WW#11 What’s the Best ROI for SEO?

This week, Patrick and Steve cover the best “bang for your buck” in your SEO strategy.

Without question, getting your Google Business 100% correct is the most important and beneficial action you can take. Find the link to Google Business Listings here.

In addition, Steve talks about the importance of citations.

What are they?

Why are they beneficial to your SEO rankings?

Find out the answer to these questions on the latest edition of Webster Wednesdays!

Steve’s Notes:

Citations are mentions of your business name and address on other webpages on the internet. Surprising to some, citations do not a link to your website.

Example: online yellow pages directory Superpages, Chamber of commerce – no link needed, just the business name, address and phone number.

The reason citations help your ranking is that Google, Bing and other search engines want to make sure everything is on the up and up. Is this business open, is the phone number and address are correct. Citations increase the degree of certainty the search engines have about your business.

If 300 different websites have your phone number as 404-555-7788 and maybe one ole “crusty-spammy” online directory has you listed with some incorrect 1-800 number, the search engines know which is correct.

With all else being equal, search engines will give preference to the business that has the most credible and uniform citations. For the record, Google likes citations from your local chamber of commerce, better business bureau, organizations like that.

Here’s the bad news:

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of webpages that offer citations for your business.

The good news?

Most of them pull their information from about 5 major data suppliers. So if you get into the major 5, eventually, and i mean eventually (the process is slowwwww) you’ll get into all the other ones.

So the low cost and high labor way get listed is to manually go into each directory fill out and submit your business listing. It takes a lot of time, and you must, i repeat must have each listing exactly the same. Which is really tough, because the submission forms are not uniform. Let’s say your business is in suite #105, but the online form doesn’t have room to list it a suite 105, it just as room for a # sign hashtag. But this labor intensive process will work…. eventually.

However, be forewarned! When you use this method, the very next day, your phone will ring off the hook. It won’t be customers, it will be people trying to sell you stuff!