Part of the guide: Blog Traffic
If you know how to do SEO, you have an extremely marketable skill.
Businesses around the world, no matter how small or large are willing to spend money on SEO.
Over the past few years SEO has become one of the most essential marketing strategies for bringing in new customers. Whether you run a local business, an ecommerce site or global organization.
If you know how to do SEO, but are still struggling to pay your bills. Doing SEO for local businesses is the fastest and easiest way to build an income. Local businesses are happy to spend $300, $500 or even $1000+ per month on SEO for their websites.
If you know how to find them, and how to rank their sites; you’re going to inevitably make a lot of money. In my next post I’ll explain some client getting strategies and how to close local business owners over the phone.
This post is going to explain how to rank local websites. Ranking local sites is very different to ranking normal Internet Marketing sites or affiliate sites. You absolutely cannot risk your client sites getting penalized by Google.
And… in the event that a client site does get a penalty; you need to be able to rectify the problem as soon as possible.
You can do this by controlling the link profiles. I’m guessing you’ve heard about tools like Senuke, Scrapebox and Xrumer before. Well, they used to work really well for ranking just about any site.
In fact they still work well for ranking sites done correctly, but the links they build are high risk. Normally with these sort of tools you build spun content backlinks. Meaning you write an article, spin it and have hundreds or thousands of variations published on public websites linking to your money sites.
While that can be effective, this mass linking strategy is seriously dangerous. First, mass low quality links no longer work really well. Second, if you get a penalty, it’s near impossible to remove these mass links.
Instead, the better strategy you should use is creating high quality links that you control. So if you ever get penalty, you can simply pull the links and remove it. So, let’s say you’ve gotten an SEO client in your local area.
They’re a dentist in San Francisco. They want to rank for ‘San Francisco Dentist’. This is how you do it:
Step One: Optimize Their Site
The first step is to actually optimize their site on-page to rank for their desired keywords. This needs no explanation, it’s the first thing you should do in any SEO campaign. With local businesses you’ll see two types of sites; WordPress and HTML.
WordPress sites are extremely easy to optimize thanks to plugins like All In One SEO. HTML sites are little more tricky. The easiest thing you can do is write down a list of optimizations that need to be done (i.e. change of title tag/meta description/LSI) and asking the client to send the list to their web developer.
You only need to do the very basics on-page, make sure their title and meta description is optimized for their desired keyword/s. Also include the keyword/s a few times in their site’s content. Easy stuff.
Also, if the client has a lot of keywords they want to rank for; it’s a good idea to create individual pages to rank for certain keywords. It’s very difficult to rank a single page for hundreds of keywords. Instead create new pages of content targeting some keywords.
Adding a few links to authority sites (wikipedia etc) is also a good idea. As well as adding a Google Maps to the client’s home page.
==>>> Click Here To Go To Part Two
Comments
Jessica Green, May 10, 2013, 12:45
You were never meant to do this alone
Reading this changes nothing. Doing it with people who show up changes everything. That is the whole difference between the people who transform and the people who keep starting over.
Start free →David, this article is incredibly insightful. The strategies you’ve outlined for local SEO are not only practical but also very effective. I especially appreciate the emphasis on creating high-quality links that can be controlled. This is crucial for maintaining a good standing with search engines. Thank you for sharing such valuable information!
Matthew Johnson, May 10, 2013, 13:30
Your post came at the perfect time for me. I’ve been struggling to get my local business noticed online, and your detailed steps on optimizing on-page elements and managing link profiles are exactly what I needed. I’m looking forward to implementing these strategies and seeing the results. Keep up the great work!
Olivia Brown, May 10, 2013, 14:15
As someone new to SEO, this guide is a lifesaver. The way you broke down the process into manageable steps makes it so much easier to follow. I now feel confident enough to tackle my local SEO projects. I can’t wait for the next part where you’ll cover client acquisition strategies. Thanks, David!
James Lee, May 10, 2013, 15:00
Fantastic article, David! Your advice on using high-quality, controllable links instead of mass-produced ones is spot on. It’s a more sustainable approach that ensures long-term success. I’ve been using some of these techniques already, but your insights have given me new ideas to improve my strategy. Thank you!
Sophia Martinez, May 10, 2013, 15:45
Thank you for this comprehensive guide on local SEO. I’ve always found it challenging to optimize local sites without risking penalties from search engines. Your tips on on-page optimization and link management are incredibly useful. I’m excited to put these strategies into action for my clients. Great work!
Alexander White, May 10, 2013, 16:30
This is one of the best articles I’ve read on local SEO. The emphasis on creating quality links that you can control is a game-changer. It’s a strategy that not only improves rankings but also protects against penalties. I’m eager to implement these techniques and see the impact on my local SEO efforts. Thanks, David!
Emily Wilson, May 10, 2013, 17:15
David, your post has given me a fresh perspective on local SEO. The practical tips and step-by-step approach make it easy to understand and apply. I’m especially interested in your upcoming post on client acquisition strategies. Keep sharing your knowledge, it’s greatly appreciated!
Michael Anderson, May 10, 2013, 18:00
Excellent guide, David! Your focus on maintaining control over link profiles to avoid penalties is very insightful. It’s an approach that many overlook in favor of quick results. I’m confident that implementing your strategies will lead to sustainable success for my local SEO campaigns. Thank you for the valuable advice!
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I think what’s being missed in pieces like this generally is how much the distinction between mass low-quality links and links you actually control ends up mattering months later, not on day one. A lot of local SEO advice jumps straight to tactics — submit here, build this many links — without ever explaining why some kinds of links are a liability you can’t undo once Google notices them, while others you can simply remove if a penalty hits. That difference is the entire reason this post recommends the slower, more deliberate route for a dentist’s site instead of the fast mass-linking approach it explicitly warns against. It’s not the flashiest part of the post, but it’s the part that actually protects a paying client’s business over time.
Sorry if this is a basic question, but when it says to add a Google Map to the client’s homepage, does that mean an embedded map widget, or literally just their address written out?
Bonnie’s question matters more than it sounds — an embedded map versus plain text address is a completely different implementation, and the post gives zero indication which one moved rankings in whatever cases this was actually tested on.
Ade, all of that’s true, but step one alone — writing down every on-page fix for the client’s web developer — is already more than I’ve got time for most weeks. This reads like a full afternoon of work before you’ve touched a single backlink.
I read this and immediately started planning the ‘individual pages for each keyword’ step instead of just picking one dentist-sized business and doing it. Historically that’s exactly the part where I stall for three weeks and never actually launch anything.
Small correction: a link to Wikipedia isn’t a backlink to your own site — it points the other way. Rest of the on-page list holds up.