Showing posts with label Guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guide. Show all posts

Local Business Citation Cleanup Guide


5 Steps Citation CleanUp Strategy

Here's My 5 Steps Citation CleanUp Strategy, You can use on Your Local SEO Project.

Step 1: I started with a Automated (BrightLocal) and Manual Citation Audit to Identify all Inaccurate Citations.

Step 2: Based on the Citation Audit, I Identify listings with incorrect NAP and Capture data in Spreadsheet.

Step 3: When I get complete list of Incorrect citations, I try to fix Inaccurate citations by claiming. When Claiming not available, I reach directories support to modify the business information. Some Directories take 3-4 emails to amend the information.

Step 4: I monitor emails, inconsistent citations and save notes on work spreadsheet. If I receive no updates from directories I emailed, then I do a follow up email or another round of citation cleanup.

Step 5: I send the final report with everything that has been done to my client.

Note It, in some cases there might be listings that would be uneditable, so the only option might be for them to be removed.

Outreach Email Template

Hi There,
I represent the "local business". I need help claiming the listing. The profile is already claimed but we don't have the login info.

We need to update the business information. The current information is wrong and needs to be updated right away.

Please use listing@localbusinesswebsite.com if you need further information.

Thank you,
Company Representative Name

How to Improve Your Local Businesses Yelp Ranking

Are you wondering How to Improve Your Businesses Yelp Ranking? If you run a local business like Restaurant or Home Services, Yelp should be an essential centerpiece of your local business internet presence.
yelp

Yelp was founded in 2004 by former Paypal employees, Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman, at the startup incubator MRL Ventures. It was initially an unsuccessful email-based referral service, but was re-launched on the basis of unsolicited online business reviews in late 2005. Since Then, Yelp continues to be the go-to resource for millions of visitors looking for information about local businesses.

Some Interesting Yelp Facts
  • Average monthly unique Yelp visitors: 142 million
  • Number of Yelp monthly unique desktop visitors: 79.5 million
  • Number of Yelp monthly unique mobile visitors: 78.9 million
  • Number of Yelp monthly international (non-US) visitors: 31 million
  • Number of claimed local businesses on Yelp: 2.1 million
  • Number of local advertisers on Yelp: 90,000
  • Yelp total revenue for Q1 2015: $118.5 million
  • Number of Yelp reviews (cumulative): 77.3 million reviews
  • Percentage of new Yelp reviews from mobile: 35%
  • Number of deals live on Yelp: 80,000,
  • Number of food orders Yelp is generating weekly: 10,000
  • Number of daily calls to businesses generated from the Yelp mobile app: 200,000
  • Number of daily directions to businesses generated from the Yelp mobile app: 200,000
  • Largest reviewed category on Yelp: Shopping (23% of reviews)
  • Largest age group in US on Yelp: 35-54 (36.4% of reviews)
  • Largest education level demo in US on Yelp: College (60.2% of reviews)

Is your business doing all that it can to attract new customers from the ever-growing audience on Yelp? Whether you’ve been active on Yelp in the past or you’re starting a new business, this article will help you Improve Your Businesses Yelp Ranking.

Get Started on Yelp

Let's first go through the process of claiming a Yelp listing and filling out your business information.

If your business is relatively new, the very first thing you’ll want to do is see if it has already been listed on Yelp. Chances are it already listed on Yelp, If listed follow this steps to claim your business listing.

So go ahead and search for your business’s name. Once you find it, click the link that says “Work here? Claim this business.”

Claim Your Business on Yelp

Take time to create a complete profile. Fill out all of the information fields including location/address, hours of operation, detailed business description, website address, and contact information. Enhance your profile with pictures. When things change (like seasonal hours or adding/eliminating services), make it a priority to update your Yelp profile.

If your business has not been listed on Yelp yet, go to: https://biz.yelp.com/signup/new

For more information on creating your business account on Yelp, be sure to visit the Yelp for Business Owners section of the site.

Here’s how to take your Yelp presence to the next level.

#1: Immerse yourself in Yelp—read the profiles of your competitors
Before you start fiddling with your own Yelp profile, I highly recommend you first get a lay of the land.

Search Yelp for your direct local competitors and click through to their profiles. Take a close look at those with 4+ star ratings and those with 3 and below.

Try to distinguish the differences between those who are thriving on Yelp and those who are not. Do their photos set them apart? Does their website link lead to an impressive site or one that turns traffic away?

Can you start to see patterns in the types of things mentioned in their reviews? Try to pin down what your local market values highly and what prompts them to leave a poor review.

Learn from all of your snooping around and leverage your competitive research to ensure your own success on Yelp.

#2: Start with the essentials: Complete your business’s Yelp profile
The first step to getting your Yelp presence on track is to ensure you’ve got the essentials nailed down. Having a fully featured profile that gives visitors all of the info they seek is a must.

Be sure to complete these essential pieces of your Yelp profile:

  • Name and category: You’d be surprised how many businesses leave a typo in their name or mis-categorize their listing. Double-check this. It’s the most important piece of your listing!
  • Detailed address and phone number: Include your street address, along with any important notes about landmarks or cross-streets. Recently changed address? Update your contact info right away.
  • Include the link to your website and menu: This is crucial for converting more visitors into customers. If a Yelper clicks over to your website and likes what they see, they’re much more likely to become your customer. Restaurants: Make sure your website has an online menu. That can be linked here as well.
  • Quality photos: Nothing hurts your Yelp profile more than a blank photo area. Populate this with quality photos. More on this in a moment.
  • OpenTable.com reservations: Does your restaurant take reservations via OpenTable? You can connect this here.
  • Important info: Be sure to accurately fill out all of the info here, like your hours, price range, parking info, outdoor seating, etc. This info can make or break a customer’s decision to choose your business over the competition.
  • About your business: Although this tab is somewhat hidden behind the Reviews section, it’s important that you fill this out thoroughly. This extra info could be the tipping point that convinces customers you’re what they’re looking for.

#3: Create a strong photo gallery
Most businesses on Yelp only have a couple of poorly shot photos, usually uploaded by visitors. Some businesses don’t even have one photo posted. This is a huge opportunity for your business to stand out!

Hire a professional photographer to shoot a handful of engaging photos that inform visitors about what they’re in for when they visit you. Show off your décor, your food (or products) and the overall customer experience.

Important tip: Include a photo or two of the front of your business, or what your customers will see as they drive by and approach. This makes it tremendously easier for new customers to find you and walk in.

#4: Recognize the value of your customer reviews
We all know that positive reviews on Yelp add a tremendous amount of social proof for your business, not to mention increase your all-important star rating. But customer reviews actually hold much more value than that.

Positive reviews can be leveraged outside of Yelp. You can grab some of the best quotes and feature them on your website, citing the reviewer’s first name. This reinforces the social proof when visitors take that extra step to check out your website.

Believe it or not, negative reviews present a valuable opportunity for you as well. Whether you agree with the critique or not, negative reviews bring up points of concern about your business that you may have overlooked. Use this constructive criticism to improve your customers’ experience.

#5: Respond to reviews
I’m surprised more people don’t take advantage of this incredibly valuable tool Yelp has provided business owners. You, as the business owner, can publicly respond to any review placed on your business profile.

Now, before you start firing away at every bad review that comes your way, stop and consider a more strategic approach.

If you choose to respond to a comment, do it calmly and respectfully. The key here is to show that you care. Thank the reviewer for their feedback, and point out things they may not have been aware of, or explain how you plan to fix or improve whatever it is they were complaining about.

Respond to positive reviews as well! Thank them for coming in and for their kind words. Use this as an opportunity to highlight the hard work you’re putting toward a great customer experience.

The bottom line is, your visibility as the owner within the Reviews section will do a lot to set you apart from your competition—mainly because nobody else is doing it!

Yelp provides advice and info for business owners regarding responding to reviews here.

#6: Track and use metrics in your Yelp dashboard
Now it’s time to really dig in and take your Yelp presence up a notch.

Business owners on Yelp gain access to detailed behind-the-scenes metrics about their business’s performance on Yelp. These metrics were overhauled and improved in March 2012, so if you haven’t logged in recently, you should definitely take a look.

Here you can gather key insights about your Yelp presence. You can track the amount of traffic your Yelp profile receives and also see how many times your business showed up in search results on Yelp.

Tracking “User Actions” gives you an even closer look at how visitors are engaging with your business on Yelp. Actions include things like clicks to your website, mobile check-ins, photos uploaded, etc.

You can use the info gathered here to inform your decisions on things like “When is the best day of the week to run a special?” or “How important is having a mobile website for my visitors?”

#7: Try running a 'Yelp Deal'

if you want to both drum up new business and improve the visibility of your company's listing in Yelp's search results, consider running a "Yelp Deal." Basically, Yelp Deals function like Groupon or Living Social deals. You can offer a discount that Yelp users claim through the site (for example, a $20 gift certificate for $10). Yelp then promotes your profile to a wider audience in an effort to generate revenue via deal purchases, resulting in greater visibility for your company.

Although Yelp keeps 30% of the discounted price, Yelp Deals make your listing more attractive to visitors, and could prove to have a solid return on investment, especially when you use your Yelp metrics to guide the timing of your Yelp Deals.

#8: Take advantage of Yelp’s additional resources
You can find quite a bit of helpful resources on the official Yelp for Business Owners section as well as the Business Owner’s Blog, where you can stay on top of the latest tools as they become available.

You might consider advertising your business on Yelp. While I firmly believe you can find great success on Yelp using the free techniques described above, purchasing advertising placements on Yelp brings a few interesting benefits, like:
  • Removal of competitors’ ads on your business page 
  • Enhanced photo slideshow 
  • Video on your profile
Closing your Business Yelp account?
There are some very simple steps that you can follow if you want to close your Yelp account.
  • Login to your Yelp account. 
  • At the bottom right corner there is a link called “FAQ”. Click on this link. 
  • You will then have the option on clicking on “How to close my account?” This can be found in the Help section of the website. 
  • Click on the words “Click here” that are highlighted in blue. You will be sent to a page that has a form for you to fill out about closing your account. This form will be sent to the Yelp support crew once you have filled it in. 
  • Select “Help me use Yelp” then “Close my account”. Then you should write a short message about the fact that you would like o close your account. When you have done this you can click on the “Send” button and the information will be sent to the Yelp Support team. 
  • Go to your email account associated with your Yelp account. You will receive an email notification at the email address that you specified during the sign up process. Click on this link. If you are unable to click on the link simply copy and paste it into the URL. This link exists to confirm the deletion of your account. Once you click on that the process will be complete.
What do you think? Has your business found success from its Presence on Yelp? Let us know in the comments section below!

Make Your Cleaning Services Business Stand Out From the Crowd

It’s no secret. competition is booming in the business of cleaning services. But that doesn’t mean that your small business can’t be extremely successful. Don’t throw in the towel just yet. There’s room for everyone, you just have to make sure you get to it first!

The good thing about cleaning is that it works like Mother Nature, it’s inevitable. People are always going to need it, mess happens, and it doesn’t just disappear on it’s own.

That’s proof enough that the business makes sense, but the challenge is how do you rise above your competition? How do you get clients in your area before another company does?

Like most companies, cleaning services work best when you build a good rapport with your customers, so that they will return to schedule regular cleaning services.

First, let’s look at simple and effective ways to engage people to notice your small business, and by that we mean, doing a little more than taping flyers to the community mailbox.

Keep your website updated
This will probably be the most important tip, although they all play a crucial role in building your online presence. Having a website that is current gives your company that much more credibility to potential customers.

There’s nothing like visiting a website and noticing that the last time the company posted was in 2013, it makes you wonder if the company is still in business.

Since the wide majority of customers are browsing from their mobile phone or tablet, your website should be mobile and tablet friendly.

List Your Business on Local Business Directory
business listing sites increase your company's online exposure and help improve your local search ranking results in major search engine.

You should make sure you have a listing on the following local business directories:

  • Google My Business
  • Yelp
  • Bing Places
  • Better Business Bureau
  • Angie's List
  • Merchant Circle


Create a listing for your cleaning service on classified websites
Online classified advertising can be a very effective marketing tool for certain small business types, however it’s not for everyone, cleaning service can certainly benefit from it. It shouldn’t be your only marketing tool.

It’s proven effective for products and services that are local, specifically, for businesses that need to operate locally, like cleaning services.

Use Google Adwords
Place your ad directly on Google with Google AdWords. This would be the most effective way to show at the top of search results.

Be seen by customers at the very moment that they’re searching on Google for the things you offer. And only pay when they click to visit your website or call.

Post videos online
Create how-to videos related to your service. Provide relevant information that people often search like: “How to remove tough stains from your carpet” or “How to clean windows and mirrors without leaving streaks”. Link your website to your tutorials, and advise your audience to contact you for more information.

Share your videos among multiple social media platforms like facebook, twitter, google+, etc.

Being a small business owner may also mean you don’t always have the time to invest in online advertising and social media marketing. Services are available which are committed to helping you build and protect your small business internet presence.

How to find good links that will help your website ranking?

How to find good backlinks?
How to find good links that will help your website ranking?


Link building has been one of the most hotly debated issues in the SEO community for the past few years and The controversy started in the SEO community back in 2012, when Google first released Penguin update.

Experts believe that your website organic ranking can get hurt if your website has the wrong type of backlinks. Wondering, How do you judge the quality of a website? What is a good website and from which web pages should you get links?

Links are still the most important ranking factor for search engine like Google Organic Ranking and here's how you'll find and build quality links.

What Is a quality links?
In my opinion, there are few factors that make a link quality backlink:

  • Come from High Domain Authority, Page Authority and has high authority linkbacks.
  • Not created by any automated software/application.
  • Come from related site/topic.
  • Not Paid.

How do i get quality backlinks?


  • Relevant Source
  • Trusted Source
  • Sends traffic
  • Few other Backlinks on the page
  • Not easily acquired
  • Authors/Bloggers
  • Local
  • Industry
  • News



Make no mistake: all automatic backlinks are bad
All backlinks that have been created automatically have no positive influence on the rankings of your website. If these automatically created backlinks use the rel=nofollow attribute, there’s nothing you have to worry about.

If you used tools that automatically created backlinks in bulk for you, you should try to get rid of these backlinks to avoid a penalty. The link disinfection tool in SEOprofiler can help you to get rid of bad backlinks.

The easier it is to get a link, the less you will benefit from that link
For example,uploading an image to imgur.com and then adding a link to your site in the description or comments won’t do your website any good. Creating a blog on Tumblr and linking to your site also won’t boost your website rankings. If it is very easy to create a link, that link won’t have an effect on your rankings.

You do not need special metrics
Many webmasters only want to get backlinks from pages with a particular PageRank. While you can use this method, it is usually a waste of time and it makes link building more difficult than it really is.
If a website has an overall high-quality then it does not matter if the page with the link to your website has a low Google PageRank:

If a high-quality website adds a new page, the new page will have an initial PageRank of zero. Nevertheless, the page can still be very good. A page that has a PageRank of zero today can have a high PageRank tomorrow.

If only pages with a high PageRank had a chance, it wouldn’t be possible to get new pages in Google’s results page. Experience shows that new pages appear in Google’s results every day.

Using your common sense leads to lasting results
When you find a web page that could link to your site, ask yourself the following questions:
Does the linking page look good to the average web surfer? Does the page have interesting content?
Is the content related to my website? Does it make sense if the web page links to your site?

If you can answer all questions with “yes,” then you should try to get a backlink from that page. It doesn’t matter if that page has a low PageRank.

Google tries to imitate common sense with its algorithms. If you use common sense to build your links and follow the tips above, you make sure that the backlinks to your website will count in all future updates of Google’s algorithm.

How can I get readers for my blog?

Use Social Media
Social media can be a very effective way of getting the word out about your blog. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram etc can be brilliant at driving traffic.

Just posting your blogs onto social media won’t work very well. Using social media to promote your blog means you will need to put in some time to create genuine and thoughtful posts and connections.

Guest Posting/Blogging
Contact sites you feel you could write a great, interesting post for that would interest their readers. Contact the editors of those sites with a personal, engaging and unique message complimenting them on their site and pitching some ideas for articles.

Make sure you make it clear why you think you can add value to their readers with your guest post. The more information you can provide about what you plan on writing the more likely you are to get a positive response, it’s all about making it as easy as possible for them to make a decision.

Commenting and Connecting
Another great way of promoting your blog is to comment on the blogs of others in a similar niche (but not in direct competition with you). Like and comment on their blogs, offer to link to them (or even better, DO link to them and alert them you’ve done it).

After a period of time of interacting directly, post an article into the comments of one of their most relevant blogs with a link to your article and an explanation of why you think they will find it interesting. The link may not be a “do follow” but you’ll be presenting your blog to an audience who is already reading the kind of content you offer.


  1. Create compelling unique content that fosters growth: contests, reviews, controversy, etc. "Link bait" 
  2. Link from your posts to other blog posts. Not other websites, not other blog homepages. Link to blog posts which often automatically link back to you while pinging the author to which you are linking.
  3. Post to Twitter
  4. Post to Facebook
  5. Post to G+
  6. Comment on a bunch of commentluv blogs so people can see your recent post.
  7. Deep link to other bloggers posts so they will be sent trackback notifications, getting them to your site might get it mentioned elsewhere - engaging with other bloggers is the best way to get your content promoted.
  8. Mention other people and products in your post and send out tweets letting them know they were mentioned.
  9. Get guest bloggers who will often promote the post to their audience (ex / current journalists have a healthy audience).
  10. Send an email newsletter to your list with a personalized intro and a link to the blog post (I use MailChimp it's great).
  11. Go into forums that are are active in and look for threads that your post relates to, if rules permit reply with a link to the post.

How To Properly Use Schema Markup For Local Business?

How To Use Schema Markup For Local Business?
How To Properly Implement Schema Markup For Local Business Website To Improve Search Visibility?

Today I Came Across Quora and Found a Question About How To Use Schema Markup For Plumber and HVAC Business Website To Improve SEO?

I answered the question and I thought It would be great, If I publish my answer here at my Blog.

Google's search result pages support Semantic Markup that allows local business owners to provide information about their business by using schema.org vocabulary. By providing with a mix of required, recommended and optional properties with values for the https://schema.org/LocalBusiness class, a business can now provide Google with information about things like the business's name, address, telephone number, physical location and hours of operation in a machine readable way.

This also called structured data markup, and can be eligible to appear in two categories of Google Search features:

Rich Results Snippet: Structured data for things like recipes, articles, and videos can appear in Rich Cards, as either a single element or a list of items. Other kinds of structured data can enhance the appearance of your site in Search, such as with Breadcrumbs, or a Sitelinks Search Box.

Google Knowledge Graph Cards: If you're the authority for certain content, Google can treat the structured data on your site as factual and import it into the Knowledge Graph, where it can power prominent answers in Search and across Google properties. Knowledge Graph cards appear for authoritative data about organizations, and events. Movie reviews, and movie/music play actions, while based on ranking, can also appear in Knowledge Graph cards once they are reconciled to Knowledge Graph entities.

Google has supported the provision of local business information with schema.org since April 08, 2014, but this is the first time they've published prescribed property specifications for Local Business.

You can provide structured data markup in your HTML and AMP pages. Google Support Following Structured Data Markup Formats:

Microdata: Microdata is a WHATWG HTML specification used to nest metadata within existing content on web pages. Search engines, web crawlers, and browsers can extract and process Microdata from a web page and use it to provide a richer browsing experience for users.

JSON-LD (Google Recommended Format): JavaScript notation separate from the body of the HTML itself. Markup is placed inside a script tag in the head of the HTML page. The markup does not have to be interleaved with the user-visible text, which makes nested data items easier to express, such as the Country of a PostalAddress of a MusicVenue of an Event. Also, Google can read JSON-LD data when it is dynamically injected into the page's contents, such as by JavaScript code or embedded widgets in your content management system.

RDFa: RDFa (or Resource Description Framework in Attributes) is a W3C Recommendation that adds a set of attribute-level extensions to HTML, XHTML and various XML-based document types for embedding rich metadata within Web documents. The RDF data-model mapping enables its use for embedding RDF subject-predicate-object expressions within XHTML documents. It also enables the extraction of RDF model triples by compliant user agents.

How To Implement Schema Markup For Local Business Website To Improve Search Visibility?


Make sure your Plumbing and HVAC Business Contact and Geographic Information is implemented correctly on your website should be the first step when it comes to implementing schema markup onto your website.

The Local Business section of https://schema.org/LocalBusiness has a variety of categories that businesses can implement as part of the footer or contact page of their website, including address, phone, fax, operating hours, and even accepted payment types.

Microdata Example For Plumbing Service

The microdata schema markup is displayed via div tags and isn’t displayed on the live version of the website. The div tags designate the information that applies to the chosen schema markup:

<div itemscope="" itemtype="”https://schema.org/Plumber”">
<span itemprop="”name”">ABC Plumber</span>
<br />
<div itemprop="”address”" itemscope="" itemtype="”http://schema.org/PostalAddress”">
<span itemprop="”streetAddress”">123 Main Street</span>
<span itemprop="”addressLocality”">Phoenix</span>,
<span itemprop="”addressRegion”">AZ</span>
<span itemprop="”postalCode”">85001</span>
</div>
Phone: <span itemprop="”telephone”">555-555-5555</span>
<a href="http://googlemapsurl.com" itemprop="”maps”">URL of Map</a>
</div>

In this example for an Plumber’s Business, the only information that is displayed on the public-facing side of the website is the information between the span and div tags. Visitors won’t be able to tell that a business is using schema unless they view your website source code.

The ‘itemprop’ in the span tag identifies the schema markup property for that piece of information. All available properties are shown on Home - schema.org in their applicable category.

JSON-LD Structured Data Example For HVAC Contractor

Below is an example of a common JSON-LD syntax which can be used to define a single HVAC Company Business Information:

<script type="application/ld+json">
     {
     "@context": "http://schema.org",
     "@type": "LocalBusiness",
     "address": {
  "@type": "PostalAddress",
  "addressLocality": "Phoenix",
  "addressRegion": "AZ",
  "postalCode":"85001",
  "streetAddress": "123 Main Street"
  },
   "description": "This is your HVAC Contractor Business Description.",
   "name": "ABC HVAC Contractor",
   "telephone": "555–555–5555",
   "geo": {
 "@type": "GeoCoordinates",
 "latitude": "40.75",
"longitude": "73.98"
     },
 "sameAs" : [ "http://www.facebook.com/your-hvac-company-page.",
"http://www.twitter.com/your-hvac--company-profile",
"http://plus.google.com/your-hvac--company-profile"]
   }
</script>

In this example for I created an HVAC Company schema markup by JSON-LD Format.

Once you have your markup/code placed on your website, go ahead and test it with Google Structured Data Testing Tool.

If you have little or no web development experience, it’s easy to run into error when trying to customize the code examples with your own business information. In this case, i advocate you to hire an Professional Consultant.

If you enjoyed the article, please share.

Change The Way People See Your Dental Practice


Change The Way People See Your Dental Practice



Did you know, Google offers a unique tool that allows people to tour the inside of your dental office, before walking through your doors?
Over half of prospective patients will research dental offices online before deciding to book an appointment or request a consultation. They want to know where you’re located; what it looks like inside and out; what other patients have to say about their experience through online reviews; and how to get in contact. With so many other businesses in the area, it’s essential to meet people’s expectations by appearing in their search results. People need to see a business appear online with active postings and updated content in order for them to feel confident enough that a business is in fact up and running.  
What are the first steps?
Having a well designed website is a great start. However, for small business owners like: dental offices, walk-in offices, and other physician practices that offer services for health and well-being, it may not be nearly enough to get patients through your door.  
Google My Business gives you the resources you need to connect with photographers in your area who can help you create a 360-degree virtual tour of your business. Prospective patients will have the ability to get a virtual tour of your dental practice with a simple touch of their finger. From their mobile phone, tablet, or any other way they stay connected online. When your business appears in search results for “dentists in the area” or “dentists accepting new patients,” you can invite them in with indoor Street View directly from Google Maps and Search. It’s the most effective way to inspire trust and confidence. Give people the opportunity to experience your business before they arrive.
What’s the added benefit of signing up for Google My Business? It gives businesses insightful information available all in one place, on your own Dashboard. Log on to your secured business profile and see how many times your business appeared in search results with views, or how many people requested directions or called with the number of clicks.  
These are essential tools for kick-starting any small business. New business owners may not always have the time to invest in building the virtual side of their business, which is why services like Airi exist. They’re committed to building and protecting your internet presence, so you can put more time into face-to-face interactions with your clients, patients or customers.