Local SEO Action Plan for Mark E. Pruzansky MD Action Plan generated on 5 May 2013 About your Local SEO Action Plan This report contains a number of recommendations for correcting the issues and taking advantage of opportunities found in the Local SEO Audit report. This report is divided into 6 sections and each section has a clear explanation of the SEO work to be completed. Technical SEO This sections speaks to the actions that need to be taken in order to solve the problems or take advantage of opportunities within the technical SEO elements of your site. 301 Redirects You have an issue with a duplicate website that is causing both search indexing and ranking issues. The website handsport.org needs to properly redirect via a 301 permemenant redirect to handsport.us. Each page from.org needs to be mapped to the corresponding page on handsport.us. XML Sitemap An XML sitemap is the default standard for providing a complete index of your site to search engine crawlers. Since it is a best practice and you have issues with your website having all of its of its pages indexed, it is necessary to create and host an XML sitemap. This XML sitemap should also be manually submitted to each of the search engines. Robots.txt The robots.txt file tells search engine robots how and what to index on your website. Without a robots.txt file, search engines are unable to understand how you want the site to be indexed, including pages to not index (like admin pages) or pages that tend to create duplicate content issues, such as archives and certain category pages (especially with Wordpress).
Schema.org This is a way of tagging or structuring important information on your web pages to make it easier for search engine spiders to catalog your data. It also aides in Rich Snippets, an enhanced way that your search engine results are displayed. This is important in local search since it relies heavily on geo location and reviews. Indexing Only 10 of your pages are currently contained in the search index, though your website has well over 50 pages. Due to the lack of a 301 redirect, XML sitemap and some site architecture issues, not all of your pages are bringing in search traffic. To improve indexing you will need to execute on each of the items contained within alongside manual URL submission to search engines. Google Webmaster Central It does not appear that you have a webmaster central or webmaster tools accounts. Each of these accounts should be created, your website claimed and the tools leveraged to help eliminate your website crawl and indexing issues. Its is also another sign of trust for your site. On page SEO This sections speaks to the actions that need to be taken in order to solve the problems or take advantage of opportunities within the on page SEO elements of your site. Keyword Research Keyword research should be conducted using tools provided by search engines and other third parties to determine what search phrases search engine users enter most frequently that closely relate to your services. Based on this information, a strategy can be devised for proper on page optimization, citation and link building to increase search rankings. Site Architecture The current architecture of the site (information architecture) is causing some usability issues for visitors and crawling issues for search engine spiders. These are not huge issues, but a review of how the site is organized, to ensure it is search and user optimized is recommended. Interlinking Based on the keyword research and focus keyword selected, focus (or most important ) webpages can be selected and links built to these pages from other parts of the website using optimized link anchor text. The website should be properly interlinked to funnel authority from high ranking or high authority level pages to those pages targeted for top search engine rankings. Page Titles The title of each page is the most important SEO ranking factor. Each page needs to be reviewed to see if the page title targets a popular search phrase and that it matches that phase (or phases exactly). Headers
Page headers, found throughout the content, are a prime way to indicate to users and search engine spiders what a page is about. Each page needs to be reviewed to ensure they have these headers (H1, H2, H3) and that they optimized for the search phrase the page is targeting. Meta Descriptions The Meta Description play an important role in indicating what the page is about to search engine spiders, but more, provides the search user the only indication of what your page(s) is about when they view your listing in the search results. Each of the meta descriptions need to be reviewed to ensure they are targeted, optimized and compel a user to click on your listing. Meta Keywords Meta keywords no longer play a critical role in search engine rankings, though, the act of keyword stuffing (adding tons of keywords to a page) can negatively affect your search rankings. Based on the Local SEO audit, your home page was found to have too many keywords in the meta keywords sections. This may be causing a penalty for this page and others that have the same. Each page should be reviewed and limited to no more than six meta keywords. Geotagging You primary focus is on searches for services within a local geographic footprint. Google and other search engines recognize this and as a result tend to show local results to users when applicable. Based on the services you offer, your customers will likely be shown local results when using a search engine. As a result, having your website use geotagging codes that indicate your geographic location will aide in triggering your listing to be displayed for local searches for your services. Location Map It is a best practice for usability and for search optimization purposes to include a physical map of your location on your contact page. Your website does not have this currently and would benefit from having one. Social Sharing Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, LinkedIn and others are important way to connect with your customers, industry, members of the press and for customers to help spread the word about you. With social sharing buttons on your site, visitors will be able to post your content to their social networks, earning your links that can improve your rankings and traffic that can convert to customers. Social sharing buttons should be implemented, Blog This is one of the easiest ways to build an audience, become a thought leader and attract links from other websites. Search engines also love lots of fresh content and larger sites, plus with every new post, it s an opportunity for a search engine spider...and customer to come back to your site. Your site does not currently have a blog and you are not blogging regularly. This is something you should be doing. Off page SEO This sections speaks to the actions that need to be taken in order to solve the problems or take advantage of
opportunities within the off page SEO elements of your site. Indexing This is the second time indexing has been mentioned. This issue with your site needs to be corrected. One off page indexing measure that can be taken is manual submission of your website URLS to search engine spiders. Another would be to post them to various social networks or to your social network profile pages. Inbound Links Your local seo audit indicated a low inbound link count when compared to your competitors in the top spot. Online, a link is a vote and the more votes the better. While a spray and pray type strategy is not necessary, since quality is more important in most cases than quantity, there is a huge gap between you and your competitors. Consistent, monthly, link building efforts through directory submissions, blogging, other content marketing, public relations and social media will need to be done to close the gap. This will be the most time consuming and expensive aspect to correct. It is also the one that has the most influence. Directory Listings Your website and business at large are not currently listed within the major business directories search engines and customers use. This is lowering the authority of your website and limiting the potential for traffic. You will need to work on including your website in all of these directories and over time continue to find and add your site to more (see Citations below). Citations Just as links are a vote of confidence for a site in the general search index, a citation in a local or industry directory is a vote of confidence for a site within local search results and maps. Your citation count is much lower than your top competitors, due to your lack of directory listings and overall lack of proactive marketing online. Reviews The final major influencer of local search and map ranking is customer reviews. Your business currently has a number of positive reviews on major sites such as Yelp, but this is not being used to your advantage since they are not being claimed in every instance. Work should be done to claim these accounts with reviews, then a program set in place for soliciting reviews of service from customers (after the sale). Google Plus Optimization Google Plus is Google s social network and business directory that is used to populate local search and map results. Since Google owns 80% of the total search share and your services are targeted at a local market, your Google Plus profile is a critical component to driving search engine traffic to your website and for generating calls.
Right now, your do not have a claimed Google Plus profile. As a result the following work needs to be completed in full. Profile Claim You need to claim your business profile on Google Plus and verify your ownership. Profile Setup Your full business profile and account need to be set up within Google Plus. Images and Descriptions Images, videos and other detailed descriptions of your business and services needs to be entered into your Google Plus profile. Posting Once your profile is live, you need to post frequently, if not daily to your profile to attract users, promote your content and your services. Reviews Once your profile is live, you will need to solicit reviews from your existing customers for your services through your Google Plus profile. Reviews, along with citations are two of the most important items for your local search rankings. Social Media Next to search, there is no better way for customers to find out about your business online than through social media. Not only can they find out about your business, they can also interact directly with you in a low cost way, allowing them to easily build trust with your business well before they transact. Currently, you do not have all of your social media profiles claimed, set up and utilized properly. As a result the following work needs to be completed. Profile Claim You need to claim your business profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and FourSquare and verify your ownership. You can also consider other social sites, such as Yelp and medical specific verticals. Profile Setup Your full business profile and account need to be set up within Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and FourSquare. You can also consider other social sites, such as Yelp and medical specific verticals. Images and Descriptions Images, videos and other detailed descriptions of your business and services needs to be entered into your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and FourSquare profiles.
Posting Once your profiles are live, you need to post frequently, if not daily to your profile to attract users, promote your content and your services. Other Considerations In addition to search, Google Places and social media, there are a number of other areas of inbound marketing for you to consider. These areas often aide, fuel or enhance direct seo and social media efforts and are highly recommended by Wave Local for those businesses that truly want to top search rankings, traffic and lead increases. Content Content is king on the internet. People go to the internet to find and consume information that solves their problems or quenches their curiosity. As a business, you can use content such as blogs, videos, ebooks, white papers, case studies, infographics and other items to build an audience, become a thought leader, provide your social profiles with brand content to share and use it to drive leads. You should consider having a content strategy and publishing new content each week. Email Marketing Email is a universal communication method that has replaced direct mail as a low cost way to keep in touch with customers. While most customers may not have to come back each and every month, frequent contact with existing customers will improve retention and recall, allow you to reach customers with new services and if undertaken, a way to capture new potential customers. Press Releases Creating press releases and submitting them through online wire services is a simple, low cost way to get your brand in national online publications, inform industry publications and even local news to what your business is doing. Many publications syndicate your entire press release, giving you not only visibility, but a way to build links back to your website. Adwords Increasing your search engine rankings through SEO work is a low cost way to acquire new customers, but it does take time. Using Google Adwords, a pay per click search advertising offering, allows you to pay for top rankings through sponsored ads while organic listings are increasing or to help bolster areas needing help. Remarketing It takes the average customer four to six interactions to transaction with a business. With remarketing, you can target visitors to your website with ads when they visit other websites through the internet. Through a remarketing campaign, visitors to certain pages of your site would receive a browser cookie that will track their movement across the website. If they go to a website that is displaying ads from the remarketing network (Google), they will then see an ad for your business. Over time, the more the customer sees your brand and company, the more likely they are to remember you and select you when it comes time to buy.
Video YouTube is the world s second largest search engine and heavily integrated into Google search results. Having a YouTube channel with relevant videos about your business and service offerings will allow you to capture traffic from YouTube directly and also secure more top rankings for search phrases related to your services.