Getting your website listed anywhere on page one of Google is a feat, but we’ve managed to do it for a number of search terms relevant to our industry (hardscape, brick, stone, and masonry,) so we’d thought we’d share some of our search engine optimization tactics with you.
First of all, the first page of Google search results are divided into three major categories: Local search results (which appears at the very top of the page,) organic results (which appear as a list underneath the local results,) and paid advertisements (which appear either highlighted at the top, or in a column to the right of the page.)
It’s a god idea for any regional business to focus on a local business listing, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the local results appear at the top of the page, which means that there is a higher likelihood that they will be clicked. Secondly, the competition for local results is significantly less than the rest of the organic results. If someone is searching for hardscape, the organic results produce all the matches for hardscape in the world. The local listings only return results that are centered around the location of the computer in question. (How does Google know where your computer is? At some point, most of us set our location based on a query from our computer, or we allowed a search engine to determine our geolocation, even though we probably don’t remember doing this.) In addition, through habit, when we search, we often include a location tag in our query, like “Masonry Contractor Los Angeles.”
Most businesses already have a local business listing placed through Google. If you don’t, set one up through “Google Places.” It’s a very easy process. You’ll essentially fill out a form, and then google will verify your listing via phone or postcard. Make sure to fill out the listing entirely, and use all five listing categories. Put up photos, a link to your website, and videos if you have them.
Once this is done, what then? How do you get that ad to appear on the first page of the search results? First of all, if you’d like to verify that we have some experience with this, try searching for: Stone Mason Los Angeles, Stonemason Los Angeles, Masonry Contractor Los Angeles, Masonry Los Angeles, Brick Contractor Los Angeles, or Stone Contractor Los Angeles. Mike usually shows up in the local listings at the top (and usually in the organic results, too. (We’re still working on Concrete Contractor Los Angeles – at this point, we’re on the second page of local listings for that term.)
How did we do this? What are the factors that push a local listing to the first page of Google? Well, there are a couple, but for this part, we are going to focus on what is probably the most important: Having your local business listing substantiated by other local business listings.
When Google crawls the web, and sees that your business listing is substantiated by other, trusted sources, it pushes your listing higher in the search rankings. So, when we are focusing on our local business listing, the first thing we want to do after we create our initial listing is to create other listings with the same information in free or paid directories.
Once we created the ad for Mike Pearson Construction, Inc. (Concrete and masonry contractor extraordinaire) we went and listed him again in all of the following directories. (This list we’re about to give you is SEO gold.)
AboutUs
AT+T
Brownbook
CityVoter
Insider Pages
Clush (paid)
DirectoryM
Dmoz
Hot Frog
Kudzu
listown
Local_com
losangeles.com
manta
MerchantCircle
MojoPages
Rate It All
Smartviper
SuperPages
Yelp
Service Magic
Magic Yellow
findlocal.latimes.com
salesspider
Jihoy
Insider Pages
Landscaperesource.com
These are all free. You can also add listings from paid directories, if you wish. It’s a good idea, but we’ll give you more on that in the next post!
Do It Your Self Search Engine Optimization Mike Pearson Construction Blog Mike Pearson Concrete and Masonry Contractor Los Angeles
