{"id":1393,"date":"2015-01-08T04:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T10:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.advicelocal.com\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2015-01-08T04:00:03","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T10:00:03","slug":"google-pigeon-and-local-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/?p=1393","title":{"rendered":"How to Use Google Pigeon To Your Advantage With Local SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/how-to-use-google-for-local-seo-300x182.jpeg\" alt=\"How To Use Google Pigeon with Your Local SEO\" \/>Companies and websites across the Internet experienced upheaval in their traffic stats with Google\u2019s latest update, Pigeon. Thankfully, not all local SEO efforts need to be changed.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How To Find Out What Google Thinks of You<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Improve Your Local Ranking in Four Easy Steps\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li>Google your business<\/li>\n<li>See what Google considers your \u201clocal\u201d area<\/li>\n<li>Determine what search term you&#8217;re already ranking for<\/li>\n<li>Work on rising up in those areas: locality and specific search term<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If you haven&#8217;t already set up a <a title=\"Speed Up the Google Verification Process for Your Local Business\" href=\"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/blog\/speed-up-google-verification\/\">Google My Business account<\/a>, do it. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/business\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/www.google.com\/business\/<\/a>) This will help increase your local SEO strategy. I would recommend you claim all\u00a0your local business listings. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocksdigital.com\/how-to-build-citations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Citations<\/a> are an important aspect of your local SEO strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Google\u2019s Pigeon update returns narrower search results, both in terms of location and services for users. While you may prefer to rank for a broader term, specializing in a niche is the best way to grow a consistent customer base in real life, so it makes sense that it&#8217;ll work better on the web as well. Create a niche for your business in online search, and you&#8217;ll do well!<\/p>\n<p>While Pigeon&#8217;s primary developmental power is its ability to significantly reduce spammy websites from achieving higher rankings, the algorithm isn&#8217;t perfect. If your strategy revolves primarily around overusing keywords and tags, well, stop! Not sure if it&#8217;s spam?<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Spammy Websites Characteristics<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Very little content and a heavy keyword ratio<\/li>\n<li>Hard to navigate and ad-heavy<\/li>\n<li>Not really a business in your local area, even though they are returned in search results<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Personally browse your site and check all of your pages and posts for signs of spam. That, or ask your grandma to do it. If your grandma can&#8217;t find her way around your site, or can&#8217;t find the information you want her to be able to find, then your website and SEO strategy probably needs a revamp.<\/p>\n<p>There are many ways to report a spammy business or website. On Google Maps, you can click on a business and click on a &#8220;report&#8221; link. If you&#8217;re on Google+, you can find the site&#8217;s Google Plus Page and write a report. Finally, you can always report sites on the Google and Your Business forums.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Trust Organic Growth with Local SEO<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>If you really want to succeed in local SEO, there are really only two things to do: produce useful content and ask your neighbors to check it out. It&#8217;s slow, it&#8217;s messy, but it&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adviceinteractivegroup.com\/blog\/google-pigeon-update\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">what Pigeon is geared towards<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Pigeon Checks Your Website For These Characteristics<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Keyword heavy content<\/li>\n<li>Thick or thin website content<\/li>\n<li>Under or Overuse of links to your website<\/li>\n<li>Active and engaged viewers on the website<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Don&#8217;t pour all of your energy into perfecting your local SEO strategy, but definitely pay attention to it. Your primary focus needs to be on being a business that exceeds in meeting your customer&#8217;s expectations. In the end, a website is just another way to prove your value to your customers.<\/p>\n<p>[Tweet &#8220;Find Out What Google Thinks of You from @BernieColeman Read HOW #LocalSEO&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Companies and websites across the Internet experienced upheaval in their traffic stats with Google\u2019s latest update, Pigeon. Thankfully, not all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-seo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al.rocksdmdev.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}