May 17, 2019

How Can You Harness the Power of Local SEO? (5 Steps to Local Fame)

At JSL Marketing & Web Design, we specialize in developing and implementing highly effective, growth-based, successful SEO strategies – but those strategies are hardly one-size-fits-all, or one-SEO-strategy-works-for-all.

The truth is, a relatively small change can dramatically alter your strategy. For example, are you looking to corner local keywords or national? If that answer is local, then where do you draw those ‘local’ lines?

A lot more goes into local SEO than you might think, but in true JSL Marketing fashion, we’ve broken it down into five simple steps to lead your business to local SEO fame!

Step One: Do Your Research & Pick a Plum (Local SEO Keyword Selection)

As stated by our ‘National SEO VS. Local SEO’ blog from last July, local SEO is named rather suitably, as it all has to do with your service area, or location-specific keywords.

This means you need to define not only your location (or service area) but also keywords you want to be targeting in that area. For example, if you are in Dallas, then El Paso keywords won’t help your bottom line very much.

One would think this goes without saying, but, just so we’re clear – if you are a hair salon wedged between Dallas and Fort Worth, then ‘Hair Salon El Paso’ is a very bad keyword to target.

Even if you manage to rank for that particular keyword (which would be exceedingly difficult due to your NAP Data) being on the first page of Google for a keyword that can’t bring you any revenue is kind of like winning a time-consuming, expensive competition that doesn’t award any prize money.

It might be good for your ego, but it doesn’t help your business at all.

Instead of picking random keywords you think will be good and tacking your city name on their backend, research keywords a little more thoroughly with Google’s Keyword Planner, MOZ’s Keyword Explorer, Keyword Tool, SEMRush or similar tools available online.

Step Two: Google My Business is Your New Best Friend

Once you have done the research and found the keywords you want to target (we most highly recommend SEMRush to find which keywords have the highest search volume, lowest competition, and are relevant to you) then you have to use those keywords.

In other words, you won’t skyrocket to the top four spots on Google just because you know which local words or phrases are being searched for – you need to use that knowledge to make yourself show up.

The best way to do this is actually two steps:

Set up your GMB (Google My Business)
Implement your chosen keywords on your website

Let’s start with Google My Business.

With 9,605,000,000 (that’s over nine and a half billion) searches for restaurants, hotels, clothing stores, beauty salons, and coffee shops every month, it is imperative that your business is on Google – hence, Google My Business.

In order to have your Google My Business be fully functional, helpful, and accurate, we recommend you follow this pattern:

Verification – claim your page and go through the verification process
NAP – accurately input your Name, Address, and Phone number (use a local number, not 800 number for best results)
Categories – choose 4 or 5 categories to accurately represent your business
Description – 200-word max, use this space to state your company name, location, main services and end with a CTA (such as your phone number, etc)
Hours – this is as important as your NAP data to Google, make sure they are up-to-date and accurate
Images – frequently updated images show your customers that you are online, and shows Google that you are open, in-business, and current (keep images between 10KB and 5MB, in-focus, an at least a resolution of 720px x 720px)

Step Three: Optimize (Implement) Your Local Keywords on Your Website

Content is king, meaning you need the content on your website to be in-depth, comprehensive, and helpful. But not all content is created equal, in fact, if you read up on last week’s post (Title Tags, H1, H2, & More) then you know that search engines place the most weight on Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, H1, and H2 Tags (in non-technical terms – webpage names, synopsizes, and headers).

This means you need to place your keywords in the tags mentioned above, but also throughout your webpage copy in a natural way via semantically-related keywords as Google can now tell what a page is about even without the exact keyword showing up 10+ times.

This is thanks to the Rankbrain update mainly, though the culmination of all of Google’s latest updates have been what truly brought the search engine’s comprehension levels to be almost on par with humans.

So, what would Step 3 look like in real life? Let’s go back to the hair salon example to make things clearer.

Your Title Tag (50-60 characters) could be something like:

Luxury Hair Salon in Dallas-Fort Worth | JSL Salon & Styling

Makes sense, right? It gives the location, industry, and name. All the vital details your customers (and Google) would want in one, quick takeaway. And all in just 50-60 characters.

Your Meta Description (100-175 characters) could be:

JSL Salon & Styling offers high-end, luxurious hair, nail, and beauty services in Dallas, Fort Worth, & the surrounding areas! Call us at ___-____ for an appointment today!

This merely tells a little more about featured services and ends with a CTA, or call to action, to lead your guests to the next step – in this case, calling your store.

Your H1 & H2 Tags (the headers on your page) could be:

[H1] Nail Services in Dallas & Fort Worth

[H1] Dallas Nail Salon Services

[H1] Luxury Hair Salon Services in DFW

[H1] Extensions, Cuts, Colors, & More | Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington

And of course, the content beneath these tags should be comprehensive, true, and helpful to your audience.

Think of the above blog, for instance, are you now more well-versed in keyword research tools, Google My Business, and implementing keywords? We should hope so.

Now scroll back up and look at the section you’ve already read. What do you think is the H1 Tag here? The title of the blog, yes. What are the H2 Tags? The Steps.

Step 4: Get in with the In-Crowd (Local SEO Needs Local Backlinks & Lists)

Backlinks are a way that search engines learn to trust you, or to see your relevance, popularity, and importance in a certain industry or field. This means that backlinks are very important for both national and local SEO.

However, being placed on local lists is important for (you guessed it) local SEO as well, as it gives you a backlink from a site that specializes in your area, and also makes you more available and searchable for your clients.

You can use data management tools like Yext to help you keep track of your business’ location-related data on directories and local lists. Or you can manage your lists manually and join local business directories like Yelp, YellowPages, Yellowbook, The Better Business Bureau, Angieslist, and more. Or industry-specific lists, such as UpCity or Clutch for Marketing Services.

Step 5: Know Your Results, Track Your Results, Get Better Results

JSL Marketing doesn’t just say we specialize in local SEO, we prove it with our analytics and reporting each and every month to our clients.

Every month we use a multitude of tools to send our clients a personalized, accurate picture of how their rankings, traffic, and leads are progressing according to our local SEO strategy.

We personally use SEMRush, Google Data Studio, and a few other tools to create our comprehensive reports in clear, current, and correct ways.

And though we hope these steps are as simple to follow and successful in your local SEO journey as they have been for many of our clients, we are happy to help you along at any stage. Simply give us a call, check out our services, or learn more about us here.

Or, check back on our blog for weekly updates about all things Digital Marketing, SEO, Web Design, and Branding.

We can’t wait to make your business a local superstar.

May 17, 2019

My Go-To Information Hubs (7 Sources)

If you are wondering why you even need my 7 go-to information hubs for SEO an all things online, then let me tell you a story:

My wife and I started JSL Marketing right about the time that SEO and Digital Marketing really started to take off (as well as become more advanced, particular, and ever-changing).

This presented a unique challenge for us – how could we provide the very best services with the very best results to our customers when the road to those results was constantly under construction or being demoed and re-routed completely?

While getting into a business near the beginning of an industry boom is a great thing, it can also be challenging if you aren’t willing to be a lifetime learner and take that education as seriously as you take your career.

Luckily, we were (and continue to be) excited and passionate about forever learning, forever growing, and keeping up-to-date on the latest algorithms, revisions, and strategies to provide the top results to our clients.

But enough about JSL Marketing, Sarah, and myself – let’s talk about you. And how you can begin your journey to being a lifetime learner too with my top 7 go-to information hubs for SEO, Digital Marketing, and more.

MOZ

MOZ is a great place to gain information as well as tools for your SEO journey.

And sure, they have paid products and services for SEO, but this isn’t where most of their value lies (in my opinion). Instead, I think the true breadth of their worth is in the MOZ Blog where they have numerous expert writers posting every single day.

Want to learn something new every day? Then add their blog to your morning routine and peruse their newest posts before you start your workday.

Want to learn something specific? Search their articles for specific topics or look through a certain category.

Everything from the very basics of SEO, blogging, branding, technical SEO, and even marketing psychology is available on the MOZ Blog.

Search Engine Journal

As Search Engine Journal says themselves – they focus on Digital Marketing, SEO, Content Marketing, and Paid Search. In addition, their visitors are mainly people like me, with over 35% of their traffic being from Owners, Executives, or C-Levels of companies like JSL Marketing.

And much like their name suggests, they are an information source above all else. They aren’t selling products or tools as much as they are providing information to the people trying to produce and sell products or tools.

And (as you can see) they are good at it.

Yes, that’s right, almost ¾ of their visitors are there to learn, first and foremost. This number includes myself who frequents SEJ often when I want to learn something from top to bottom, and side to side, as they are most known for providing detailed guides, and in-depth articles that go much further than the ones you might find elsewhere on the web.

So, if there is a particular area you want to become an expert in, I recommend adding Search Engine Journal to your favorites, and taking 30-60 minutes a week to go through a guide or a few chapters of an eBook (did I mention they have a library of downloadable eBooks?)

Backlinko (& Their YouTube)

Though Backlinko (by Brian Dean) is technically an education site with courses and trainings for sale, it has a ton of information for free on their blog and it is updated often.

Most of their articles fall into either a ‘step-by-step’ tutorial guide or an analysis of data sets and research that Backlinko has done. So, if research methods and results are your cup of tea, then you will enjoy and benefit from subscribing to Backlinko (as some of their blogs require you to subscribe in order to unlock).

If you are willing to trade your email for a wealth of knowledge and value, I recommend it, as I’ve found many of Brian’s strategies to work well. However, if reading isn’t your favorite – check out the Backlinko YouTube channel which gives you all the information, without any of the eye strain.

HubSpot

HubSpot is both a great software tool as well as a resource for information, as they have a blog, eBook section, research section, and even free courses and certifications in HubSpot Academy.

Granted, my team and I are members of HubSpot, and therefore get a little more than the average user on their site, but even without being a member of paying anything, HubSpot has a huge amount of information, trainings, guides, and more to be discovered.

And unlike many ‘free trainings’, HubSpot Academy’s are actually worth the time it takes to go through them (usually between 1.5 and 4.5 hours).

In fact, every member of our team at JSL Marketing is certified in at least one (most likely many) of their courses, such as Inbound, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Social Media, and more.

Yext

Yext is not only one of the platforms our whole team uses often for our clients, but it also has a great resource center with everything from support to a blog, events to webinars. So even if you are more of the ‘conference learner’ or an auditory learner, you have a place in Yext to gain education and information.

Even just perusing their site can help you learn things you didn’t even know you didn’t know – such as their Knowledge Center which gives you in-depth articles based on certain words you may have never heard of, like NAP Data (Name, Address, Phone Number).

SEMRush

If you’ve ever spoken to me at a conference, in a marketing consultant meeting or a sales coaching session, then you have surely heard me talk about SEMRush. And though my team uses SEMRush’s tools for every client, we also use them as an information source.

SEMRush also has an academy which offers trainings on their tools (toolkit courses), however, you do need to have an account with them in order to take their courses and receive their certifications.

If you are more interested in free, no-strings-attached learning, then check out the SEMRush Blog, Webinars, Podcasts, eBooks, Events, and more (yes, even games).

If learning while driving or even playing sounds like your ideal – then I recommend SEMRush as a great lifetime learning tool.

Neil Patel

Even if he’s last, you knew Neil Patel would be on my list, didn’t you?

Neil Patel is one of the great go-tos for myself and my team, and I find myself sending along his articles or videos quite often to my Content Marketing Manager and SEO Director especially.

This is not only because he is interesting to watch (or read) but because he often gives examples that are more relatable for those already in the field. Though he may sometimes use words and terms that ‘beginners’ in the SEO world won’t know yet, I still encourage new-comers to listen to Neil. One of the great ways to learn is to try to understand something above your head.

In fact, the ‘rabbit-hole’ effect is great on Neil Patel’s site, as I often listen to one video, which will lead me to another which I also find pertinent, and then to an article which goes in depth into another aspect, and so on, and so on.

Luckily, Neil’s site will never turn you in circles, as he has over 1,017 podcasts plus articles and videos – that’s enough for a lifetime a learning

There You Have It! You Essentially Have Just Seen My Weekly Search History.

Do you want to be a lifetime learner too? Do you want to learn more about Digital Marketing, SEO, Branding, and more?

Contact me to set up a consulting or sales coaching session, or to see what my company can do for your website and rankings.

And stay tuned for next week when I explain the simple 3-Step Startup Plan that JSL Marketing used to skyrocket to the forefront of the SEO industry in Dallas.

Day: May 17, 2019