Welcome to my FREE Local SEO Course – Local SEO Unlocked – Module 1 – Lesson 1

What is SEO? SEO is a process of optimizing any given search word or term for a search engine on your site. So what is local SEO?

Ratings are very important. The moment people have four and a half stars or more, they tend to do well. Anything less than that, they don’t do as well, and then beneath that is you see organic results as well.

So let’s go over local by the numbers. 46% of all searches on Google are local. Google 3-pack appears in the top spot 93% of searches with local intent. 18% of mobile local searches lead to a sale within one day. 78% of local mobile searches result in offline purchases, and 71% of the people surveyed say they look up and confirm the location of a business before going to it for the very first time.

Local SEO is very important. About 89% of people search for a local business on their smartphone at least once a week, with 58% of people searching daily. It’s very powerful, and it can drastically change your local business if you rank at the top, but the key is you have to rank at the top because positioning is everything. Over 35% of the clicks go to position one, and if you’re not in the top 10, it really doesn’t make that big of a difference.

The benefits of local SEO is it helps build positive reviews, great business reputation, gets you more foot traffic. It gives your location more visibility, again, more traffic.

So how do you win when it comes to local search? Well, if you’re looking to win, there’s a few things you need to keep in mind. You need to keep your name, address, and phone number consistent, right? Wherever you talk about your business, by keeping that consistent, it won’t confuse people and it’ll help you rank better.

You want to optimize for quality reviews, and then, of course, go for quantity. So you need both high quality and tons of reviews. The more detailed the reviews, the better off you’re going to do. You want to create local content for press mentions, and use Google Maps on your site.

So the signals that matter with local search are things like categories, locations, keywords in the business title, even location as well. Then there’s review signals, like how many reviews do you have? How quickly are you getting the reviews on a regular basis? The quality of the reviews, are they really short? Are they in-depth? Are they five-star, four-star? All that really matters.

Off-page signals like aggregators, or your name, address, phone number consistency, citations, people linking to you.

On-page signals would be, again, like your name, address, phone number, keywords in the title, the authority of different pages, or even your old domain.

Link signals, as I mentioned briefly, similar to off-page signals. The more sites linking to you and the higher their authority, the better off you’re going to do. The more social shares you have, the better off as well, and behavior signals are very important, like click-through rate.

If people search and they click on your result, it tells them that your copy’s appealing. If they go click the back button too fast, it tells Google, “Hey, we don’t like the site. Don’t rank it as high.” And there’s also a lot of tools that you can use that Google gives you for free, such as the Google local search, Google Maps, Search Console, and even Google My Business.

So what do the top-performing local landing pages have in common? Well, there’s a few things. They have great copy, strong headlines, product benefits, things like social proof, teams, contact information, call-to-actions, location, and map. There’s a lot of little things that go into it.

I really will go in-depth in everything you need to do, and what you’ll learn in this course is pretty much how to set up your site so you can not just rank at the top, but stay at the top, which is more important, and continually get the traffic over time.

So in future lessons, I’m going to be going over local keywords, how to find them, how to rank for them, how to use Google Search Console as well as Bing Webmaster Tools, how to create content, and, of course, how to track and improve your rankings. So that’s it. We’re off and to the races.

Transcript

00:00
– [Neil] Hey, everyone, it’s Neil Patel,
00:02
and today I have a new course
00:04
for you called Local SEO Unlocked,
00:07
where I teach you how to dominate the local SERPs.
00:10
Now, before we get started,
00:11
make sure you subscribe to this channel
00:12
or if you’re on YouTube, click the alert notification.
00:15
That way, when I release more of the modules
00:17
in this training course, you’ll get notified.
00:20
I want to welcome you to this course
00:22
because it’s going to transform your local business,
00:25
and I love SEO because it works for anyone,
00:28
especially if you’re starting off with little to no money.
00:31
See, my first job was at an amusement park
00:34
and I launched my first business when I was 16 years old,
00:36
although it didn’t work well,
00:38
but I decided to learn marketing
00:40
to get my first business traction,
00:42
and eventually it got traffic.
00:44
I still don’t make much money, but it got me traffic,
00:47
and eventually I use those skills
00:49
to help a company called Elpac Electronics,
00:51
which was my first client, and I helped them generate
00:54
another $25 million a year in sales.
00:57
From there, I ended up launching a few software companies
01:00
like Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics, my first blog, Quick Sprout,
01:03
and now fast forward today, I have neilpatel.com,
01:07
which is my main blog, Neil Patel Digital, my ad agency,
01:10
and of course my SEO tool.
01:12
If you haven’t checked that out, make sure you do.
01:14
There’s a free version of it.
01:15
It’s called Ubersuggest.
01:17
In essence, I’m living proof that SEO still works
01:20
and it delivers results.
01:21
That’s why I’ve worked with so many large corporations
01:25
and I have tons and tons of testimonials,
01:27
but before we begin, I want to break down a few things.
01:31
First, you need to give this course your full attention.
01:34
Don’t skip ahead.
01:36
Go through every module that’s intended, take notes,
01:39
and make sure you download all the worksheets, cheat sheets,
01:42
and PDFs that help you perform all the tasks in each module,
01:47
and you can find those at neilpatel.com/training,
01:51
then just click on Local SEO Unlocked.
01:54
So if you approach this program with a positive mindset
01:57
and you implement everything you learn,
01:59
you take your time, use the PDF, the cheat sheets,
02:02
the assignment vault, all that kind of stuff,
02:05
you’ll be able to see results,
02:07
and if you feel that you’re a bit lost,
02:09
you can always ask us questions,
02:10
leave a comment below any of the videos, including this one,
02:13
or you can also rewatch the videos,
02:16
because they’ll be pretty much available forever,
02:19
technically, as long as they’re still relevant.
02:22
So let’s get started.
02:24
What is SEO?
02:25
SEO is a process of optimizing any given search word
02:28
or term for a search engine on your site.
02:31
I also have a marketing glossary
02:33
’cause I know there’s a lot of different terminology
02:36
that we’re going to end up breaking down during this course,
02:38
and you can find that at neilpatel.com/training,
02:42
and then click on Local SEO Unlocked
02:45
and that’ll break down all the cheat sheets and modules,
02:49
and even give you the marketing acronym glossary,
02:52
which you’ll find when you go there,
02:53
and it’s underneath the first video,
02:56
as well as a local SEO packed.
02:59
So what is local SEO?
03:01
Well, you can download the pack.
03:03
That’ll help give you a preview
03:05
of the page and what local SEO is all about,
03:08
but in essence, what it is is whenever you search
03:10
for something, you typically see a map listing at the top
03:13
then some local business listings and they’ll have ratings.
03:17
Ratings are very important.
03:19
The moment people have four and a half stars or more,
03:21
they tend to do well.
03:22
Anything less than that, they don’t do as well,
03:24
and then beneath that is you see organic results as well.
03:29
So let’s go over local by the numbers.
03:31
46% of all searches on Google are local.
03:35
Google 3-pack appears in the top spot
03:38
93% of searches with local intent.
03:42
18% of mobile local searches lead to a sale within one day.
03:46
78% of local mobile searches result in offline purchases,
03:51
and 71% of the people surveyed
03:53
say they look up and confirm the location of a business
03:56
before going to it for the very first time.
03:59
Local SEO is very important.
04:01
About 89% of people search
04:03
for a local business on their smartphone
04:05
at least once a week,
04:06
with 58% of people searching daily.
04:10
It’s very powerful,
04:11
and it can drastically change your local business
04:14
if you rank at the top,
04:16
but the key is you have to rank at the top
04:18
because positioning is everything.
04:20
Over 35% of the clicks go to position one,
04:23
and if you’re not in the top 10,
04:25
it really doesn’t make that big of a difference.
04:28
The benefits of local SEO
04:29
is it helps build positive reviews,
04:32
great business reputation, gets you more foot traffic.
04:36
It gives your location more visibility, again, more traffic.
04:40
It can help reduce your advertising costs
04:41
’cause you don’t have to keep paying to get to the top,
04:44
and it draws you more customers,
04:46
which is the most important thing.
04:48
So how do you win when it comes to local search?
04:50
Well, if you’re looking to win,
04:52
there’s a few things you need to keep in mind.
04:54
You need to keep your name,
04:56
address, and phone number consistent, right?
04:58
Wherever you talk about your business,
05:00
by keeping that consistent, it won’t confuse people
05:02
and it’ll help you rank better.
05:04
You want to optimize for quality reviews,
05:07
and then, of course, go for quantity.
05:09
So you need both high quality and tons of reviews.
05:12
The more detailed the reviews,
05:14
the better off you’re going to do.
05:15
You want to create local content for press mentions,
05:18
and use Google Maps on your site.
05:21
So the signals that matter with local search
05:23
are things like categories, locations,
05:25
keywords in the business title, even location as well.
05:29
Then there’s review signals,
05:31
like how many reviews do you have?
05:33
How quickly are you getting the reviews on a regular basis?
05:36
The quality of the reviews, are they really short?
05:39
Are they in-depth? Are they five-star, four-star?
05:42
All that really matters.
05:44
Off-page signals like aggregators, or your name,
05:48
address, phone number consistency,
05:50
citations, people linking to you.
05:53
On-page signals would be, again, like your name,
05:55
address, phone number, keywords in the title,
05:58
the authority of different pages,
06:00
or even your old domain.
06:02
Link signals, as I mentioned briefly,
06:04
similar to off-page signals.
06:06
The more sites linking to you
06:08
and the higher their authority,
06:09
the better off you’re going to do.
06:10
The more social shares you have, the better off as well,
06:13
and behavior signals are very important,
06:15
like click-through rate.
06:16
If people search and they click on your result,
06:18
it tells them that your copy’s appealing.
06:20
If they go click the back button too fast,
06:22
it tells Google, “Hey, we don’t like the site.
06:24
Don’t rank it as high.”
06:27
And there’s also a lot of tools that you can use
06:29
that Google gives you for free,
06:31
such as the Google local search,
06:34
Google Maps, Search Console, and even Google My Business.
06:39
So the Google My Business listings,
06:41
as you can see right underneath the map,
06:43
and if you are in Google My Business,
06:46
it really does help in the long run,
06:48
but just don’t expect to submit
06:50
to Google My Business and show up to the top.
06:52
You need to do quite a bit more than that,
06:54
and I’ll break that down throughout this course.
06:58
This is the first video lesson.
06:59
There’s going to be five more,
07:01
but I’ll teach you how to get to the top
07:03
as long as you follow every little thing.
07:05
Now, Google gives you guidelines
07:07
on representing your business,
07:09
and they even tell you the dos and don’ts,
07:11
but they don’t provide too much information.
07:14
They give you some good feedback, like don’t deceive people,
07:17
or don’t cloak, or don’t use hidden pages,
07:19
but that doesn’t really tell you a ton.
07:22
So what do the top-performing local landing pages
07:25
have in common?
07:26
Well, there’s a few things.
07:27
They have great copy, strong headlines,
07:31
product benefits, things like social proof,
07:34
teams, contact information,
07:36
call-to-actions, location, and map.
07:39
There’s a lot of little things that go into it.
07:41
I know I went over them quite fast,
07:43
but that’s because I’m going to dive into them
07:45
way more in-depth in the upcoming modules,
07:48
and this program, in essence, contains six videos.
07:51
This is the first video,
07:52
and I break down everything from getting started
07:55
to the signals, to setting up your listings,
07:58
to optimizing on- and off-page SEO.
08:01
I really will go in-depth in everything you need to do,
08:05
and what you’ll learn in this course
08:07
is pretty much how to set up your site
08:09
so you can not just rank at the top, but stay at the top,
08:11
which is more important,
08:13
and continually get the traffic over time.
08:15
As Jimmy Wales once said,
08:17
“If it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist.”
08:20
So some action items for you.
08:22
Go to neilpatel.com/training, click on Local SEO Unlocked,
08:26
and underneath the first video
08:27
you’ll find the Google search packs
08:30
as well as the course itinerary,
08:31
as well as marketing acronyms.
08:34
So in future lessons,
08:35
I’m going to be going over local keywords,
08:37
how to find them, how to rank for them,
08:39
how to use Google Search Console
08:41
as well as Bing Webmaster Tools,
08:43
how to create content, and, of course,
08:45
how to track and improve your rankings.
08:47
So that’s it.
08:48
We’re off and to the races.
08:49
If you have any questions, just leave a comment below
08:52
and I’ll do my best to answer it and help you out.
08:55
If you enjoyed this video, like it,
08:56
share it, tell other people about it.
08:58
Of course, subscribe to the channel. Thank you very much.