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Skillshare

The Complete SEO Guide to Ranking Local Business Websites In Google

via Skillshare

This course may be unavailable.

Overview

If you want to rank your own local business website or provide local SEO services to clients, this course will walk you through the entire step-by-step process. 

In this course, watch along as I work to redesign and rank a real local business website both in the organic local pack rankings and in the organic search results of Google. 

Watch over my shoulder as I implement each step of the SEO campaign so you know exactly what steps to take on the website you're working on.

Together we'll learn

  • What information you should be gathering from your clients
  • How to give yourself the best possible chance of maintaining current rankings through the redesign process
  • What to watch for post-launch
  • How to check the website's current SEO health and exactly how to improve it

And I'm also going to give you the exact spreadsheet I use to track my work. Download this and use it as you work to rank any local business website. 

After gathering the information we need and determining the SEO health of the website, we'll continue our work by:

  • Researching the best (most profitable) keywords to target
  • How to find top online competitors and what you need to do to outrank them
  • Building local pages and where to put keywords for maximum benefit

We'll follow keyword research with more crucial steps, on-page optimization which will include:

  • The exact steps for using images to improve rankings
  • What schema is, why you should use it and how to add it to your site
  • How to make your website load faster

Next, we'll move on to off-site optimization which will give our SEO campaign the final boost. Inside these sections we'll discover:

  • The exact process for ranking websites in the Google local pack
  • How to use local business citations for maximum benefit
  • How to get more local business reviews
  • Where to get high quality back links
  • Where to outsource local pack rankings if you choose

I also include many resources in the course you can download and you'll find many extra bonus tips as well. 

This is a great time to provide local SEO services and increase your business' monthly recurring income. After taking this course you'll be ready to start ranking local sites and you can even do so right inside this course.

Syllabus

  • Why You Should Take This Course & What You'll Be Able To Do By The End
  • Intro: Getting Organized Before Starting The Project
  • Business information to collect, where to store it & Questions to ask
  • An Introduction To The Site We'll Be Ranking, The Client's Goals & Site Health
  • Knowing Your Target Audience & Website Goals
  • Setting up Google Search Console (GWT) and Bing Webmaster Tools
  • Local SEO Ranking Factors
  • Intro: Understanding The Health of a Website & Maintaining Rankings
  • How to keep current search engine rankings during redesign process
  • Maintaining Current Rankings Continued...
  • Knowing your back link profile, URL structure and using 301 redirect
  • How to Monitor A Site After A Redesign To Watch For Any Problems
  • Introduction to Competition Analysis
  • How & Why To Find Your Top Online Competitors
  • Intro: performing proper keyword research to ensure your SEO
  • Using the 5-Step Keyword Research process
  • Finding Keywords You Are Already Ranking For & Tools To Find More Local Keywords
  • Researching Your Competitor's Keywords
  • Selecting Final Keywords & How Much Traffic Do You Really Need?
  • Determining how easily we can rank for specific keywords
  • Intro: the importance of website content in your overall SEO
  • Creating a content development plan & Content writing tools and reso
  • What to write about
  • Implementing An Internal Linking Structure
  • Intro: Designing The Website While Keeping SEO In Mind
  • Getting Design Inspiration. Do You Deserve To Be On Page 1?
  • Using An Existing Theme Or Designing Your Own (And What I'll Be Doing)
  • Setting up a demo site
  • How to ask Google not to index your demo site while you work (in WP
  • Creating Location Specific Pages (And Exactly What To Include)
  • Creating initial pages using a good URL structure & where to use key
  • Planning For Your SEO Audit & Auditing Your Competitors
  • Geotagging Local Business Videos
  • What Is Schema, Why You Should Use It & How To Test Your Site For It
  • Geotagging Website Images
  • How To Implement Schema On Your Local Website
  • Additional Schema Markup To Use For Local Business Websites
  • Setting a preferred URL
  • The factors that impact your website speed, how to test for speed an
  • Duplicate content & images
  • XML Sitemaps
  • Responsive / Mobile Friendly Website Test
  • Website Launch, Update on Site Design & Client Feedback
  • How to Track Your Website's Search Rankings
  • How To Track The Impact of Your Website Redesign
  • The Website Has Been Relaunched. Here Are The Very Next Steps
  • The Benefits of Optimizing a Business Google My Business Page
  • How to Determine If Your Business Is Already Listed
  • Adding Your Business If It's Not Already Listed
  • What We're Going to Cover
  • The Google My Business Dashboard Overview
  • How to Correctly Optimize Your Google My Business Page - Part 1
  • How to Correctly Optimize Your Google My Business Page - Part 2
  • How to Handle Businesses With Multiple Locations
  • What We're Going to Cover
  • Where You Will Rank in the Top 20 Listings
  • The Importance of Citations
  • Citations vs Links: Understanding The Difference
  • How Many Citations Do You Need?
  • Find Out Where Your Business Is Listed & If It's Listed Correctly
  • Where to Find Citations
  • How & Why To Track Your Citation Efforts
  • Where to Find & Track More Citations Inexpensively
  • Which Sites Should You Get Citations From First?
  • The Importance of Site Structure
  • How to Determine How Competitive a Niche Is
  • What We're Going to Cover
  • The Difference Reviews Can Make On Your Ranking Position
  • How Many Reviews Do You Need?
  • The Quickest and Easiest Way to Get Reviews
  • How to Indirectly Ask Customers for Reviews
  • Showing Off Your Reviews to Entice New Reviewers
  • Rewarding Your Reviewers (Unexpectedly)
  • Responding to Reviews
  • What We're Going to Cover
  • What to Do When Your Rankings Are Not Improving
  • Common Mistakes When Ranking in the Local Pack
  • How to Track Your Rankings
  • How Long Should It Take to Rank in the Google Local Pack?
  • What We're Going to Cover
  • Options for Selling Google Local Pack Rankings
  • The importance of back links and how to build the right, tracking
  • Importance of Backlinks, Building the Right Ones and How To Track Them
  • What Back Links Does Your Site Already Have? Where Should You Start Back Linking
  • Using Coupons to Attract Links & Traffic
  • Finding Industry Relevant Links
  • Which pages to build back links to and how to do it correctly
  • 5+ Ways to Gain New Back Links For Local Businesses
  • Creative Trick For Acquiring Back Links From Similar Businesses
  • The Testimonials Back Link Trick
  • Two Types of Links That Are Often Overlooked
  • Google Algorithm Changes That Affect Local Search (& How To Avoid Penalties)

Taught by

Christine Maisel

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