Whether your business has one location or tens of thousands of locations, this Local Online Marketing Guide is the perfect checklist of actions you can take to improve your keyword ranking in Google Maps, Bing Local, Apple Maps and other navigation engines where users are looking for your product or service.

The principles behind location-based search engine optimization and national or international search engine optimization are significantly different. To rank well for a national query, such as “ipad cases”, you’ll focus mainly on your /ipad-cases.html page; where local SEO involves working in 4 critical areas to appear prominently in the 3-Pack blended Google results and other navigational search results. Those primary areas include:

1. Business Database Accuracy and Consistency
2. Local Landing Page Optimization for Each Location
3. Business Data Visibility Off Your Website
4. Reputation – Reviews and Ratings

This guide will walk you step by step on how to optimize within each of the above areas.

Local SEO Case Study #1 – Law Firm

Below is an example of how an attorney increased his local visibility by 144% in Organic search engine results, with a 47% increase in leads.

Local SEO Case Study #2 – Shoe Store Franchise

We started from scratch with local landing pages on a subdomain of this shoe manufacturer’s website, with the goal to increase Google Maps 3-Pack rankings for “shore store” in over 400 locations. Watch how we went from zero to over 75k visits per day to franchise local landing pages:

About the Author

Steve Wiideman has been in the search engine marketing industry for 20 years, starting as a webmaster in late 90’s and having worked for well-known brands. His experience in the Local SEO field started two decades ago, helping hundreds of small business in various industries with being found online. Including: limousine services, disc jockeys, restaurants, photography studios, florists, locksmiths, and many other businesses with a regional target audience.

In 2008, Steve teamed up with a friend who ran a local search service with over 2,000 active customers. His initial role was to help expand customers’ reach beyond Google Maps (at the time, 7-Pack, today 3-Pack) blended results by provisioning optimized landing pages to direct search engines, navigation engines, and local-social directories to; pages that significantly out-performed the customers’ own websites. During his time here as Production Manager, he supported audits and troubleshooting with hundreds of local businesses, and played a role in the support of several multi-location customers, including an 800-location storage franchise.

Since leaving the corporate world, as an independent consultant Steve has worked with the following roster of brands you may have heard of, specifically on location-based SEO strategy:

• Disneyland (Commerce and Marketing)
• Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill and Bar
• Skechers USA
• U-Store-It (CubeSmart)
• Public Storage
• Meineke Car Care Centers
• Umami Burger
• California Closets
• Friar Tux
• The Queen Mary
• University of Redlands
• and more…

Still Not Convinced?

Call one of our consultants directly at (562) 732-4417 to schedule a complimentary consultation to support your local SEO strategy. Be sure to bring your webmaster or coder, your writer, and someone who manages your social and outreach efforts. If you’re not convinced that this guide will help you, hopefully our expertise will speak for itself. All consultations are via screenshare and recorded for you to refer to after the call.

We hope you’ll enjoy this product as much as we enjoyed making it!