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Last week we rounded up the most relevant and insightful digital marketing topics of the month to end the 1st quarter of 2022. As we move into April, it’s time to shift the focus to a process every agency should be thinking about – local presence audits.
Are You Running Local Presence Audits on Your Clients?
It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were making our digital marketing New Year’s resolutions, but now we’re officially into the second quarter of the year. As we have mentioned before, you should perform audits of your clients’ local presence at least quarterly. So with that in mind, we wanted to offer a straightforward guide to running local clients’ audits.
Local Presence Factors for Analysis
Before we get into the main areas where a strong local presence will deliver the best results, we need to consider which factors are worth analyzing. Here are some examples to consider for your audit.
- Goals – What goals did you and your clients set, and have the milestones been reached?
- Reporting – Do you have a solid reporting system to record reach, engagement, conversions and more?
- Tools – Could you have improved efficiency and ROI using dedicated local presence management tools?
- Interaction – Are you interacting with audiences through review responses, social media and questions and answers?
To get the most from a local presence audit, it’s worth limiting your areas of focus to the most important ranking signals. You may recall that we recently covered what to prioritize in the Local Search Ranking Factors report.
1. Google Business Profile
The report for 2021 recommended prioritizing Google Business Profile (GBP) optimization to maximize visibility in Google. This is easily achievable with some simple tweaks to your clients’ profiles. You can start by setting up primary and additional business categories, adding images and videos – and writing an engaging business listing description.
If your audit concludes that these steps have been completed, some more advanced options include using attributes to target non-traditional verticals and creating additional listings for multi-location businesses.
2. Bing & Yelp
With Google being the natural priority for local businesses, an audit will likely find areas for diversification. Remember, there are many local listings platforms with traffic and customer potential, so why not include them in a marketing campaign?
At Advice Local, we include Bing submissions and Yelp public edits with no additional fees, making it easy to develop optimized listings. Of course, the consistency of name, address and phone number (NAP) data will impact results across all the major platforms, so an audit needs to find any discrepancies and adjust them.
3. Online Listings
While platforms like Google, Bing and Yelp may get much of the attention, there’s a whole world of online listings that you need to consider. We have also discussed a study from Moz that found local businesses achieved improved results when they syndicated data to a wide network rather than a small handful of popular platforms.
The concept of data amplification is at the heart of this approach. By partnering with Advice Local, agencies can ensure their clients are accessible on directories, mapping apps, GPS navigation solutions and voice assistants.
4. Social Media
While the Local Search Ranking Factors report removed social signals as a ranking factor, it still plays other important roles. Sites like Facebook are important listings platforms, with the ability to include NAP data, customer reviews and more. Due to these factors helping bolster a business’ Google EAT (expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness), it is worth including social media within any audit.
5. Website Location Pages
Building website location pages helps deliver targeted traffic using location-specific long-tail keywords. This approach can be useful for multi-location companies, but should also be a best practice used by every local business. It’s worth remembering that the Local Search Ranking Factors report highlighted the geographic keyword relevance of domain content as a vital factor for both local pack and organic search visibility.
Local Presence Audits Are Easy With Our Tool
At Advice Local, we help clients run local presence audits with our real-time management tool. Check the visibility score, manage listings, order local listings services and much more. To try it for yourself, request a demo or call (214) 310-1356 to see how our tool can help you!