Category: Local Buzz
SEO Checklist for Ranking Location Page
What Makes a Location Page Rank?
This local SEO location page checklist covers several possible questions a website guest may have when learning about a local business. Here is a SEO checklist for ranking location page.
1. NAP
NAP stands for name, address, and phone number. Your NAP should be an exact match copy on your location page, Google My Business profile, and other citations.
Many SEO professionals (and Google) claim that exact match isn’t as important as it used to be, while others claim that it still is.
My question to you is, why risk it? Be type A and exact match it!
2. Photos
Everyone knows that photos are important for location pages, but so many businesses are missing important opportunities with their photos.
Interior Photos
This should be a no-brainier, but you’d be surprised how many location pages are missing interior photos.
Interior photos help guests get a realistic expectation on what to expect in your business. Often times, especially with healthcare businesses, nice looking interior photos can be a deciding factor.
Exterior Photos
Including exterior photos is super important for location page optimization.
Your exterior photos should include:
- Signage and logos.
- Parking (if applicable).
- Nearby businesses (if inside a mall or strip mall).
Exterior photos are meant to help new visitors find your business upon the first arrival and can also be a decision-making factor for new business.
Optimize Your Image Meta Data
It should go without saying that your images should be of high quality. However, images taken from a modern camera tend to have large file sizes.
Much of this has to do with the excessive metadata included within the photos. This can include unnecessary information such as the type of camera that took the photo.
Software, such as ImageOptim can remove that metadata with lossless compression, meaning that the image quality isn’t compromised.
Software like ImageExifEditor can be used to add metadata to images such as title, description, and even GPS coordinates.
For your website, this is a bit overkill, but maybe beneficial for rankings when added to your Google My Business profile and other citations.
3. Description of Business Location
The description of the location is where many businesses fail. Some locations simply use the same description on all location pages and just replace the location name.
JR Oakes provided an unfortunately great example of how not to write local landing pages.
Notice that this business decided to simply use the same content and merely swap out the city name.
Here are some ideas on ways to help make your descriptions unique and relevant.
- Services Offered: Are there any services offered at this location that are unique compared to other locations?
- Products & Brands: If your location is a store, what are some major brands that someone may be searching for near them?
- Nearby Locations: Do you have other location nearby? This can help with internal linking.
- Unique Selling Proposition: What makes this store unique compared to your competitors in the area?
- Menu: A must-have for restaurants.
4. Helpful CTA
Including a call to action is marketing 101. However, it’s something often overlooked on many location pages.
When adding a CTA, make sure that it really makes sense and adds value to the user experience.
Some options for CTAs include:
- Get Directions (link to Google Maps).
- Reserve Table.
- Request Appointment.
- Shop Now (if online shopping is available).
5. Directions to Business
Including directions to your business can help not only help users find your business, but it can also help naturally work in Geo-specific keywords and targeting into your copy.
A good rule of thumb is to focus on how to get to your location from at least two directions (East/West or North/South) from major highways. Mentioning major intersections can also help identify your business location.
Don’t forget to mention nearby businesses in your directions. This can help users find your business if it’s located in an outlet center or shopping mall.
6. Embedded Map
Embedding a map can help users more precisely figure out if your location is the one nearest to them.
If possible, use the Google Maps API to develop a custom map solution to include your other nearby locations.
7. Schema
I urge all local businesses to venture beyond the standard LocalBusiness markup.
Try to find the most specific local business type that’s relevant to them.
Check out Schema.org for a list of more specific business types to find the type that best matches your business.
8. Title & Meta Description
Having a well-optimized title and meta descriptions is a no-brainer. It’s SEO 101.
However, it’s so often spammed by local SEO amateurs.
You may be asking yourself, “Why worry about the title and meta description when we’re focusing on ranking in the map pack?”
Great question! Believe it or not, local businesses still get traffic from the standard organic results.
You should always cover your bases and ensure that you listing is optimized wherever someone may find your business.
Title
A well-optimized title should include three basic elements:
- Brand name
- Geo-specific keyword (city or local area)
- Keyword
Meta Description
While meta descriptions do not directly affect rankings, this is your key selling space in the SERP. This is where the science meets the art in SEO.
Make sure you include the same three elements from the title while adding some extra selling flare. Use that extra real estate to help establish your key selling features.
9. Internal Linking
There are several ways to add relevant internal linking for your local landing pages.
Not all may be relevant to your business, but you can try some ideas from this list:
- Link to other nearby locations.
- If your location offers specific services, link to informational pages about those services.
- Link to location-specific social media profiles.
- For medical clinics, link to doctor profiles.
- For restaurants, link to menus.
- Link to your company about page.
- Have a space for recently published blogs.
- For stores, link to any available online shopping.
10. Load Speed
Load speed is an important ranking factor, especially for local SEO.
Having a fast loading location page can make the difference between your site ranking in position two and position one in the map pack.
Using Google PageSpeed Insights of GTMetrix can help you diagnose issues with the load speed of your webpages.
More Resources:
6 Reasons Your Local Business Listings Need to Be Accurate
Local Business Listing Research and Creation
Month 1 
Local Places Research
Duplicate Google Places Analysis
Duplicate Foursquare Analysis
Foursquare is one of many secondary local search engines where you will need to list/claim and verify your business. Listing and claiming your business properly with Foursquare is an essential step to improving your local presence.
One can’t create duplicate listings in Foursquare. If there’s an existing listing, we will report it to you so you can decide if you would like us to claim it. Otherwise, should Foursquare creation be part of your package, we will create and optimize a new listing for you.
Duplicate Facebook Places Analysis
Facebook allows people to share where they’ve been, where they’re headed and where they are now. This feature is an opportunity for businesses to promote their products and services within their local area.
We will find duplicate Places for your business by searching for its name or locations where people made when they checked in. If we found duplicates, we will claim and merge the duplicates to keep your customers’ likes and check-ins in one place.
Duplicate Bing Local Analysis
Having your business added properly in Bing Business Portal is an important step in improving your local presence. Bing is one of the major search engines where you can have your business listed and verified.
We will find duplicate listings in Bing by searching for its name or locations and report it to Bing if we find any duplicates.
Business Address Consistency Check among Existing Directories
It’s important for your Business Name, Address, and Phone Number to be recorded consistently across all the main search engines and local directories. Inaccurate information can be confusing for customers and more so for Google. Google likes to verify the information it holds about your business with other sources such as local online directories.
It is ideal that your Name, Address, and Phone Number are the same on each site. If there are any discrepancies, appropriate measures should be implemented. Addressing inaccurate results by claiming your listing on those directories and correcting the erroneous information effectively resolves this issue.
Google Places Compatibility Check
Business Information
Business Information Intake
Business Information Validation
Business Address Verification (if applicable)
Email Account and Logo
Unique Email Account Creation for Local Listing Creations*
Turn Over of Email Account
Uploading of Logo for Linking into Local Listings
Primary Local Business Directories
Google Places – Creation and Optimization
Google Plus User Account Creation
Google Plus Business Page Creation
Your Google Plus Business Page is your brand’s home on Google. When your customers search on Google, the results may include relevant posts, photos, and videos from your Google+ page. Get found across Google, right when your customers are most interested.
We will create and optimize this page for your company to have maximum exposure in Google Plus. We will help you stand out from the competition by including compelling online content such as photos and logos. We will also add your business hours, services, and other information.
Bing Local – Creation and Optimization
Our Bing Local services include the creation, optimization and submission of the Bing Business Portal. We will help you stand out from the competition by including compelling online content such as photos and logos. We will also add your business hours, services and other information. It typically takes two to three weeks for a Bing Local listing to be published.
If your business is located outside of the US, we will be creating a Yelp listing instead since the Bing Business portal is not available in your location. As with Bing, it will typically take two to three weeks for your Yelp listing to be published.
Facebook Places – Creation and Optimization
Foursquare – Creation and Optimization
Claiming and verifying your listing in Foursquare is the first step to get discovered and be successful in Foursquare. Foursquare has millions of business listings, all submitted by customers who go to those places.
We will find your business and make sure that the information for your claimed business is accurate. We will add your company description, phone number, hours of operation as well as links to your website and social media profiles – Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Verification of Foursquare will require a credit card payment of $1.
Additional Major Local Business Directories
Major Local Directory Account Creation and Optimization
Major Niche or Geo Related Directory Account Creation and Optimization
Image Creation, Optimization, and Publication
Image Optimization
increases the likelihood of being exposed to consumers in the World Wide Web. Images will have the ability to index
in the search engines when your clients type in relevant keywords describing your business. Images are often times
part of the first page search engine results.
Misc. Service Items
We will provide a dedicated IP for link building purposes. We do this to ensure the link building quality and increase the likelihood of approval for the links we are building. This is because having a dedicated IP allows for a higher approval percentage of the links we build and increases the indexing power behind those links in the major search engines.
IP services will also be utilized when creating your accounts.
- Reporting and Auditing
- Internal Report Auditing and Analysis
All Reporting is subjected to a monthly routine auditing and assessment process. We perform this auditing on a monthly basis to assure that all reports are up to date, error-free, and properly formatted.
The auditing process includes, but is not limited to, the checking of the following:
1. Format
2. Link status analysis
3. 100% of the month’s work is completed in full
4. Report is updated accordingly
5. Fixing of errors or dead links
Month 2 & Ongoing Monthly
Custom (Citation) Building
We will conduct research to find all the directories your competition has listings in, and use other variables to research additional directories you should be listed in, but are currently not. Using these data, we will be able to not only target the directories that really matter, but we will also be able to track the number of active directories you are listed in versus the average number of directories your competitors are listed in. Our ability to use specialized research and citation/directory tracking resources will give us a leg up on your competition.The purpose of this analysis is to gauge where your competition is. In doing so, we can better tailor a unique citation building campaign in line with your Local Listing Optimization Campaign and overall SEO efforts.
Specialized Directory Creation
Collectively, Local Online Citation Directories are the modern equivalent of the Yellow Pages. As more and more local consumers turn to the Internet to find information about local businesses, these citation directories are growing in popularity. These citation directories can be a direct source of new customers, and they can also boost your local places rankings.The directories we decide to build new listings in will be determined by the “Directory Research” as described in the above line item. Another way to gain prominence on these citation directories is to enhance your listing with more detail about your business.We will create directory listings using (limited to) the below information.*Company Name
*Website
*Address
*Local Phone Number
*Services
*Categories
*Email Address
*Products and Brands
*Logo
Specialized Directory Creation
Blog Comment Posting OR Review Publication
Collectively, Local Online Citation Directories are the modern equivalent of the Yellow Pages. As more and more local consumers turn to the Internet to find information about local businesses, these citation directories are growing in popularity. These citation directories can be a direct source of new customers, and they can also boost your local places rankings.
We will create directory listings using (limited to) the below information.
*Company Name
*Website
*Address
*Local Phone Number
*Services
*Categories
*Email Address
*Products and Brands
*Logo
You may choose between Blog Comment Posting AND Review Publication
For the Blog Comment Posting: we will conduct research to find blogs that are relevant to your business, and perform posting of relevant comments with reference to your business.
For the Review Publication: Upon being furnished with reviews you have collected, we will publish each of them to one of the major review publication websites.