Real Life Local SEO Lessons

Actual Local SEO Experiences and Learnings

The world of SEO is confusing with changes and recommendations happening daily.  Fortunately I decided to specialise in local SEO for small to medium businesses – and for websites built on the WordPress platform only.  Even with choosing to have a single focus and become an expert in just the one area of SEO there a are still numerous changes to keep up-to-date with to ensure that I do the best possible for my clients.

So much is published on the net in terms of ‘best SEO practices’, ‘SEO for 2017’ and ‘ how to cope with the latest Google algorithm change’ etc.  Not only is there a huge volume of information but what is most annoying of all is that it is often contradictory!

Focus on Google’s Aim – Don’t Get Caught Up in Hype

The most important lesson that I have learnt over the last couple of years is to focus on the core white hat SEO tasks that have been around for some time and that work.  Sticking to the basics and not changing tactics with every new bit of latest information that comes out has proved to be the best method to achieve rankings for geographically based businesses here in Brisbane.  The reason why is because this work is what Google is looking for – and that has not changed.  Things might appear to have shifted and moved in different directions but the basic principals of what Google is seeking to achieve has not changed at all.  And the basic, foundation tasks of local SEO is designed to comply with this major purpose – which is to provide people with useful information that they are seeking – and that is answering their questions clearly and correctly.

If one focuses on this rather than the latest SEO scare you can’t go wrong in the work that you do to help your website to achieve good rankings in Google and other search engines.  Quite simply when I work for a client I wear two hats – no three!  One hat is the customer’s hat, what are they looking for, what do they need?  The other is the business owner’s hat, what are they providing, what do they want to convey to their customers.  And finally I put on the SEO hat, if I know what customers want, and I know what the business provides then I just need to make sure I follow the right principals and guidelines as recommended by Google to match these all up together and ranking growth follows.

So this is the first lesson, don’t get caught up in the hype, just do your best for the customer, the business owner and then follow the rules, don’t try to cheat or find short cuts, just do white hat SEO and even with changes in algorithms etc you will find that your website will not be penalised but will weather all updates without a problem.

The Basics Have Not Changed

So what are the basics?  I will not go into detail about this because there is so much information regarding this available on the net.  What you need is good unique content that is well written and correctly formatted.  For local SEO you need good quality backlinks from the best directories, industry sources and associations.  That sounds really simple, unfortunately whilst it is one one hand it’s not on the other because there are many different pitfalls that you can fall into if you don’t know what you are doing.  However most of these pitfalls occur when trying to cheat the system, although I do have to admit there is an awful lot of knowledge that an SEO Consultant has that is nigh on impossible to teach someone else in a short period of time.

Some Websites Rank Quickly and Others Don’t

Applying the same SEO to similar websites but in different industries can have very different results.  This is purely because of competition and also sometimes the particular business that one is in.  Competition is easy to expain, I have a client who is an electrician and there are a lot of electrician businesses in Brisbane.  This would not be a problem, what makes the competition difficult in SEO is when a lot of these businesses have invested in SEO.  So lots of electricians in Brisbane it follows that there will be a lot of them who invest in SEO which raises the benchmark to enable a website to rank.  This is good in that customers searching for an electrician should find good quality information provided in the organic results of search engines.  however it is not such good news for a local electrician with a set advertising budget that is looking to build his/her business through leads generated online.

It can be achieved, it just takes a much longer time.  It also involves focusing firstly on long tail keywords to generate some traffic and business growth and then building on this until the prime 1st page, top 3 positions for the major search terms appear at the end of the tunnel.  For clients like this, everything has to be perfect, the content is in fact best written by the business owner – or at least obtained from in-depth consultation with the owner who knows his customers far better than any content writer does.  This results in more unique and informative content which is the starting block.  Building backlinks is also extremely important and only quality backlinks.  Localised backlinks too are very important.

In terms of the business that you are (or I am) trying to rank if it is one simple product or service I have found that these tend to rank easier.  And that is because the whole website then is focussed only on that one item.  Using the electrician above as an example, his services are wide, he installs ceiling fans, does domestic repairs and emergency work, but he also does large commercial contractor jobs, re-wires old homes or installs all the electrical needs for a new build.  That is a fair bit of diversity.  Another client I have builds decks, that is what he does, he builds decks.  Thus his website ranked really quickly as the content on his website was and is very focused.  He was also lucky in that there are not that many specialised deck builders.  Lots of builders but not that many that specialise in decks only.  Therefore for this client competition was low and industry was focused – and now he is extremely busy!

The Design of the Website is Important

There are a whole host of different reasons why the design of a website helps or hinders ranking growth.  None of these are really to do with the presentation of the website.  Great images, great fonts etc may help convert a customer – but not if they can’t find a website in the first place!

The Knowledge and Dedication of your SEO Consultant is Important

Before I discuss in more depth about the design of the website being important I firstly need to mention how very, very important is the SEO Consultant or SEO business that you choose.  In my experience small to medium businesses are much happier to carve out a big chunk of their advertising spend on obtaining a fantastic looking website, but become very cost conscious when it comes to paying for SEO.  For most of these businesses that I work for their websites are a selling tool, not jut a referral selling tool but they need to rank so their customers find them in the organic results.  I expect in time attitudes will change but currently once having spent (probably more than they could afford) on the development of a website businesses are then relucant or unable to spend what is more important (in my opinion) and that is getting their website seen by potential customers.

So whilst the design of a website is important its not necessary to spend a fortune on the world best website.  In fact a simple website is often far easier to rank – and that means a double win, less expensive and more revenue…

In my opinion small to medium businesses should be looking for SEO provides who themselves are small to medium businesses.  And I would too recommend that they select an SEO company that specialises in one particular area of SEO so that the knowledge base and experience of the staff or Consultant is very high.  As with most things people think the more you have to spend the better the product or service is.  This is not necessarily true in terms of SEO fees by the hour.  It is however usually true in the more hours (and hence cost) the better your chances of ranking quicker and thus providing you with a quicker return on your investment.

If you are really lucky you might find an SEO Consultant such as myself who is dedicated (and loves) the work.  SEO can become a bit of a conveyor belt with the same work done for each client and as quickly as possible to meet the budget.  Someone dedicated is more likely to take extra time (often not charged for) to really evaluate your business, focus on your business and hence target the SEO specifically to your industry and your service or products which will provide a better outcome.  However when budgets for SEO are too low this becomes just about impossible and it will simply results in a much longer time taken for a website to rank and some people will just give up hope which is a terrible outcome.  if you choose your SEO Consultant well this will not occur as you will (you being the client now), have confidence that the monthly investment is going to pay off even if it is some years ahead…

The Inside SEO Story to Continue

Whilst the above section may seem to be a selling tool, it is not intended to be.  Obviously the better your SEO Consultant is the better the work and more effective the work is, the same for any business or service.

There are still many other real life SEO lessons that I have learnt and hence advice that I can provide and I will in the next article following on from this blog which will be published in February 2017.