Local SEO FAQ

What is a Local Search?

There are a couple of different types of local searches. The first involves using a geo-dependent search term e.g. olathe ks lawyer. The second is an implicit local search where the search engine assumes the search is a local search and uses the searchers location (City, State, IP, SE Account Personalization). For example, if you searched for ‘lawyer’ from Olathe, KS the search engine would return results for lawyers in the city you are searching from.

What is NAP or NAP+W?

Name, Address, Phone (NAP) or Name, Address, Phone & Website (NAP+W).

What are Citations?

Citations are mentions of your business and address on other websites.

What is the difference between Structured & Unstructured Citations?

A structured citation is a standard business listing you would find in a local business directory like yp.com. Most structured citations include NAP+W.

An unstructured citation is a mention of your business NAP on a website that is not a traditional business directory containing standardized business listings. For example, a mention in a local blog or social media profile.

What is a Citation Audit and how does it benefit my business?

A Citation Audit is the process of analyzing the entire Local search ecosystem & documenting all instances of your businesses NAP+W profile information that are discovered. Our methods & procedures for cataloging correct and incorrect citations are extremely thorough and time intensive. Not only are we able to avoid duplication, but if they do exist, we will find and document the incorrect occurrences of your business NAP+W for you.

As long as your citation profile has inconsistencies, your Google+ Local listing will not achieve its full potential. Please note, If we find inconsistencies, it is your responsibility to contact the source, and have them corrected. If you would like to outsource your Citation Clean-up to the experts, our Elevate Packages includes this service. Take advantage of this if you can, it’s a wonderful service at a fantastic value.

NAP+W Inconsistency could very well be one of the biggest negative ranking factors hurting your Local rankings. Most experts agree that NAP consistency is one of the top 3 most important local ranking factors. See David Mihm’s fantastic Annual Local Search Ranking Factors Survey for more info. Having consistent citations will improve your local rankings in a big way and give you a competitive advantage over your competitors who do not manage theirs.

How do you select the best Local Business Directories for my business?

Not all citations are equal, some have high authority while others are spammy, knowing how to find the right citations is key. Our experts perform competitive research (the old fashioned way – by hand) to identify which directories your top ranking competitors use. Using our proprietary scraping tools, we further tailor your submissions, and identify the top directories. We find the highest authority, most topically & locally relevant listings for our customers, every time. You will find that a whole lot of tender loving care has gone into each submission, and that each listing has been enhanced as much as possible.

Citations and links from these websites can dramatically improve your local search engine rankings. The more complete the listings are, the more they will benefit your sites local search engine rankings. We highly recommend that you think of these listings as assets, and where possible, continue to maintain & improve the page quality in order to increase the value of these assets.

What information is included in the Detailed Citations Report?

We will send you a detailed report with a list of the URLs to all of the business listings we have created as well as the usernames and passwords for the sites so you can control these listings going forward. The Citation Audit detail is also included, we list all of the URLs where inconsistencies were found. All Social & Rich Media Citation URLs will be included as well if applicable.

This report makes an excellent citations master file for tracking and managing your citations. Having an accurate catalogue of all your citations will save you a whole lot of time in the future.

What does your NAP & Keyword Presence Website Review entail?

We will make sure you have all of the right NAP & Keyword information on your websites key pages. If your NAP or top keyword phrase text is not present on your website, we will send you our recommended on-page improvements to be implemented in-house as you see fit.

Presence of NAP and top keywords in Title are positive ranking factors that will improve your sites ability to rank locally.

How long does it take to receive my first Citations Report?

You will receive your first Detailed Citations Report within 3 weeks after submitting your order.  You will receive a Monthly Citations Report each month thereafter as new local citation opportunities are discovered and submitted.  Most local search consultants will stop researching and building new citations for you (while still billing you) after the initial project is completed in month 1.  We don’t stop working for you.

When will I receive my Local Rank Tracking Report?

Your Local Rank Tracking Report (.pdf) will be sent to you via email, weekly on Friday morning right after your coffee is done brewing. Our ranking reports will give you vision into how you are ranking nationally & locally for your top keyword phrases as well as your overall visibility in the major search engines.

You don’t have to purchase any expensive software, or deal with the often incomplete and inaccurate rankings data from free services. Our enterprise grade ranking reports provide highly accurate local and national rankings for Google, Bing & Yahoo!. Every week you will know exactly where you are ranking and what rankings look like compared to the prior week. In addition, our ranking reports include Google universal search result blocks: images, videos, news, shopping, places, books and real time results.

After purchasing an SRN Local Fuel Package, what else can I do to further improve my local rankings?

The 2 most important activities that you should be involved with is to continue asking your customers for Reviews and remediating any and all NAP+W inconsistencies in your business listings.