What Not to Do | Worst Local SEO Advice

Giving Advice For Local SEO Is Tricky

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We’re in the business here of helping companies manage their local SEO and maintain their online presence. We like to think we give good advice in a relatively young and still growing industry, but what are some things you should never do? David Prochaska’s excellent e Point Digital article on the worst local SEO advice inspired us to think of some of the bad advice we’ve heard when it comes to optimizing local SEO for your business.

In case you forgot, local SEO is a bit different than traditional SEO. It involves helping search engines find your business online by monitoring and updating your contact information across the different directories online. We believe local SEO should be done in addition to traditional SEO, and as Prochaska says, it’s a strategy and not a quick fix. Local SEO is necessary, and as we talked about in a previous blog post, there’s a misconception that it’s just for small businesses. It’s actually useful for all businesses, big and small and especially helpful for businesses with tens, 100s and 1000s of different locations.

“As the old saying goes, ‘Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.’ Same goes for Local SEO advice given these days,” says Prochaska.

Here’s some tips for local SEO advice you shouldn’t follow.

Worst Local SEO Advice Ever

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Get lots of reviews- One piece of bad advice is making sure your company has the most reviews on review sites like Yelp. Prochaska cites a Google search engine result page example that shows a company with more reviews ranked lower than the business with less reviews.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that just because a business has a higher rating, that they will rank higher,” Prochaska says.

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Don’t worry about your domain name- Domain names are used to identify one or more IP addresses, according to Webopedia. Larry Moore talks about bad local SEO tactics in a Moore Marketing Systems article and believes your domain name should be clever and include a keyword so users and search engines can find you easily.

“Local SEO is all about being found on the internet locally, and when it comes to your business website, your domain name is front and center,” says Moore. “Should you have a branded domain name or a catchy or clever one?”

Another debate in the local SEO world is whether hyphens or dashes in domain names hurt or help your SEO. Moore cites experts on both sides of the spectrum with one saying, “Google cannot read individual words in a domain name without them,” and others stating hyphens can reduce the ranking of your website. We at SyCara Local say go for it! Moore says to use hyphens when the non-hyphenated version is not available and when the domain name is ambiguous, but use them at your own discretion. Also with domains, be careful not to buy old domains just to redirect them to your site, says Marc Nashaat in a Powered By Search blog post by Stephanie Ling.

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Have lots of citations- Another not-so-good tip is to have as many citations as you can, which will in turn mean higher rankings. First off to refresh your memory, citations happen when your business is mentioned online. Structured citations contain your company’s Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP). Unstructured citations are more of a mention of the name of the company, perhaps on a blog or another website. Still Prochaska says and we agree, more citations does not necessarily mean anything. We do believe monitoring citations is extremely important, but it’s not the number that counts.

“If this were true, then it would just be a race to see who can cite their site more. Can you imagine that?” Prochaska says. “Quality is better than quantity, and you should focus on those high quality citations.”

Claim your Google Plus listing to increase your rankings- Claiming your Google Plus business page will not improve rankings automatically, although it is important to do so. (Check out our blog post on claiming your page and connecting with Google Maps listings for more info). But, Prochaska says he has seen companies that have not claimed their business page rank higher than those that have. So don’t do it for the ranking, do it to keep your contact information accurate and consistent across the local SEO universe.

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Use the phonebook and the newspaper to advertise your business- We talked about this back in April in our “Yellow Pages or Bust” blog post. The Yellow Pages and other traditional forms of advertising in the telephone book are just not effective any more. According to a Search Engine Land article by Chris Silver Smith, the Yellow Pages name itself is becoming obsolete. In fact, 18 to 34 years old are using print and Internet yellow pages less and less. Most people nowadays turn to the Internet for their search and services needs, and this where you want your business to be found. If you don’t put yourself out there online, your competitors will be found, not you.

“You’re basically wasting your money if you advertise through the 1990s advertising channels,” says Prochaska comically. “It’s 2014, and the majority of the world is equipped with the internet and smartphones.”

Stuff keywords anywhere you can- False! While keywords are important in SEO, don’t just put them in random places. Says Mark Walters in Ling’s post, “There’s no need to jam them into every url, page title, meta description, image tag, H1, paragraph, anchor link text, etc.”

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Implementing Google Authorship will increase your rankings- Google Authorships are kind of how you link your content to your Google Plus profile. It attaches a name to a face, as you have the option of uploading your Google Plus photo with your name and business information. This can be useful if you have a blog or personal website. To , create a Google Plus profile then verify your . However, this process once again will not increase your rankings. In fact, Google Authorship photos used to show up in search results, but in the past couple months, Google has taken steps to remove them. Jason DeMers polled seven experts in a Forbes article on why Google would encourage users for years to participate but then remove the authorship photos. Google has said this move helps to keep pages as clean as possible. This is certainly in line with Google’s recent local update “Pigeon” that is all about giving searchers a better visual. DeMyers says Google also has found that “their testing has revealed that removing the photos has no impact on click-through behavior.” Many of the experts disagree with this statement though. Read DeMyers’ article for more.
Collect links to increase your rankings- In the beginnings of SEO, links used to mean everything. The more links, better rankings. Be careful how many links you have pointing to your website, and don’t ever purchase links. You could get penalized and your search results impeded by Google!

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“Having more links doesn’t mean that you will outrank your competitors. What matters is the quality of the links that link to your website,” Prochaska says.

In fact, most of the experts Ling spoke with agreed, the amount of links DOES NOT matter.

800 phone numbers are the key to local success- This couldn’t be further from the truth. Actually, local phone numbers are way better, and here at SyCara Local we encourage businesses to provide all local information. Currently our listing accuracy feature won’t process 800 phone numbers, and local phone numbers are required to obtain the data.

“If you are trying to rank better locally, then it would only make sense to have a local number listed on your website,” Prochaska explains. “And that local number needs to be displayed prominently and proudly at the top of your website.”

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Never do any social media marketing for your business- Okay this tip is absolutely ridiculous! One of our last blog posts talked about social signals and if they affect your SEO rankings. Either way, you still need to promote your business and interact with customers. Social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus are essential and even provide tools and tips for small business owners. Every company is different, so see what social efforts work for you.

“It might be worth it to ‘test being annoying’ in your social and content marketing efforts. You never know, annoying might work wonders with your audience,” says Larry Kim in Ling’s article.

These tips are just a few of the things we’ve heard when it comes to bad local SEO advice!

For more general SEO mistakes, read the Powered By Search blog post where 17 SEO experts weigh in on the topic.

What did we miss? What’s some advice you’ve received in local SEO that didn’t help your business? Comment below or interact with us on social media.