Now that we are at part 4 of this series, which you can view here, it is time to talk about cleaning up your local SEO. This part is much shorter than the rest, but make no mistake, local SEO is not the easiest thing in the world. In this post, we are going to talk about how to inventory old local listings, as well as how to claim and optimize these profiles.
Inventory Old Local Placements
You had an SEO company that claimed they were an “expert,’ but all they have given you is a headache, chances are there are tons of local listings just sitting around that are either incorrect, not properly optimized, and not claimed. The first part to this two-step process to clean up your local listings is to inventory old local listings.
The first way you can inventory listings, is to use Moz Local, formerly known as Getlisted.org. Moz Local first wants you to enter your business name and zip code. After that, a screen will come up asking you to choose the most accurate, current address for your website.
Moz Local then gives you a score out 100% to let you know how much of your local profile is complete, incomplete, inconsistent, or duplicates. It gives you the website and the link of an incorrect listing and tells you what it is missing, so you can go in and correct mistakes or delete any duplicates.
Secondly, since Google My Business Listings are a main part of local SEO, it is important that this listing is consistent as well. I would suggest logging into your Google My Business account, click “get your page,” and search for all previous and current addresses to ensure there are not duplicates, incorrect listings or listings that are not supposed to be there (i.e. old locations).
How to Claim and Optimize These Local Placements
Net, it is time to talk about claiming and optimizing old placements. There are certain aspects of local optimization that are vital to local SEO success:
- Pick one phone number, and one URL to use on all local placements
- Get some great pictures
- Fill out listing as much as you can, without being spammy and stuffing in keywords (a full listing has more power)
- Make sure that the information is exactly the same, down to a t, across every place where you have a listing
Once you have an inventory of the links and have optimized them to the best of your knowledge, it is important that you claim each and every listing. Each website is different, but it usually ends with a phone call to either verify it is the correct location or a pin number to verify it is the correct location. Either way, make sure you follow the directions carefully. When a listing is claimed, it has much more power than a listing that is not. If all of yours are claimed, there is a high chance you will rank well locally.
This process may seem easy, but trust me, it is harder than it looks, and at times it gets very overwhelming, but just make sure you are following the steps above and you are sure to have success.
