Search Results for: barnacle

You know when you type in a local search term (like “auto repair”) into Google and you see a business’s Facebook page or Yelp page or YouTube video or channel (or even its YellowPages listing)?  Well, if your business has good rankings for one of those, you’ve just pulled off a bit of “barnacle” local SEO.

Will Scott coined the term “barnacle SEO” and explained the basic strategy back in 2008 (!).  It’s a clever but very doable strategy based on a fact you probably know already: that there are certain sites that Google consistently ranks really well for local searches.  It has favorites.

Of course, the Google+ Local and AdWords results take center stage.  But there are always the organic rankings.  A few of them belong to local businesses.  Most or all of the rest of them typically point to Facebook, YouTube, Yelp, CitySearch, even Yahoo, and other third-party sites.  In a way, you can mooch off their popularity (and the good job of SEO they do).

Your goal – as a humble barnacle – is to latch onto those big ships.  They can take you places.  There are a few ways to go about doing that.

I’m going to rattle off the approaches I’ve seen work for a few of my clients and for others.

(By the way, I’d like this to be an “evergreen” post.  So I’ll be adding strategies here as I discover more good ones.)

Let’s go over some basic strategy before getting into more-specific strategies:

 

Two species of barnacles

There are two basic types of barnacle local SEO:

(1) Get a given page for your business to rank well in the organic search results, or

(2) Be at the top of the rankings in a site that ranks well.

I like the example of Yelp:

So one opportunity is to get your business’s page in the organic results.  The other opportunity is to rank well within that high-ranking site’s search results (which, again, themselves rank visibly in Google).  Ideally you do both.

 

Three basic steps

The first step is just to have pages / accounts on all the sites that matter.  I’m talking about having basic and industry-specific citations.  And a local Facebook page for each location, and a YouTube channel with a few videos you created for your business, if at all possible.  Probably not news to you.

The second step is also pretty simple: Beef up those pages as much as possible.  First and foremost, pick every relevant category you can.  Add as much relevant “additional” info as you can: a short description, a long description, as many services as you’re allowed to mention, photos, etc.

The third step is the trickiest.  You have to activate each page (or listing, or profile, or whatever you want to call it).

I’m mostly referring to doing a combination of things with those pages: drumming up some followers / fans / shares, getting some reviews, and (to a lesser extent) getting a few links to those pages.

 

The best “ships”

Facebook

• “Engage” with your customers and others.  I hate using that word, because it’s so clichéd.  I want to take a shower.  But I think it conveys my advice.  You want stuff on your page, you want people on your page, and you want the people to be consuming and commenting on and “liking” the stuff.  So my advice is to use your Facebook posts and the rest of your page not to talk about how great you think your company is, but to share useful info, even if it’s just an occasional morsel.  (Read this if you don’t know how to do that.)

• Ask some customers to write you a Facebook review.  Yes, there is such a thing now.  (No, it’s not the same thing as a “like.”)

• Link to your page whenever possible.  You probably already do so from your site, and that’s a good idea, as long as you have the link open into a new browser tab (you don’t want people leaving your site to see your Facebook page).  Also, many sites where you can get a citation ask you to specify your Facebook URL.  Do so.  Be on the lookout for other occasions to link to or get a link to your page, but don’t embark on some big link-building effort.

Yelp and other IYPs

• Get reviews.  I talk all the time about how to do this, so I won’t dwell on it here.  I’ll just refer you to these posts:

Comparison of Local Review Sites: Where Should You Focus Now?

GetFiveStars Review-Encouragement Tool Goes from Good to Great

Get More Reviews without Becoming an Outlaw

• Link to your more-important profiles.  Let’s say you’ve got some good HealthGrades reviews and you want HealthGrades to be your barnacle.  Link to it from your site, from the “Links” section of your  Google+ page (“personal” or non-local “business”), and wherever allowed on other listings of yours.

• Get creative.  Let’s say you have a few microsites (tsk, tsk) and realize you shouldn’t link them to your main site.  Try linking them to one of those profiles – maybe use ol’ YellowPages as your test-dummy – and see what happens.

• Encourage other activity.  Like check-ins, in the case of Yelp or FourSquare.  I wouldn’t put a lot of effort into this.  It also depends on your demographics.  But just see what you can do – how you can get customers to use your various pages.

YouTube

• Name your video relevantly.  Yeah, that means there should be a keyword in there.  But it also means it should read smoothly.  If the video title sucks – if it’s written for Google and not for humans – nobody will click on it.  It needs to be catchy.

• Read this post by Chris Silver Smith, and apply the suggestions.

• Feature them wherever possible.  Embed some videos on your site.  Upload them to your Google+ Local listing, if possible.  Link to them on your other local listings, where possible (many sites ask you for links to your videos).  Post them on Facebook, as appropriate.

Paid directories

• Pony up.  You’ll have to use your discretion, of course.  Many paid listings aren’t worth it.  But depending on your local market, there may be a site in your industry that ranks well, and that might itself be a place where a lot of potential customers search.  If your more-visible competitors seem to be listed there (one way to see this is with the Local Citation Finder), consider throwing a few dollars at it in the name of science.

 

Great posts on barnacle local SEO

Barnacle SEO – Local Search Engine Optimization for The Sam’s Club Crowd – the great original post by Will Scott

Barnacle SEO for Local Search Success – Mary Bowling

Learning Local SEO from the Ones That Do It Best – Nyagoslav Zhekov

10 Tips For Using YouTube To Kill At Local SEO – Chris Silver Smith

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What ships have you latched onto?  What are some “barnacle” strategies you think are worth trying?  Leave a comment! 

If you want to rank more than a klick or two from your perimeter, you’ll need a few links – from other sites to your site.  Most of those sites should be relevant to what you do, where you are, or both.

Those links probably don’t need to be hard to get, you won’t need a ton of them, and you may not even need them at all right now to make big gains.  How important they are depends on a lot of factors.  But you will need some solid links sooner or later, as rebar to support your other SEO work.  Otherwise, you’ll have a hard time getting ahead of your tougher competitors, staying ahead of them, and preventing rankings rot.  A version of this is true if you’re a professional SEO-er: you need to do some work to help your clients land a few links.

There’s no “best” type of link opportunity, for a lot of different reasons.  You’ll want some “local” links, some “industry” links, some that are both, and even some that are neither.  Be omnivorous, and don’t overthink it.  What do I mean by a “local” link?  Just about anything, but examples include charities, chambers of commerce, schools, other businesses, and media that are based in or focus on your area.  I’ve found links from those sorts of sites to be more beneficial than others are.  “Industry” links can come from professional organizations, trade magazines, blogs in your niche, conferences, and so on.

At the same time, you might be frozen by too many choices or just don’t know where to start.  If it helps you get unstuck: I suggest focusing more on the local link opportunities.  In my experience, they’re more likely to help your Google Maps and organic rankings, and even to make your business less dependent on those local rankings in the first place.

Big caveat emptor: see what works best for your business.  I hope you use my advice as a starting point, but you don’t need to take my word for anything.  Try to maintain a tiny trickle of local AND non-local links, work on the rest of your SEO, and see what results you get after at least a few months.  

Anyway, why might the average local link help you in a way the average “industry” link might not?  A few reasons:

1. Local links are likely to add up and to come from a variety of sites.  That’s because they tend to be simpler or cheaper to acquire, and because you’re more likely to get a few of them, rather than to put all of your time and money into pursuing a link from a high-flying “authority” site.  Any one link usually doesn’t help you in a noticeable way, whereas accruing links over time usually does pay off after a few months.

2. Local links are more likely to point to a critical page on your site rather than point to a blog post or other buried resource that probably doesn’t have any money riding on it.  As I’ve explained in various ways over the years, your husbandry of your links sometimes matters even more than the quantity or quality of the links themselves.  In the desert, it doesn’t matter how much water you’ve got if you don’t conserve it or use every drop to get you a little farther to the next watering hole.

3. Many or most locally operating businesses have at least a couple of links from local sites, regardless of whether SEO is on the minds of those business owners, whether they tried to get those links, and whether they even know they have those links.  In other words, local links are somewhat more likely to reflect the competitive landscape of businesses that aren’t trying to goose their rankings.  In general, Google tries (often poorly) to represent online the pecking order that exists offline.  As usual, I’m not saying that’s how it should be, but that seems to be the way it is.

4. A corollary of the last point: local links are less likely to be acquired by means that Google considers unnatural or questionable.  Those subjective, up-for-debate means include buying a link, doing a good deed only for the link, guest-posting only for a link, swapping links with many sites, and so on. Everyone wants a link from USA Today, Forbes, Business Insider, and other big names, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that you can buy your way into big publications like those (I’m not naming names today).  To varying degrees you can do likewise with local sites (and get local links), too, but those just aren’t as alluring a target for most SEOs.  The prison guards try to be everywhere at once, but they can’t be.  So they figure that most inmates want to jump the razor-wire fence and make a run for it, while fewer of them want to sneak into the kitchen or wood shop to make a shovel and a shiv.

5. Assume for a moment (as I do) that Google has a harder time telling where you are than what you do.  Your service area is easier to fake than your services are.  You can’t pretend to fix teeth if you fix dishwashers.  If you do, you won’t get paid, you will get rough reviews, and you may get into legal trouble.  Anyway, if my educated guess is correct, then a local link somewhat confirms for Google at least one part of your story: your location and stomping grounds.

6. Local sites are more likely to be curated by people who care about the communities the site is geared toward.  An old-timer or by the Unofficial Mayor of East Tuna Fish is more likely to know what’s a true local business and what’s not.

7. You’re more likely to keep a local link long-term, and maybe even more likely to get that link in the first place.  Because smaller, locally-focused sites are less in the crosshairs of SEOs and their frequent excesses and abuses, those sites’ policies are less likely to change over time.  Those sites are less likely to slap “nofollow” or “rel=sponsored” onto links, or to stop linking out altogether.  (For an example of the opposite, look no farther than the example of what the BBB did some years ago, where even longtime BBB-accredited businesses had their links nofollowed quietly.)  A local site is less likely to be a pool where a few bad swimmers step in with filthy sneakers and relieve themselves in the water and ruin the place for everyone else.

8. Local sites are more likely to get you some non-Maps visibility through barnacle SEO.  It’s more plausible, then, that you’re trying to hang your shingle on the site just because it’s smart marketing or networking, rather than because you just want the link.

9. Local sites are more likely to glean you some non-Google visibility.  This is yet another form of the paradox that I’ve seen at work again and again (but haven’t totally figured out): the more you behave as a business owner who cares about marketing but doesn’t care much about Google, the more likely Google is to dig you.  Hedge a little and you’ll be OK.

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What’s my advice?  Stop with the fancy footwork.  No more infographics, complex and time-consuming outreach to “influencers,” and pestering bloggers to take your guest post – at least for now.  Keep it simple.  Contribute to a couple of local charities, maybe join a local chamber of commerce or similar organization, get listed on the local newspaper / birdcage liner, and see where that gets you.  When you research competitors’ links, see what local sites link to them.  Pick a couple of ideas that seem doable, do them, and fan out from there.  It’s great if you’re gung-ho about getting more links, but you don’t need to rush.  Figure out a pace that works for you.

What specific links, or types of links, or types of link-scrounging strategies seem to have served you best?  What’s been a boondoggle?  Leave a comment.

The biggest problem with most advice on “image SEO” is it focuses too much on what images you should take and how you should take them.  Often that advice rests on an assumption that you’re in a photogenic line of work, where it’s both easy and wise to take photos of what you offer and where you offer it.  But what if your services appear only as brain waves in your head, your products are tough on the eyes, or your place of business looks like Sanford & Son’s?  Even if your photos don’t have the good looks, somehow you still need to give them legs.

Another problem is much of  the advice is perfectionistic and fussy.  It’s too focused on technical steps that most people can’t or won’t bother with, that your competitors seem not to bother with, and that Google is unlikely to reward much or at all.  (I call it SEOCD.)  What’s really important, and what’s only mildly or possibly helpful?

Yet another problem is most of the photo-SEO advice isn’t focused on local search visibility, and so it tends not to spell out exactly how photos are supposed to help your local rankings.

To that last point, let me lay out exactly how working your photos can help your local SEO:

• You further optimize specific pages on your site, and those pages in turn can pull your Google Business Profile page into the 3-pack.
• You further optimize pages that can rank in the organic results.
• You may get photos to show up in Google Images for search terms you care about.

Those are the goals.  To those ends, this post is meant to be a filthy-fast guide to what to do with any photo that you want to help your local visibility.

Here are 19 moves you can consider putting to work for any given photo.  In my experience, the first 6 are very important, and the last 13 are good to do when you can.

Most-important local SEO steps for your photos:

1. Name the image file relevantly.  Go for the jugular.  As in: miami-ultrasonic-rhinoplasty-patient-before-and-after.jpg, cleveland-crawl-space-encapsulation-example.png, ford-f150-interior-detailing-upholstery-cleaned.png, etc.

2. Specify an alt attribute that’s dead-on relevant and descriptive.  It should be basically the same as the filename (without the dashes, of course).  If the filename isn’t relevant and is just “IMG007.jpg” gobbledygook, and if you can’t feasibly change it, make the alt attribute relevant and descriptive anyway (e.g. “Ford F-150 Interior Detailing – Upholstery Cleaned.”

3. Specify a relevant title attribute.  (This is not the same as the alt attribute, nor is it the same thing as the title tag.)  This should match the filename and alt, roughly.

4. In the filename, ALT, title, or caption (or some combination of them) include keywords beyond the name of the service or product or city, if possible.  Like “buy” or “order online” or “mobile” or “example” or “before and after.”  Or the price, or the year the photo was taken.  You get the idea.  Some modifiers can help you pick up easy rankings.

5. Make sure the photo isn’t giant.  I like to keep photos in the range of 600px – 1000px wide, in general.  People on your site want help, and you want them to pay you for something.  They’re not there for an IMAX experience.

6. Add the photo to multiple pages of your site, preferably on some pages that already see action.  Especially the homepage, “service” pages, and “city” pages.

Bonus photo SOPs (do these whenever possible and appropriate):

7. Caption the photo.  The caption should reflect the filename, alt attribute, and title attribute, more or less.

8. Hyperlink the photo to the page most relevant to what’s in the photo.  Preferably a “service,” “product,” or “city” page.  In other words, make the photo clickable, and make it take people somewhere they ought to see.

9. Hyperlink the caption, too, or part of it.  You’ll probably link the caption to the same page the photo itself links to, but it’s fine to mix it up.

10. Try to give every page at least one photo that you’ve optimized (as much as you can).  It’s fine to reuse the same photo occasionally.  Sometimes it’s OK to regurgitate.

11. Create a page specifically to house any REALLY good photos and maybe to house other, similar photos.  Like a “case study” or “gallery” page.

12. On any “gallery” or “portfolio” or “our work” -type page, add at least a little of written-word content to the surrounding page.  In other words, don’t just upload a bunch of photos.  Rather, also include some text that describes what’s in the photo, what happened before or after the photo was taken, where it happened, etc.  

You want the page to rank, with or without the help of the photo.  Also, if and when the page does rank, you want the photo to show up in the organic SERPs, off to the right.

13. Avoid unnecessary technology: plugins (e.g. Envira), sliders, lightboxes, etc.  Just put the photo on the page.  It’s fine to have fancy galleries, too.  Just don’t put all of your imagery in that bag.

14. Upload the photo to your Google Business Profile page.  Won’t help your organic visibility one pinch, but may help you a tiny bit on the map.

15. Upload the photo to citation sources that allow photos.  Especially Yelp and Facebook and any other barnacle sites.

16. Make sure your robots.txt file doesn’t disallow /wp-content or whatever subdirectory you keep your images in (if you self-host them, rather than use a CDN). 

17. If possible, get any EXIF data to work in your favor by taking the photo yourself or by having a sidekick do it.  That’s all you need to do for the location info (i.e. “geotagging”) to be baked into the photo, typically.  Sure, it’s a waste of time in the context of uploading photos to your GBP page (arguably also a waste of time, past a certain point).  But on your site it might help you a whisker.

18. Check Search Console occasionally for spikes in visibility due to any of your images getting visibility in the search results.  This is one sign you’ve probably stuck the landing.

19. Bring your own photos to any guest posts you write, interviews you do, stories you pitch, or any other media.  Mention or send any photos before or after you contribute whatever you contribute.  You might be able to get a link back to your site as attribution, and mentioning that you can supply photos may even help you land those spots in the first place.

Beyond those, there are some steps that even I don’t bother with.  Those include creating an image sitemap, marking up photos with Schema, and compressing the images.  Do they help?  Maybe.  If you can do them easily, more power to you.

What other strategy moves are worth considering?  I suggest reading this post by the great Chris Silver Smith.  (It’s from 2007, and helped me when I was a FNG, and the advice is just as relevant today.)

Anyone can have a well-optimized site, and many people do.  It sure does help.  Even if you’ve put Herculean effort into your written-word content, it’s not hard for someone else to rip you off and enjoy many of the benefits.  But a strong photography game is much harder to rip off.  It helps you rank in areas and in ways some competitors won’t or can’t, and it makes your site more informative, funner, easier on the eyes, easier to navigate, and more persuasive.  Taking or creating or scrounging the photos is the hard part.  Once you’ve done that, optimizing the bejeebers out of them is only a little extra effort, and you’ll find it’s worth the effort.

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How do those suggestions square with your experiences?

Any other photo-optimization SOPs?

Care to show me and fellow readers your photography game, or a competitor’s?

Leave a comment!