Getting on the Map: The Intro to Local SEO for SABs

Getting on the Map: The Intro to Local SEO for SABs – Moz

Moz logo

Menu open

Menu close

Products

Moz Pro

Moz Pro Home

Moz Local

Moz Local Home

STAT

Mozscape API

Free SEO Tools

Competitive Research

Link Explorer

Keyword Explorer

Domain Analysis

MozBar

More Free SEO Tools

Learn SEO

Beginner’s Guide to SEO

SEO Learning Center

Moz Academy

SEO Q&A

Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides

Blog

Why Moz

Agency Solutions

Enterprise Solutions

Small Business Solutions

Case Studies

The Moz Story

New Releases

Log out

Products

Moz Pro

Your All-In-One Suite of SEO Tools

The essential SEO toolset: keyword research, link building, site audits, page optimization, rank tracking, reporting, and more.

Learn more

Try Moz Pro free

Moz Local

Complete Local SEO Management

Raise your local SEO visibility with easy directory distribution, review management, listing updates, and more.

Learn more

Check my presence

STAT

Enterprise Rank Tracking

SERP tracking and analytics for SEO experts, STAT helps you stay competitive and agile with fresh insights.

Learn more

Book a demo

Mozscape API

The Power of Moz Data via API

Power your SEO with the proven, most accurate link metrics in the industry, powered by our index of trillions of links.

Learn more

Get connected

Compare SEO Products

Free SEO Tools

Competitive Research

Competitive Intelligence to Fuel Your SEO Strategy

Gain intel on your top SERP competitors, keyword gaps, and content opportunities.

Find competitors

Link Explorer

Powerful Backlink Data for SEO

Explore our index of over 40 trillion links to find backlinks, anchor text, Domain Authority, spam score, and more.

Get link data

Keyword Explorer

The One Keyword Research Tool for SEO Success

Discover the best traffic-driving keywords for your site from our index of over 500 million real keywords.

Search keywords

Domain Analysis

Free Domain SEO Analysis Tool

Get top competitive SEO metrics like Domain Authority, top pages, ranking keywords, and more.

Analyze domain

MozBar

Free, Instant SEO Metrics As You Surf

Using Google Chrome, see top SEO metrics instantly for any website or search result as you browse the web.

Try MozBar

More Free SEO Tools

Learn SEO

Beginner’s Guide to SEO
The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.
Read the Beginner’s Guide

How-To Guides
Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.
See All SEO Guides

SEO Learning Center
Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.
Visit the Learning Center

Moz Academy
Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.
Explore the Catalog

On-Demand Webinars
Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.
View All Webinars

SEO Q&A
Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.
Find SEO Answers

August 7-9, 2023
Lock in Super Early Bird savings for MozCon

Snag tickets

Blog

Why Moz

Small Business Solutions
Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.
Grow Your Business

The Moz Story
Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.
Read Our Story

Agency Solutions
Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.
Drive Client Success

Case Studies
Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.
See What’s Possible

Enterprise Solutions
Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.
Scale Your SEO

New Releases
Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.
See What’s New

New Feature: Moz Pro
Surface actionable competitive intel

Learn More

Moz Pro

Moz Local

Moz Local Dashboard

Mozscape API

Mozscape API Dashboard

Moz Academy

Avatar

Moz Home

Notifications

Account & Billing

Manage Users

Community Profile

My Q&A

My Videos

Log Out

By: Joy Hawkins
November 2, 2015

Getting on the Map: The Intro to Local SEO for SABs

Local SEO

The author’s views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

Local SEO can be confusing for those businesses that don’t have a physical store for customers to walk into. Unlike businesses with a brick-and-mortar storefront, service-area businesses (or SABs) go out to meet with their customers, as opposed to their customers coming to see them. This often results in them servicing multiple cities, which can be problematic—the #1 ranking factor in local SEO is the physical address of the business. In addition, business owners are also usually concerned about privacy, as many of them use their home address and can’t utilize some of the features that Google offers small businesses (like Indoor Street View).This guide will show you how you can maximize your presence on Google and reach more people in your local market.1. Figure out which address you’re going to use.As a service-area business, you only have a couple options. Here are some best practices:If you have an office, use that for your business address everywhere online.If you have no office but you have a business partner(s), use the home address for the person who lives closest to the major area that you service.Use the address you registered with for your business everywhere. Think of the address you put on your bank business loan, the address you used for registering for your business telephone line/cell phone, the address you provided when you bought a business vehicle or equipment. These are the addresses that are going to populate online via data providers later in the future, and they’ll give you a possible headache if they don’t match what you used as your address in Google My Business (GMB).2. Decide if you need to hide your address or not.Hiding your address means that Google will know where you are (for verification), but users will not see your address publicly on Google.You should always hide your address if you’re using your home address (unless customers actually show up there). If your customers do visit your home address, it needs to be blatantly obvious on your website. You should:List driving directions,Invite people to come visit, and Include photos of your home office.You should hide your address if you have an office, but no one is actively staffing it during the day. If a person walked in at 2pm during a work day, would your door be locked with no one there? If so, hide your address.If you have an office that is actually staffed, you should leave it unhidden.Flash from the MapMaker Top Contributor team wrote up a great guide that shows you how to hide your address and the rules that Google has about this.3. Decide if a public address is okay elsewhere online.If you fall into the majority of SABs that need to hide their address, decide if you’re okay publicly listing your address on other websites.My advice is to always list your full address everywhere else online (other than Google My Business), including your website, Facebook page, Yellowpages listing, and so on. If you insist on not listing your home address anywhere, that’s okay, but know that you will run into some missed opportunities. There are still many local directories that require an address to be listed. Phil Rozek wrote a great summary of places you can list your business with a hidden address.4. Think about how you should list the area you service.In Google My Business, you can select which areas you service. You can do this by adding either zip codes or the names of the cities you service. It’s good to note that what you select here will determine how your business radius and marker will show up on Google Maps. If you choose a ton of cities and zip codes, Google will attempt to find the center of them and put your marker there. The result isn’t always ideal. Keep in mind that the service areas you select have no impact on your ranking there. It’s extremely unlikely that you will rank in the local pack outside the town your address is in.5. Do a thorough check for duplicate listings on Google.The best option for a service-area business is to head to Google and type in this query (with the quotations). Replace the dummy phone number with your actual one:“plus.google.com” “999-999-9999” “about” “review”Go to the end of the URL string in your browser (it starts with “google.com…”) and add &filter=0Record a list of all the listings you find (they will all start with “plus.google.com” and repeat those 2 steps for every phone number that might be associated with your business. Make sure you check your home phone & cell phone.Once you have your list of existing listings, make sure you deal with all the duplicates appropriately.If your duplicate listings had inconsistencies and used different phone numbers, websites, or addresses than the one you have provided to Google, make sure you search Google for other online references to that information and update it there, as well.6. Do a local search on Google for a few keywords in the town your address is in and see who your competitors are.Look for competitors that either have multiple listings (which is not allowed) or that are using keyword stuffing in their business name. Typically, more spam exists for service-area businesses than for businesses with storefronts. Locksmiths are known in the local SEO world as being the most-spammed business category.Submit an edit for these listings through Google Maps to remove the keyword stuffing. If the competitor is a service-area business with multiple listings, you can report the duplicates through Google Maps. As per the guidelines, a service-area business is not allowed to have multiple listings. The only exception would be if they had multiple offices where customers could actually show up.7. Consider expanding your open hours.Service-area businesses with hidden addresses have the advantage of listing the hours that they’re available to answer the phone. Businesses with storefronts are supposed to list the actual hours that customers can show up at their front door and get service. If they have a 24-hour call center, they are still not allowed to list themselves that way unless they’re someone like McDonald’s, with a 24-hour drive-through. Service-area businesses avoid this rule because they have no physical storefront, so their open hours are the equivalent of the hours that they answer the phone. With Google’s new hours display in the search results, having longer open hours could result in a lot more calls.8. Come up with a really great content strategy for the areas you target outside of the city your address is in.Generally, you will only rank in the local pack for the city that your address is in. If your home address isn’t in the city that your primary book of business is in, this can be concerning. Other than setting up offices in different cities (real ones, not virtual ones), your best option is to target long-tail keywords & the organic section of Google using really great content. Here are some tips for ways to generate good content:Create pages/articles about the different jobs you do. If you are a home remodeler in the Denver, CO area but do jobs in the entire metro area, you could create a page for different jobs you did in Parker, CO. On that page, you could put before & after pictures of the job, a description of the job, details about the neighborhood you did it in, a testimonial from the customer, and so on and so forth.Create how-to videos for your industry. If you’re a tree service business, you could create a video on how to prune a maple tree (think long-tail and get specific). Post the video on YouTube and use their transcription service to transcribe the entire thing as well. In the description, include the full name, address & phone number of your business along with a link back to your website.Use a service like Nearby Now to help automate this process.If you’re a contractor, create a useful page on your site for each town with safety information, emergency contacts or places to get permits.Technically, I could continue to add a hundred more items to this list—for now, I wanted to focus on the major starting points that will help a service-area business start out on the right track. If you have questions, please let me know in the comments!

About Joy Hawkins —
Joy is the owner of the Local Search Forum, LocalU, and Sterling Sky, a Local SEO agency in Canada & the USA. She has been working in the industry since 2006 and writes for publications such as Search Engine Land and enjoys speaking regularly at marketing conferences such as MozCon, LocalU, Pubcon, SearchLove and State of Search. You can find her on Twitter or volunteering as a Product Expert on the Google My Business Forum.

How to Get Faster SEO Results

When Money Can’t Buy You Link Love

Content Gating: When, Whether, and How to Put Your Content Behind an Email/Form Capture

How to Measure ROI for Lead-Gen Websites

Building a Freelance Link Building Team

How To Tap Into Social Norms to Build a Strong Brand

类似文章