in my industry when promoting our article.

Thanks Chris, I think I can adapt this to what we're doing. This outreach seems like an art form. Thanks again, Bob

Hey Bob, To make sure you are starting with a clean slate, you might have to clean the slate. I would first Google the 1. Name 2. Address 3. Phone Number Then claim and adjust anything that isn't consistent with your current nap. This includes variations of suite so "suite" "ste" "ste." "#" this will make sure that all the authority is passed to your site, and not a non-existent business. You can also check an accuracy report on Yext or GetListed.org. Then make sure moving forward you use the same info without the slightest variation. I would begin building citations first with the big data aggregators: Google, Infogroup, Localeze, Axciom, etc. Here are a few more resources: Great NAP guide by David Mihm- http://moz.com/blog/local-search-moving-locations How to Remove Duplicate Listings from Different Business Directories- http://www.ngsmarketing.com/how-to-remove-duplicate-listings-from-different-business-directories/ How long websites take to update- https://getlisted.org/static/resources/listing_time_to_live.pdf

How about guest posting? Asking them to allow you to write a quality post on their site helps to build deeper relationships, which may come in handy in the future if you're looking for support and participation from sites within your niche. Moreover, guest posting lets you tap on the audience of other sites, and gets your name known out there. Here's an article about how Buffer managed to propel itself to success with guest posting: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2194396/How-Guest-Posting-Propelled-One-Site-From-0-to-100000-Customers. Worth a read!

Thanks Carla and Shailendra, Let me give a few more details that might help. Although we're marketing an article, we're looking simply to strengthen the DA of the whole site. We want to get abut 30 links to the article of various strengths and thus bump up our DA. Also, not one of the dozens of sites I've come across have an article on the topic, but it would be very useful to many of them. What can you tell me about how this works, whether it's guest posting, and what's involved?

I have a retail site in a niche like this.  Nobody has written the articles.  Nobody. I write articles and they rank well for LOTS and LOTS of long tail keywords.  However, there is not a lot of search in this niche.  The typical article pulls in only 5, 10 or 15 visits from search per day.  But, these articles have a good conversion rate. So, I do a "good" job on these articles - but not a great job like I do for a site that competes for much higher traffic in much more difficult SERPs.

My client really wants to build out a second site. It's to get them both to rank, one for spot one and one lower for most keywords. But we really need to know when to target the same keywords and when to target different keywords. It's ecommerce

Yes, I would focus on the high value pages first, then work your way from there, unless there are striking distance product pages that you think you could bump up with a bit of content.

Quality content is good but it's not enough by itself.  Here's the "formula": Define and understand the wants and needs of the target audience(s). (marketing) Research and interact with your audience(s) and learn what blogs and social profiles influence them. (social media) Research and establish relationships with audience influencers to understand their goals   (PR) Create content that achieves the goals of the influencers and that the audience will consume, endorse and share. (content creation) Implement authorship and understand what makes a link valuable (SEO) Reach out to influencers to publish your content Rinse and repeat.

@Tim Berry: Thank you for your answer above, it's very interesting. My business address is listed all on one line, but using Ste instead of # (3975 University Dr, Ste 325) on our website, and that is how we've been submitting the address for citations. But, of course, I noticed that Google Places converts the address to one line using # instead of Ste: 3975 University Dr #325, and that's how the address appears in Google Maps. What you write about using just one line, and # instead of Ste, makes a lot of sense. But just to be clear, in my situation you would recommend using 3975 University Dr #325 on both our website, and in all our citations? In a sense, that would be starting with the way Google Places lists the address, and then "working backwards" and matching that exactly on our site and in our citations. Do I understand that right? Also, I notice that Google Places/Maps uses "Drive" in some places for our address, and then "Dr" in the display.Most of our citations use Dr. When I go into the About tab on our Google Places (we merged our Places and Google Plus listing for this address), it displays Dr-- but when I click to edit it opens an edit screen in Google Places, where "Drive" is shown. Do you have a recommendation as to Dr or Drive in that case? It seems that Google might be using Drive but converting it to Dr, so I'm wondering if I should be using Dr or Drive in citations. I believe I originally had gone with the shorter Dr partially based on a factor you discuss-- fitting the entire address onto one line in various places online where that's required. Thank you again for this!

Hi Bob, I like Chris' answer, and will add to this. The naturalness of an overall review profile is important to think about. Additionally, a big reason I would not recommend getting only Google Places/+ reviews is that this product has been plagued time and again with massive review loss for years. The Google And Your Business Forum is swimming in reports of business owners having lost many or all of their reviews. If this happens and they don't happen to have any reviews any place else, then they are suddenly in a review-less state with absolutely no record of their good service. So, while Google Places/+ Local is likely to be one of the most important sites to earn reviews on, it is definitely not the only site and a diverse review profile is good insurance against massive review loss. I recommend that businesses let their customers pick their own favorite review sites. You can steer some clients, if you like, but in the end, if a customer only likes to use Angie's List, by all means, thank her for reviewing the company there. Don't ever insist that she only use Google Places/+.

Hi BobGW, Provided you are getting them from quality sources, then, no, I would not be concerned about having more citations that competitors. However, if you have far surpassed your competitors in the number of citations you've earned and it isn't achieving a defined goal (like rankings for certain target keywords), then I would recommend that you devote effort to other pieces of the puzzle. So, for example, if it's obvious that a business is lacking reviews, turning your attention there would likely be a wiser use of time/budget than continuing to build citations if you've already outdistanced the competition in that area. *Nota Bene: Though you didn't ask about this, Bob, I will add - don't get a ton more reviews than any of your competitors. While you want to have more reviews than your direct competitors, you don't want to earn a TON more as this can look spammy.

A client of mine may only target 2 local keywords, where his home page is for national keywords and an internal page is for local. Is this even a good idea?

Hi Bob, You are getting some very thoughtful answers here. I thought I'd pop in as we've chatted so much about Local SEO. Thought I would add...if this client is Local, remember that he must NOT duplicate the address or phone number on these websites. In other words, if his legal business name is Bob's Appliance Repair and his main website uses his NAP, no part of it should be replicated at Bob Fixes Heaters or Bob Fixes Washing Machines. He would need to obtain completely different addresses and local area code phone numbers for the other businesses. I do not recommend getting suite numbers in a situation like this, because the services rendered are the same or similar and Google would likely catch on that something was odd. I will also add, I have seen local businesses make an absolute mess of this concept of multi-sites or micro-sites. The end up with a bunch of neglected, thin or duplicate content sites. It would be so much better if they put their money/effort into building one really strong website to which new elements are being added on a regular basis. In my experience, local business owners who want a multi-site approach have either come across bad advice somewhere or have an excess amount of energy. If you can step in with great advice and funnel that great energy toward them building a killer on-site blog, you may be able to save them from being spread too thin and assist them in becoming an authority resource in their field.

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