We were up against a competitive service based niche with lots of SEOs competing to generate leads. Top results were very optimized with powerful link profiles and using keyword spammed GBP (GMB) titles.
The site had 4/16 service pages built. The site didn't have local city pages or authority pages. The site was ranking locally close to their location but they weren't ranking anywhere for the main city beside their city.
SEO doesn't need to be hard to do.
We've helped a lot of clients improve their search engine rankings and get more traffic.
We don't really do anything special. Most of the time, the SEO process comes down to:
Onpage Audit and Competition Analysis: A technical SEO audit that fixes all problems and makes a keyword strategy that includes both short-term "quick wins" and long-term "core terms."
Onpage Optimization: Putting the audit to use. Building out the site structure. Updating titles, headers, urls, image alt, etc.
Link Building: Putting together a good campaign to get links from relevant sites.
Of course, every site, niche, and client is different, which means you need custom strategies for not only the keywords you target but also how you build the links.
We've kept the clients info anonymous but we'll be sure to include details in this case study. This client has been great to work with throughout the process.
During competition analysis we look at the GBP name, categories selected and Google Justifications. We use a local seo workbook to keep track of everything.
During competition analysis we like to build out the keywords at the same time. We use a mixture of
Semrush,
Ahrefs, our brain and what the top competitors are doing in capital cities. While we're collecting keywords, we start to map out what the site structure should look like and where each keyword should go. It takes a few hours to do but it's
very important to do right away.
The above screenshot is from Ahrefs. Once we have a list of all relevant keywords we need to remove the keywords that aren't relevant to the business as well as removing other brand names. We create a keyword sheet for the client that organizes it into Keyword Name, Competition, Monthly Volume, Search Intent, Base Keyword and which page it should be mapped to.
After keyword research and competitor analysis we move on to building the website, or in this case converting the site from HTML barebones to Wordpress. We originally had a few service pages built from the client before starting but we had to fix the url structure (from xcontact, xservice-name, etc. to domain.com/main-service-category/service-type). We added all the new service pages, we optimized each page (Titles, headers, meta description, image titles, image alt titles, schema, proper internal linking, breadcrumbs, everything but the kitchen sink). We usually build out local sites a specific way to utilize link power with the breadcrumbs and site silos. If you need info on onpage seo, I highly recommend Marie and Moon's group,
Rule Your Rankings. They have excellent guides and know how's to onpage optimization techniques.
While we were doing onpage optimization we optimized their
Google Business Profile (GMB). We collected the data from competition analysis and we use it in this step. We select the correct categories the client offered, made sure the Name, Address (as Google sees it) and phone number all matches.
YOU DON'T NEED TO SPAM THE GBP NAME TO RANK LOCALLY.Sorry, a lot of new SEOs tell clients to spam their business name to rank. These listings get reported often and get suspended frequently. There's ways to get around it like naming the actual business the name you want shown on Google Maps.
It is tempting though. Quick wins but at a risk of suspension. For this client we kept the business name the Brand Name without adding keywords. It didn't have any keywords in the company name either.
We added local and niche specific info in their about section on GBP. It was well written and converting. We even geotagged all images and added exif data, although not really needed these days. It's a force of habbit to be honest.
We created posts on their GBP. We added all their services offered and we grabbed all the services offered from competitiors that our client offered. We made sure the hours of operation was correct, made sure it was on our website. We added info and media about the business owner. We filled out everything correctly and marked it down for citations later on.
Next we built out their Google Business Profile free website.
This is ours as an example. Next we built out all their citations. We have a list of all the main citations plus we take all the citations from their competitors and optimize ours better. We built it similar to the Google Business Profile and include all products or services they offer. We than built their brand out on all major platforms and posted on them all. These sites are a mix of web 2.0, social media, video sites, image sites, all the big ones people actually use. We build out the profiles using the owners info and media. We fill it all out manually. It helps it index it.
If you're in a higher competitive niche, you're going to need to do some extra stuff that we had to do for this client. Google stacks (RYS), advanced schema (Rob Beal), AWS, etc.
We did a fair amount of work for this local client but it paid off!
Since this was a newish site, we had to make a page on the site, "Find Us Online" that listed their citations and branded links. Google indexed them pretty quick once it was submitted to Google Search Console. This was the results.
If your business needs a local SEO Company that knows what they're doing,
contact us.
Numerous clients have had similar results from us. By calling/texting us at
905-931-7778, you can find out how Smartlinks SEO Company can assist you in boosting your organic traffic with a custom-tailored
SEO approach.
