AI-powered platforms like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are increasingly becoming the go-to sources for answers, and brands that fail to adapt risk becoming invisible.
While traditional SEO has been correlated with mentions in these tools, the following agencies have shown a particular knack for capitalizing on the emerging factors related to AI SEO. While this is our list, we are particularly keen on the leaders in the AI SEO space, the brands with legit case studies and credibility, or those that are on the thought leadership front that own or work at these agencies.
In this article, we’ll explore the top agencies that are pioneering this new frontier and helping brands like yours thrive in the age of AI.
Digital Elevator is a marketing agency known for its work in biotech, healthcare, and eCommerce that has embraced the power of AI to deliver exceptional results for its clients. Their focus on SEO, LLM optimization, and content marketing helps clients increase their visibility in both traditional and generative search.
With nearly 15 years of experience, including Fortune 500 work, the agency focuses on high-growth, small to mid-market companies, providing content strategy, competitive intelligence, SEO and AI optimization, bottom-funnel content marketing, PR, and UX/UI design.
Notebook Agency is a results-driven SEO and LLM optimization agency that helps businesses attract qualified traffic and maximize growth with AI-powered strategies. They are focused on positioning brands as the preferred solution when enterprise buyers consult LLMs like Google AI Mode and ChatGPT. Their Truth Alignment Framework™ is designed to make your brand AI’s recommendation, not just another option.
Siege Media is a content marketing agency that has adapted its approach for the generative era. They build GEO, SEO, and content strategies that drive compounding growth for B2B and B2C enterprise brands. Their strategies ensure that content shows up where people are searching, whether it’s Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, or other LLMs. This means stronger visibility, more qualified traffic, and long-term SEO resilience.
First Page Sage is a pioneering agency in the field of GEO, with a strong focus on B2B companies. They have written extensively about the newly developed marketing channel, from their initial research study on generative AI recommendation algorithms to the first published guide to GEO strategy. Their comprehensive approach covers every aspect of optimizing for ChatGPT and other generative AI engines.
Specialization:
Generative B2B SEO Strategy
Thought Leadership & Topical Authority
Content Structure & Semantic Depth
Credibility Indicators for AI Models
Ideal client:
B2B companies in complex fields (SaaS, medtech, manufacturing)
Intero Digital takes a technical approach to GEO, providing clients with website optimizations that increase their page visibility in generative engines. Their proprietary crawler simulation, InteroBOT®, mimics how generative engines and traditional crawlers evaluate content, helping to surface issues that limit discoverability. This approach is particularly effective for brands with large content libraries that want to improve visibility on platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
iPullRank focuses on enterprise-level technical SEO, with deep experience in JavaScript rendering, log file analysis, and large-scale site architecture. Their process is built to ensure that both search engines and generative platforms can crawl and interpret complex content structures without friction. Generative optimization is part of their core workflow, with audits that include analysis of how AI systems access and evaluate content strategy.
Specialization:
Enterprise-Level Technical SEO
Generative AI Adoption
JavaScript Rendering & Log File Analysis
Large-Scale Site Architecture
Ideal client:
Enterprise websites with complex content structures
Go Fish Digital is one of the most advanced agencies in the GEO space, with a team recognized for its unmatched ability to analyze and apply Google patents directly to client strategies. They use custom-built technology with backtested results to identify exactly where and how a brand can increase its inclusion in AI-generated answers. Their approach is deeply rooted in understanding how AI systems retrieve and prioritize content, and then building tactical plans to influence those systems in measurable ways.
Specialization:
Patent-Based GEO Strategies
Custom-Built AI SEO Technology
Semantic Content Audits
AI Overview Analysis
Ideal client:
High-profile brands seeking a data-science approach to GEO
Client examples:
GEICO
About Amazon
Wayfair
Jelly Belly
Guide to Working with an AI SEO Agency
Choosing the right AI SEO agency is crucial for navigating the evolving search landscape. Here are some key considerations to help you make an informed decision:
Proven AI SEO Expertise: Look for agencies with a track record of success in ranking clients in AI Overviews and other generative search platforms. Ask for case studies and data to back up their claims.
Technical Capabilities: A top AI SEO agency should have a deep understanding of large language models (LLMs), semantic search, and the technical aspects of optimizing for AI. They should be able to explain their methodologies in a clear and concise way.
Custom Technology: Inquire about any proprietary tools or platforms they use for AI SEO. Custom technology can be a sign of a forward-thinking agency that is invested in staying ahead of the curve.
Strategic Approach: The agency should have a strategic, data-driven approach to AI SEO that aligns with your business goals. They should be able to create a customized strategy that is tailored to your specific needs and target audience.
Thought Leadership: Look for an agency that is actively contributing to the conversation around AI SEO. This can be a sign that they are passionate about what they do and are committed to staying up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices.
If content is king, search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to getting your content seen by the right audience. Marketers are constantly exploring new ways to enhance their SEO strategies, the latest and most explosive trend being the use of AI-generated content. But what do the top SEO experts think about this trend?
In this article, we dive into the opinions of five top SEO experts on the use of the AI tool GPT-3. Let’s get started!
What is GPT-3?
GPT-3 stands for generative pre-trained transformer 3. It is an artificial intelligence language learning model developed by the Silicon Valley wunderkind OpenAI. With over 175 billion parameters, GPT-3 is considered one of the most advanced language models to date. It uses ‘deep learning’ (a machine learning technique) to create human-like text, write poetry and movie scripts, chat, translate, and perhaps the most fascinating of all – answer abstract questions!
Predictably, GPT-3 has generated tremendous buzz in the tech industry for its ability to produce high-quality, coherent text. Many developers and companies are exploring how GPT-3 can be integrated into various applications, including chatbots and content creation tools.
But is the buzz all hoopla or is there credibility behind its use for SEO. I looked to five leading thought leaders in the space for insights.
What 5 SEO Experts Think About AI-generated Content
SEO experts have varying opinions about AI-generated content in general, and GPT-3 in particular. Those who view it favorably believe AI-generated content can save businesses time and resources and be a valuable supplement to human-written content.
Those who disagree with this view argue that AI-generated content lacks both originality and creativity, because of which it can never be as unique or engaging as human-developed content.
Let’s take a closer look at what five top SEO experts have to say on the matter.
Lily Ray
Senior Director, SEO & Head of Organic Research at Amsive Digital
Lily Ray raises significant concerns about the quality of AI-generated content. “There are shortcomings with ChatGPT and all AI content generation tools in their current form,” she says.
Content-generation tools such as ChatGPT have been known to return wildly incorrect information and biased opinions. While the technology allows users to create content quickly and cost-effectively, the output generated often lacks expert-level or unique insights. This is not in line with Google’s emphasis on E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness), which is why she believes AI-generated content can negatively impact search engine rankings.
However, Lily does advocate for the use of AI in specific situations, such as creating summaries of your content or generating product descriptions.
Matt Diggity
SEO entrepreneur
Matt Diggity has a largely positive view about using AI for generating content. He is pumped about how tools like ChatGPT can be used to write large volumes of content and conduct keyword research quickly and easily. “Even if AI isn’t your jam, your competitors are using it, so you should know what you’re up against,” he cautions.
However, he does think it necessary to recheck all AI-generated content for grammatical and factual accuracy and proofread it before uploading.
Gael Breton
Co-Founder, Authority Hacker
Gael Breton has somewhat of a balanced, if not neutral sentiment toward AI-generated content. However, he believes all web publishers have to deal with it in 2023, regardless of their personal views on the topic.
Gael believes that most of the time, AI content is bland and can be identified accurately. However, it is possible to tweak the content to evade the tools that detect whether a particular piece of content is human-written or AI-generated. Moreover, Gael also explores how websites like CNET openly state that they are using AI engines to generate content that is then reviewed by humans.
Another interesting insight he shares is Google does not reduce organic traffic to a piece if you use more or less AI to help write it. According to Gael, “factors like keyword selection, competition, and other traditional SEO factors matter much more than the use of AI.”
Sam Oh
VP of Marketing, Ahrefs
Sam Oh explores the different use cases of ChatGPT for SEO and finds most of the ways people are using it will have negative results. However, he is bullish on AI for SEO, just not for writing blog posts.
He believes AI-driven keyword research is unreliable as its results have no search demand. “ChatGPT is insanely cool, but most of the use cases you’ve seen in Twitter or LinkedIn threads or YouTube videos are mostly hyped up for engagement bait,” he reveals.
However, Sam thinks using ChatGPT to generate titles for blog posts is promising. According to him, the best use case of ChatGPT is creating outlines for your blog posts. This can help you organize your thoughts and get your creative juices flowing, helping you create better content.
Daniel Lofaso
Founder & CEO, Digital Elevator
Daniel Lofaso brings a reasoned judgment to the discussion, insisting that Google will do what Google has always done. He believes it will continue to reward content that is novel, written by subject matter experts (SMEs), and backed by references, examples, or unique takeaways. An article written by GPT-3 is no more than a simple regurgitating of what is already on the web, he says. It is often no different from what you’ll get by outsourcing it to a writer with no real subject matter expertise.
Daniel believes SEOs and content marketers need to step up their game and create systems and processes to make content valuable from an E-E-A-T point of view, conduct interviews with SMEs, and develop content with legitimate value to readers. “I do see the value in utilizing GPT-3 for SEO in many areas (the title of this blog was helpful with GPT-3), but the lazy use of having it rewrite what’s already out there is just not going to rank. Period,” he puts it.
How is GPT-3 Used in SEO?
GPT-3 has widespread applications across the SEO domain. Whether they are effective or potentially harmful are still up for debate. However, the below are some of the primary applications of using AI-content that some SEOs testing.
They include:
Creating Content: You can use GPT-3 to generate content at scale. With its advanced natural language processing capabilities, GPT-3 generates engaging content for websites that can boost search engine rankings. Businesses in any sector can use the technology to create blog posts, meta descriptions, and other content for their web properties.
Pros:
Content can be created at scale
Helps with writers block
Often is surprisingly well-formulated
Cons:
Content risks being the same as everyone else
GPT-3 doesn’t provide references
GPT-3 can often be highly inaccurate
Conducting Keyword Research: Apart from writing content, GPT-3 can also be used to identify and analyze relevant keywords and search terms for your company. This can help you optimize your content and rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Pros:
Can get interesting, logically sound keywords
Cons:
The volume of these keywords is not provided
Creating content calendars: GPT-3 is actually surprisingly good at putting together topically relevant content when prompted to do so. If you suffer from writers block, this can help plan the next sequence of blogs.
Pros:
The topics provided by GPT-3 are often great and sound interesting.
Cons:
Again, GPT-3 does not use keyword research so you’d want to layer in anything they propose with actual keyword research and targeting.
What’s the takeaway on AI-generated content?
The debate over AI-generated content is no doubt going to rage on for some time, particularly in the realm of SEO. The takeaway so far is that while AI offers the potential for increased efficiency, it also raises concerns about authenticity and quality, which are primary points of emphasis with Google.
Whether you are a marketer with decades of experience or an SEO newbie, there is but one consensus about AI-generated content so far – be open to change but always prioritize quality over quantity.
Check out this content refresh we did for a Digital Elevator blog to see how a content refresh helped the blog pageviews increase 533% just a couple months later!
We’ll dive into how to refresh content and give an example of exactly how to go about it.
Here are the steps to take to refresh your blogs for SEO:
Determine which content you want to refresh first
Use a keyword software to review current rankings
Use Google Search Console to find new content ideas
Review “People also ask” for content ideas
Utilize “Related searches” for additional sub-topics
1. Determine which content you want to refresh first
There are several ways you can determine what content is underperforming and how to decide if it deserves a refresh.
Use Google Analytics to review historical traffic data from the previous year. If it has been waning substantially, then it may deserve a refresh.
Review keyword rankings history in a keyword software tool like Ahrefs or SEMRush or within Google Search Console. If keyword rankings are waning, it may be time for a refresh.
Highlight blogs related to recurring events, current information queries, or product queries AND are more than a year old. For example, don’t you think a visitor would prefer a review post from the current year rather than one from previous years?
As a general rule of thumb, look for posts that are at least a year old (unless the data suggests otherwise).
For example, our post on how to find non-copyright music is over four years old, and in all likelihood, the resources inside the post are dated.
2. Use a keyword software to review current rankings
This is where you want to look at keyword rankings for opportunistic opportunities that might suggest content needs to be refreshed, where some low-hanging fruit exists, or where to get some more topic ideas.
For example, I will check out my non-copyrighted music blog in Ahrefs Organic keywords Site Explorer section.
That post ranks for 100s of keywords, and at first glance, many of them look to be synonym keywords of the primary keyword.
I’ll then note the keywords that have the volume that I want to beef up my content.
If these keywords are not really helpful in helping me tackle this, I’ll want to actively look for more question-type content. To do this I filter my keywords with “what, how to, where” words to get better results. Make sure you use the “any” keyword filter here to get any keywords that include these terms.
Now that I have a much smaller list of keywords to sort through, I can review them to see if any are valuable to use to update my content. A few keywords that stand out to me from my initial search and my filtered search include the below:
how to know if a song is copyrighted on youtube 100/monthly searches
how to legally use copyrighted music on youtube 150/monthly searches
popular songs that aren’t copyrighted 100/monthly searches
Because these are mostly question topics, a great way to include them in my blog refresh is to have a FAQ section with these exact questions and some answers. Google, and visitors, will love that.
3. Use Google Search Console to find new content ideas
Another way to do something similar to our keyword research tool (albeit with less filtering capabilities and actual keyword metric data) is to use Google Search Console.
After logging into your site portal, you’ll want to:
Click on “Search results” under Performance on the left sidebar
Click “New” and then “Page” in the dropdown
Enter your URL and confirm the filter is set
Click on the “Average position” box as well
Now that we have our Search Console filter set to the specific page we want to review, we need to filter it down a bit more.
Slightly down on the page, click the filter button on the far right and click “Position.”
Next, sort down a little farther so that you can select “Smaller than” and set the Position to 20 to see rankings positions below 20. Make sure to click “Done” when finished to initiate the sort.
Now you’ll see queries that are low-hanging fruit in the sense that they are on page one or two in the SERPs.
You can now look at these keywords to see if any specific topics deserve a section on the site.
The sweet spot here is really keywords ranked 10-20 that don’t have a specific mention in your existing blog. For example, the keywords “non copyrighted artists” looks like a good topic to include in my blog refresh.
4. Review “People also ask” for content ideas
For additional keyword ideas that you may not have in your blog post, type in your target keyword into Google and review the “People also ask” results. The more results you expand, the more questions Google will reveal to you.
These are some additional questions I may want to include in my FAQ section to address exactly what Google is telling me is related to my topic.
In this instance, I like the latter two questions.
Note: You may need to use variations of your target keyword here to get better results.
5. Utilize “Related searches” for additional sub-topics
Along with the People also ask section, you’ll also want to scroll to the bottom of the SERP results for even more topics.
None of these topics resonate with my blog topic that I haven’t already covered for my particular search, so I’ll dismiss them. For other topics, this can be a treasure trove of ideas, though.
Bonus Tips for Refreshing Blog Content
Here are some additional tips for maximizing your content refresh efforts.
Implement a last updated timestamp on your blogs.
This timestamp tells Google and your visitors the last time your post was updated and sends important freshness and user experience queues.
Give Google and your viewers a nice signal that indicates your content is up to date. Just make sure to leave your URL as was.
Update your internal links
If you are actively blogging, it may behoove you to link to your freshly updated blog post from some of your new blog posts and vice versa. Spread some of the link juice around on your site with this tactic.
Over to You! Update Your Content
Updating your content with your new keyword research is a qualitative effort. If you have new topics to write, it should be fairly self-explanatory where they fit into your existing content.
However, the best use of these keywords is as subsections with dedicated headings (H2s, H3s, etc.) or as part of a FAQ section.
Updates to content need not be massive endeavors; sometimes all you need to refresh your content is a few new links or a new paragraph or two. Other times updates can be more substantial. Your data on keyword opportunities should spell this out for you, and if you make an effort to provide value to the reader in your updates, you’ll be enjoying traffic increases in no time.
The marriage of your blog’s layout and design may be one of the most critical factors in keeping your visitors engaged with your content.
With over 6+ million blog posts published each day globally, you’ll need to take advantage of every opportunity you have to evoke as much credibility and trust from your blog as possible.
As a company that has driven millions of dollars of traffic value to our clients through our blogging efforts, I wanted to share the secret sauce to winning blog layout and design that we’ve learned from working on sites for over a decade.
Below you’ll find our exact processes for layout and design for the following:
The blog hub page is probably the most overlooked blog design aspect. Most sites simply use the default WordPress settings of displaying blogs in reverse chronological order. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that approach, we like to set up blog hub pages to cater to interests, or defined in a different way, to cater to buyer personas.
A good example of this blog hub page layout in action is the Exclusively Hybrid blog. The blog caters to several different buyer personas, all largely related to hybrid batteries: Recommended blogs (to emphasize the most popular blogs on the site); most recent posts (for timely content); and categorial sections around topics such as Hybrid Maintenance, Technology, and specific brands of hybrids.
When readers are in what is called “content consumption mode,” this blog hub layout gives them the best opportunity to digest a specific topic in its entirety, lending credibility to the brand, educating, and pushing toward sales.
When designing a blog hub this way, you’ll see a lot of thought go into content curation. When you logically think about the specific topics you want to delve into repeatedly, it is easy to create these curated sections that appeal to specific buyers.
Another company that does this well is Segment. They provide a sub-menu of the types of content they create right up top, offering a different approach to categorical navigation than the example above.
I also like that they have blog newsletter CTAs throughout the page to encourage signups.
Blog Hub Page Design SEO Best Practices
Ideate primary categories based on content marketing
Recommended – 3-6 blogs
Include blog email opt-in or relevant CTA (ex. demo)
Recent – 3-6 blogs
Category A – 3-4 blogs
Category B -3-4 blogs
etc
All categories need a View More button to jump to the category URL
Decide on Featured Image art direction (also serves as hero)
Standard corporate images?
Custom images?
Blog Category Page Layout & Design
For blogs that have a decent amount of content for each category, dedicated category pages are recommended to capitalize on specific categorical interests.
For Segment, this means creating a page around something like Engineering:
This serves the Engineering buyer persona well since they would be unlikely to have interest in Segment’s Growth & Marketing content or vice versa.
The blog category pages should also follow Segment’s approach of providing some contextually relevant content, as the page does with a keyword-researched blurb that talks about what the page is promoting.
Blog Category Page Design SEO Best Practices
Create categories driven by keyword research
Include category description: 1-2 sentences of copy that describes the category
Recommended section of curated content
Recent content
Author Page Layout & Design
While I will admit not every website requires as much emphasis on the credibility of its authors as those in YMYL industries, Google has made it clear that its recent core updates do put a lot of emphasis on authorship, credibility, and trust.
With these E-A-T benchmarks in place, we feel that most blogs benefit from author pages that showcase Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
These pages don’t have to be massive productions, but they are an opportunity to brag about one’s prowess in an industry. We find that Google (and visitors) find credibility in third-party, trustworthy websites. For example, medical doctors who other medical sites have featured, authors who appear on the sites of popular conferences with links to their blogs, etc.
Check out the aforementioned SEJ link for more details and some of our best practices below.
Author Page Design SEO Best Practices
Assign all posts to the author, not generic company posts
Include bios even with single author sites
Include information in bio such as: education, group membership, publications, certifications, other media mentions, etc – anything that qualifies them to be an authority in their field
Headshots
Links to social accounts
Reviews
Links to third-party websites that reference the author
The layout and design of your blog post are really where the meat and potatoes of your efforts are likely to go. And this is probably where the bulk of your website traffic comes from if done correctly.
The following recommendations are by no means a blog post design bible, as every brand will have slightly different style guidelines, personal preferences, and artistic direction. However, these recommendations are provided with SEO in mind, so take what you’d like and leave what you don’t.
To delve into this, it’s nice to start with an example, and SEMRush blog post design comes through as a winner in this department.
Blog sub-menu: Playing with our categorization on the blog hub page, the blog sub-menu is specific to the blog and allows visitors to browse topics by category, further emphasizing content consumption mode. Note that if you want to create a blog sub-menu like this, the blog has to be big enough to justify enough categories, which is likely in the 30+ blogs range.
Breadcrumbs: Breadcrumbs also help with navigation as well as internal links, which have a nice SEO benefit.
Featured images match hub page: Continuity is vital in blog hub page and blog post design. Here, we will find that SEMRush’s featured image matches that of their blog hub page.
Author, Publish Date, Read time: These attributes play along nicely with what we spoke about before with the trustworthiness and credibility aspect of the site. The author’s name is clickable and takes you to the author bio page, which showcases the author’s other content. The blog published date (or last modified date) provides insight into how relevant the content is. If the content is evergreen, there may be a case to not showcase the publish date. Finally, the read time may be an attractive piece of information that we are seeing used more in blogs. Not shown in the screenshot, but used on the SEMRush blog, is progress reading bar. This is a subtle bar that moves across the page to show you how much more content you have left to complete which may increase completion of reading and decrease bounce rate.
Table of contents: We know that today’s readers tend to skim articles for the contents they want. A table of contents encourages readers to jump to where they want to read, and provides a nice overview of all the content that is provided in the post. We like SEMRush’s table of contents because it floats as you scroll, but there are other options available such as this one from LuckyWP.
Leading paragraph needs to be above the fold: A good rule of thumb is not to make readers have to scroll to read the first paragraph of content. Thus, we recommend designing your post page so that the leading paragraph is above the fold.
Additional Blog Post Layout SEO Best Practices
Create a style guide around video placements
Because many blogs also include video, it makes sense to create a style guide on how your blog post will display them. Some ideas are:
In-body with thumbnail
Lightbox with CTA box
In the featured image overlay
(ex. guy on cliff in the SEMRush screenshot replaced with thumbnail with embed)
Place social media sharing buttons according to sharing prominence
The degree to which you emphasize social media sharing greatly depends on the nature of your industry. In some industries, social sharing is very popular (think recipes) while in others, like engineering, it is less prevalent.
Depending on the degree of which social sharing is used within your industry should drive the prominence of your social sharing icons.
For example, for Segment and their engineering content, these subtle, right sidebar, non-scrolling social sharing icons suffice.
You can also consider putting them at the end of your post, or towards the top.
Breakup text for increased readability with HTML elements
No one likes to look at a bunch of text with no end in sight. Besides the obvious use of visuals to breakup lines of text, utilize unique HTML elements such as the following:
block quotes
tables
custom icons for bullets/checkmarks
encapsulate important elements (ex. branded box with paragraph text)
Encourage content consumption with 3-4 related posts at bottom of post
You’ve probably seen HubSpot do this with their blog posts really well. Why? Because HubSpot knows that once people make it to the bottom of a post they are likely in content consumption mode.
If you want Cookie Monster to hang out with you, what do you do? Give him more cookies!
Rather than the general “Additional Reading” add-on to the bottom of your post that often features your most popular, but potentially unrelated posts, curate some related posts by category or tag so that readers can continue their journey of knowledge.
Here’s an example of an article on YouTube Comments that ends with three related articles on HubSpot’s site:
Include a CTA at the bottom of each post
Again, this is a space that HubSpot is well-known for, particularly as it applies to very specific CTAs.
Not only do they put this CTA at the end of the post, but they also have CTAs in-body and as slide-ins. All these CTAs may be a bit overkill for most brands, but if the name of the game is list building, then there is definitely a lesson to be learned here.
If you have an existing CTA in your footer as a global setting, make sure the CTAs don’t conflict.
Include an abbreviated clickable author bio at the bottom of the post
Like SEMRush, you can include a clickable author bio at the bottom of the post as well as the top of the post, or just at the top, or just at the bottom. It’s really a matter of preference.
Here, just include two or three sentences about the author that showcase their credibility as well as some social links or a company email link. It’s important to make the author bio clickable and linked to their full, dedicated bio page.
Blog comments should be considered on a site-by-site basis
There seems to be a trend with many blogs to not include the option to leave comments at the bottom of blog posts. For anyone who has ever managed a blog, handling spam is an obvious reason to do away with this type of social engagement.
However, there are some research studies that show that comments can drive traffic, provided the community is highly active.
The bottom line from this research is that comments can be nice to have, but are not an absolute necessity for SEO gains.
If you are thinking about including comments on your blog posts, consider the following first:
Do you have someone in-house who can spend time moderating, replying, and managing comments in a meaningful way?
Will your blog justify enough comments to include this type of engagement?
Will the comments actually provide value to the blogs?
Another consideration for blog comments is to push comments to a membership-based community, such as verified subscribers, or a Facebook group.
Cite your references
Last but not least, make sure to cite your references. Here’s what Google has to say about that:
It should go without saying that scientific articles and authoritative sites are very important for credibility for YMYL websites, but not as much with general information sites. Still, credibility is a factor for readers as much as it is for Google, so if you can cite credible sources, your readers, and Google, will appreciate your efforts.
Working With Your Dev Team to Make Changes
If you have made the smart decision to implement the above changes to your blog you may be wondering where to start or be concerned about the work involved.
The good news, if you are on WordPress, is that the page builders – Brizy, Elementor, Divi, Muffin Builder, etc. – all come with templates. When you approach blog hub pages, category pages, or blog post pages, a template can be used to create the design and layout that matches your brand.
Since this is more of an SEO guide to blog layout and design we won’t go into detail about how to go about this as any decent developer can carry this out. That said, it does provide an opportunity for a shameless plug to use Digital Elevator to design, plan, and carry out these changes for you with our touch of SEO expertise.
If you need help carrying out the recommendations of this post, reach out to us today.
Discuss your website project with our team!
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In the competitive landscape of medical device marketing, the quest to effectively reach healthcare professionals and decision-makers has always been difficult.
The dynamic nature of the healthcare industry demands a strategic approach that not only showcases the technical prowess of your medical devices but also establishes trust, addresses pain points, and offers tailored solutions.
By the end of this blog, you will be able to create strategic approaches in your marketing that will help your medical devices stand out.
In this guide, we delve into five expert-level tips that can elevate your medical device marketing game. From crafting content that resonates with your buyer persona to leveraging the power of paid advertising and SEO, these strategies are designed to create a robust marketing framework that resonates with your target audience, builds credibility, and drives meaningful conversions.
One of the key pillars of successful medical device marketing is tailoring your content to your specific target audience or buyer persona. As highlighted in our article on HCP marketing, understanding the pain points, challenges, and needs of your audience is crucial.
For example, this resource by McKesson on lab solutions for urgent care facilities is a prime example of tailored content. As McKesson provides lab solutions that are related to the topic, not only are they introducing themselves as a solutions provider but they are doing it in a way that is first and foremost beneficial to the end reader by showcasing how these solutions provide faster results and better patient experience.
By developing in-depth knowledge about the healthcare professionals (HCPs) and decision-makers who are likely to engage with your medical device, you can create content that resonates with them, address their concerns, provide solutions to their problems, and showcase the benefits of your device in a language that speaks directly to their expertise.
By showing that you understand their unique challenges and can provide valuable solutions, you’re more likely to build trust and credibility.
Outsource Content Marketing for Expertise in Conversion-focused Content
While you’re an expert in medical devices, you may not be an expert at creating persuasive and effective sales copy or understanding how to utilize content marketing to drive more leads and sales.
This is where outsourcing content creation comes into play. By partnering with vendors that specialize in biotech content marketing and offer different areas of expertise – graphic design, marketing, writing, etc. – you can take your medical device marketing beyond the merits of the product itself.
For example, this resource from ThermoFisher Scientific on “Useful Numbers for Cell Culture” is a great example of conversion-focused content. Here’s why:
It provides an easy-to-use reference point for the target audience to utilize
The page ranks for over 1,100 keywords (according to Ahrefs), including “useful numbers for cell culture” which gets an estimated 2,300 searches per month alone
The resource naturally introduces relevant product categories as ThermoFisher understand that a searcher looking for appropriate cell culture dishes and flasks may need to purchase more based on this resource
Whether it’s crafting engaging articles, designing visually appealing infographics, or producing persuasive marketing copy, outsourcing ensures that your content is not only accurate but also captivating.
Your Website as Your Primary Sales Tool
In medical device marketing, your website serves as more than just an online presence; it’s a dynamic platform that can drive your sales and conversions. Your potential customers, whether they are healthcare professionals or decision-makers, often turn to your website for detailed information before making purchasing decisions.
Your website should function as an intuitive and informative hub that not only showcases the features of your medical devices but also educates visitors about its applications, benefits, and real-world user experiences.
To achieve this, focus on incorporating captivating visuals, user-friendly navigation, and compelling Calls to Action (CTAs) strategically placed throughout your website. Include detailed product descriptions, case studies, success stories, and any relevant certifications or awards that underline the credibility of your medical device. By creating a seamless online experience, you can capture leads, nurture prospects, and guide them through their decision-making process.
Let’s look at the following example from Qiagen. On their website, can easily navigate with their simple menu bar at the top, a panel of rotating images with different CTA’s, and multiple custom graphics related to applications. This home page is an example of a good sales tool as it helps funnel visitors down a path with an easy-to-use interface and site structure.
An additional aspect of using a website as a sales tool is building trust and credibility. It’s one thing to say “our products are the best” and another when other trusted references do it for you.
Throughout their website they have littered several instances of subtle social proof. For example, in their case stories section, they have multiple doctors talking about how great and effective their products are. This gives Qiagen respect and authority, resonating with their potential customers as these claims come from third-party clients.
In another social proof example, at the top of this page, we see the logos of brands Qiagen is associated with. These provide a subconscious level of social proof and credibility that a visitor would likely take comfort in should they be considering using the brand. Second, they have a blog section with informative articles that establish them as a thought leader in the space.
Leverage Paid Ads to Fill Your Sales Pipeline
Paid advertising is a strategic avenue for accelerating your medical device marketing efforts. Google Ads, as highlighted for search intent, allow you to capture the attention of ideal clients actively searching for relevant keywords related to your device(s). This ensures that your product is visible at the precise moment when potential customers are seeking solutions.
Below, we see two different ad types. The top ad with pictures are Google Shopping Ads while the second are Google Search Ads. This is valuable real estate for brands that want to get in front of searchers with purchase intent.
Additionally, LinkedIn ads are also effective for targeting Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) in the medical field. The platform’s advanced targeting options enable you to reach specific job titles, industries, and professional demographics.
For these ad types, it is recommended to partner with a company experienced with biotech paid media so that they can evaluate and recommend paid advertising opportunities on a case-by-case basis.
SEO for Full-Circle Sales Cycle Awareness & Lead Generation
SEO can drive organic traffic, generate leads and ensure a continuous flow of engaged prospects through the various stages of your sales funnel. For medical device sales specifically, an SEO plan should revolve around:
Product pages
Category pages (see example below)
Supporting content to drive traffic and brand awareness
For example, the below page from DRE Medical appears to have invested in some SEO in order to rank this page on ENT Equipment.
They rank number 1 for key high purchase intent keywords such as “ent medical supplies,” “ent equipment” and others related to their product offerings. This is an example of bottom-of-the-funnel SEO as it relates to purchase intent.
The site also does a good job of funneling search traffic for top-of-the-funnel searches with its medical glossary, which ranks for general searches like “nasalplasty” or “fulguration.”
If your company doesn’t have in-house staff to constantly work on developing your SEO for the medical devices, it is strongly encouraged that you partner with an agency that can help make sure your medical devices don’t slip through the cracks.
Incorporating these expert-level tips into your medical device marketing strategy can position your brand for success, resonate with your target audience, and enhance your overall marketing effectiveness.
Save Time and Get More Backlinks with these 11 Link Building Prospecting Hacks
If you’ve ever tried to do the manual outreach of link building you know how hard it can be. You can do email outreach to dozens or 100’s of sites and get little to no responses.
More often than not, I’ve learned that the reason for this is that you have chosen a poor site to perform outreach too.
In today’s video, (which is something of an advanced SEO tutorial) I’ll show you 11 quick link prospecting hacks — in part based on Google’s Panda Questionnaire — that will save you time, help you filter your link building prospecting sites more quickly, and ultimately, give you more outreach success, resulting in better rankings and more traffic.
What is the Panda Questionnaire?
Before we begin, here is some context to using the Google Panda Questionnaire and why the questions that were used to help people vet “high-quality” sites are some of the same ones we use for building high-quality links.
Here’s how this process came to be:
Google gave questions to a group of people, had them assess a bunch of websites, and then ran machine learning algorithms on top of the human data. In effect, these questions helped move up or down search results based on human feedback. The primary factory of “what makes a quality website” was incorporated into Google’s Panda algorithm.
You can use variations of these same questions when link prospecting to ensure you are getting the most value out of your link building efforts. These are some of those Panda questions mixed in with some of our own link prospecting questions.
1. Does the site contain contextually relevant content
Is the site’s content you want to build links from similar in scope or nature to that of your site? If so, that means it is likely a strong link candidate. Now, not all sites have to cover the same types content as yours, but it definitely is a preference.
For example, if you run a fitness website, you could make a connection with a nutrition website as the two main focuses of content — fitness and nutrition — are related.
2. Would you trust information from this website?
Does the site’s aesthetic meet your professional “website sixth sense?”
You can easily tell if a site looks credible or not. If it doesn’t, don’t waste your time prospecting it.
3. Would you recognize this site as an authority?
Sites that cover all sorts of different, irrelevant content are usually a waste of time and link farms. On the other hand, if the content seems very credible, well-researched, and professionally made, then it likely makes for a good link prospect.
4. Would you give this site your credit card info?
We’ve all been to websites that sell products or services that we instantly have a sense of trust with. Some of these trust signals may include an SSL certificate, professional design, and a strong brand presence.
If the site doesn’t pass the “smell test” of one that you’d make a purchase from, scratch it from your link outreach list.
5. Does the domain rating match what you are looking for?
At Digital Elevator, we use the Ahrefs Chrome extension to quickly see the Domain Rating (DR) of a website. You can also use the MozBar which displays Domain Authority.
Internally, when we do link prospecting, we’ll generally set a floor for the DR of the sites we want to get links from. For example, often this floor is a DR 30 meaning that a site with a DR under 30 will be thrown out immediately.
This is especially true if you are using guest posting as a link building strategy – you don’t want to dedicate a bunch of time to a site that demands 1,000 word posts when they have a low domain authority.
The idea is to prospect quickly, and that also means that you don’t want to waste time on a site that may give you a link if the link is weak and doesn’t provide the SEO value that you want in your link building efforts.
6. Is the site written by subject matter experts?
Does the site seem to let anyone guest post? Do the writers seem to conduct thorough research and have insightful content?
Read through a blog or two to get an idea of the quality. If it is choppy and littered with grammar errors, it probably is a poor outreach partner for you.
7. Does the site get any traffic for relevant keywords?
Check the keywords the target site is ranking for to determine if it actually gets any traffic. We use Ahrefs to do this, but there are a number of SEO software tools you can use. A trustworthy site will generally rank for a number of keywords whereas a spammy site will likely rank for none.
You have to watch out for spammy sites that have artificially inflated DR; these links look good on paper but are unlikely to help your efforts.
8. Does the site regularly post or are they an active brand?
There are a few ways you can do this:
See if they publish blogs regularly
If not, check their social media feeds to see if they are active
On that note, see if their content actually gets any social shares (an indication of some sort of following)
9. Is there actually a person you can contact (rather than just a generic email)?
Many sites hide their email because they don’t want to get spammed. While you can use a service like ContactOut or Hunter to find emails, if there is no real contact information you may want to scratch them off the list.
10. Does the site have a “Sponsored Post” option?
This means they are big enough to get money for their posts and means, technically, it’s only an advertising opportunity. If you do outreach to these types of sites, expect them to respond with a “yes, but it will cost you ‘x’” for a post.
11. Is the site a really large brand?
Large brands typically have in-house teams that create content and are unlikely to respond to any link outreach. While you can certainly try to perform outreach to them, I generally find them unlikely to respond.
What other vetting questions do you use to prospect sites? Please let me know in the comments.
If your company has a lack of SEO talent or your current team is struggling to keep up with all your SEO campaigns, it may be time to outsource your SEO to a third-party like an agency or specialist.
While I would argue that some tasks are best left for internal teams, SEO is just one of those areas where companies of all sizes can benefit from an advanced SEO specialist or a team of SEOs whose sole focus is to help you grow traffic and sales.
Today, we are going to review a few of the nuances you’ll want to consider when outsourcing your SEO, including:
The 2 SEO Outsourcing Models
How to Approach SEO Outsourcing Based on Needs
Where to Find Outsourced SEO Companies or Partners
How Much SEO Outsourcing Costs
The 2 SEO Outsourcing Models
There are two SEO outsourcing models you’ll have to consider depending on what stage your company is in or what your current in-house team looks like:
Outsource all SEO
Combine outsourced SEO with an in-house team
Outsource all SEO
If you don’t have the budget for an SEO specialist or team (I’ll get more into costs later), the obvious choice here is to outsource all of your SEO needs. When talking about SEO tasks, we are often talking about on and off-page SEO, content writing, and the often understated importance of development and graphic design. These are super cost-intensive to perform in-house and not all SEO agencies provide all of these services, so that is something to consider when hiring (which we will discuss later when we discuss outsourcing based on needs).
Combine outsourced SEO with an in-house team
If you do have some existing marketers who need overflow help or specialized help, then it makes sense to combine your in-house team with outsourced SEO. In my experience, the best cost-savings and performance come into play when you have an existing writing team and development team and leave the heavy lifting to SEO specialists (research, link building, site speed recommendations, content audits, etc).
How to Approach SEO Outsourcing Based on Needs
At Digital Elevator, we approach SEO based on a maximum business impact methodology. This means prioritizing your SEO efforts based on whatever your most important goals are for your company.
For example, if you want to be known for a particular service or product, coming up with SEO strategies that help you rank for that service or product as a priority. Or, if you want to know where your content gaps are and what content is the most impactful, you’d prioritize a content audit.
Using that content audit example, perhaps you just want an SEO partner that specializes in SEO content audits.
If you don’t have such a specialized goal in mind and just want to increase sales, you should be able to lean on an SEO agency to help you strategize an action plan based on your goals and budget.
Whatever direction you go in, it is helpful to approach your SEO outsource partner with some specific goals, metrics, or KPIs they can back into.
Where to Find the Best Outsourced SEO Companies or Partners
Finding really good SEO outsourcing companies or partners may be the most difficult part of moving toward this marketing model.
These are the main ways you can find potential partners:
Google the specific SEO service or industry
Use a reputable directory site
Job boards
Utilize your network
Google the specific SEO service or industry
Similar to the example we covered above, looking for a “seo content audit service” and seeing companies, like Digital Elevator, who specialize in this type of service can be a good way to start some discussions and get an idea of deliverables and costs.
You can also do a search based on your industry, such as “SEO for Shopify agency” for eCommerce SEO or “seo agency for pharmaceutical industry.”
Use a reputable directory site
Clutch is probably the best directory site that helps you sift through some of the noise. You can filter SEO agencies by specific services, client budget, hourly rate, industry, reviews, and more.
I like Clutch because they generally require your clients to actually interview with them, helping to keep the quality of reviews a bit more transparent and credible.
Job boards
I’d only suggest job boards if you are trying to hire a freelance SEO. Note that with freelancers you can’t expect them to do everything really well. In other words, don’t expect an SEO freelancer to be an expert SEO, content writer, developer, and project manager. If they do all of that expect to pay a pretty penny or expect low-quality results.
That said, the best place to find SEOs on job board sites is probably Upwork.
Other notable freelance SEO job board sites include Indeed.com and Fiverr although with Fiverr, you spend a lot of time sorting through profiles of SEO generalists and may find it is only a good option if you have basic SEO needs.
Utilize your network
If you have a robust professional network, see if any of your contacts can make some recommendations of SEO agencies or specialists in your industry.
How Much SEO Outsourcing Costs
The costs of SEO outsourcing very much depend on the amount of work you need, the industry you are in, the competition, how quickly you need work done, the track record or reputation of your SEO partner, and the amount of project management time you want to invest.
If you are a small local business and you are looking for turn-key SEO services, expect to pay $1,000 to $2,000 for ongoing local SEO. If you are a regional business in a hyper-competitive market, expect to get your wallet out. I recently saw a very reputable personal injury SEO agency with project averages around $15,000 a month.
This plays into the reputation of your SEO partner as well. For companies that are really well-known for specific services or have worked with household brands, expect monthly SEO retainers in the $10k+ range, with one-off projects like site quality assessments coming in at similar rates.
In terms of project management, I have seen very successful business owners run separate teams of SEOs, developers, writers, and link builders from various regions and have total marketing costs come in at a third to a quarter cheaper than if they went all-in with one agency.
Comparing SEO Outsourcing to the Cost of Employees
One last thing I want to talk about is the cost of employees versus that of SEO outsourcing partners.
There are certainly pros to having in-house employees but I’d argue it is almost always better to have an outsourced SEO partner.
For starters, the estimated total pay for an SEO specialist is $71,600 per year according to Glassdoor. That’s not all though, according to the SBA the actual cost of an employee is 1.25 to 1.4 times their salary when you account for taxes, insurance, healthcare, and retirement plans. So that same SEO could cost you $89,500 to $100,240 in actuality.
Then there is the likelihood that your SEO is not a writer, a graphic designer, a developer, and a project manager. What do you do about those roles should you actually have the budget to hire that initial SEO?
The point is, if we divide the cost of one seasoned SEO employee into 12-months, we are looking at $7,458 to $8,353 a month that could be used for an agency. With that sort of budget you can likely get the SEO specialist and writers, graphic designers, developers, and project managers who can all fall under one agency roof.
To me, it makes a strong case to partner with an agency of specialists at the end of the day.
For local businesses looking to drive more traffic from their neighborhoods, it’s important to know what search ranking factors are the most important. Here’s some reasons why doing local SEO right is so important:
Over 90% of consumers use online searches to find local businesses
Almost half of all local searches involve clicks on the Map Pack
Let’s take a closer look at the top seven local SEO ranking factors and dive into what makes your local business rank in your neck of the woods. This data was pulled from a reputable local SEO industry study that has been going on since 2008.
Note that local SEO involves two parts- the Local Pack/Local Finder (or Map Pack) and Local Organic listings:
Here’s a sneakpeak at those local ranking factors:
Local Pack
Local Organic
1. Google Business Profile (36%)
1. On-page (34%)
2. Reviews (17%)
2. Links (31%)
3. On-page (16%)
3. Behavioral (11%)
4. Links (13%)
4. Citations (7%)
5. =Behavioral (7%)
5. =Personalization (6%)
5. =Citations (7%)
5. =GBP (6%)
7. Personalization (4%)
7. Reviews (5%)
Local Search Ranking Factors
As you can see in the table above, there are seven primary ranking factors for local SEO. These are correlational factors, so if you are going to be undertaking a local SEO campaign for your business, the recommended approach is to throw the kitchen sink at it and do everything to give your website the best chance of ranking number one in the Local Pack as well as Local Organic results for a variety of searches related to your business.
Since the ranking factors are evident across both the Local Pack and Local Organic, I’ll provide my recommended order of optimizations in terms of what to do for maximum business impact.
Google Business Profile Signals
The importance of a well-optimized Google Business Profile (aka Google My Business) cannot be overstated. Since 2017, the importance has nearly doubled as related to top rankings.
Proper business categorization is one of the most important factors, as is the use of keywords in your business name (if applicable), as is the addition of relevant categories.
Review Signals
Reviews to your Google Business Profile are next in importance, although this is an ongoing strategy that you’ll want to focus on weekly. Review quantity, review velocity, and review diversity are all areas you want to focus on.
To get reviews, usually all you have to do is ask although I do recommend the use of automated review software that is triggered by some CRM. The uniqueness of each business makes it difficult to give a blanket recommendation, but basically you’ll want to text or email your customers a review link to make things easy.
On-page Signals
On-page SEO is where things get a little spicy and best handled by a pro but you can certainly give this a stab if you know your way around a website.
As much as I’d love to show you how to do on-page SEO for a local website, that would be a massive guide. On-page signals include things like keywords in titles, the domain authority of your website, and Name, Address, Phone number (NAP) consistency with that of your Google Business Profile.
Here are some top-level factors broken down:
City, State in Landing Page Title
Above all else, the city and state of your business’ physical location should be in the title tag of the pages you are trying to rank locally. For example, click-throughs of the top three dentists in my hometown, West Palm Beach, reveal that all of them have “Dentist West Palm Beach” in the homepage title tags. This makes sense as they want to rank for a fairly generic search [dentist LOCATION] but this principle would also apply to their internal pages. Ex. “Veneers Dentist West Palm Beach” as a title tag for the veneers page of a local dentist’s site.
City, State in Landing Page H1/H2 Tags
In addition to using the location in the title tags, you should also use them on the landing page. So, our veneers dentist has “Veneers Dentist West Palm Beach” as their title tag. They should also try to use those same terms on the landing page as an H1 and perhaps some other variations in the other tags (ex. “Best Veneers Dentist in West Palm Beach”) or something perhaps a little less cheesy.
Domain Authority of Website
Domain authority is a metric that has been defined by Moz to evaluate how strong an entire domain is. It is based on several metrics including link counts, linking root domains, MozRank and MozTrust (also Moz-centric ranking factors).
The idea is that Google takes a lot of factors in to determine ranking and Moz’s domain authority is a reflection of this. Rather than focusing your efforts on all of Moz’s ranking factors you can just take a look at the other (Page Authority below is also a Moz metric) factors on this page as most of them are included in their analysis.
Page Authority of Landing Page URL
Page authority is a metric that analyzes how well an individual webpage (URL) will rank in the search engines. On one hand it is important to understand that having an authoritative domain is a good thing as is having individual pages that rank. For a local dentist for example, the above veneers example would be a page that you would want to rank for queries related to veneers in your location and is a reason why page authority would be helpful in that goal.
Product / Service Keyword in Website URL
This one is a bit confusing to a lot of marketing directors or business owners. The thing is many people have preexisting domains that don’t include the product or service keyword in their domain (ex. My website http://thedigitalelevator.com/ says nothing about SEO, web design or inbound marketing but nonetheless is a badass name). However, this does not mean that you can’t create a URL (ex. http://thedigitalelevator.com/local-seo) that includes your keywords.
Link Signals
Links are one of the most important factors for Local Organic rankings yet are one of the most difficult aspects of SEO to understand or strategize. Most SEO companies don’t even offer link building services (read: weaksauce) although links have increased in importance over the last several years.
In really competitive industries, this is simply not something you can afford to overlook.
Here are some ranking factors that are associated with link signals:
Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to Domain
Lots of inbound links (links from site A to your site B) go straight to the domain (ex. Site.com) rather than internal site pages (ex. Site.com/veneers). If people are going to be linking to your site then you want those links to come from high quality, authoritative sites. In short, get awesome links to your domain. Lots of em.
Quality/Authority of Inbound Links to Landing Page URL
See above except sub out your homepage (domain) for internal page (ex. Site.com/veneers). In short, get awesome links to the internal pages of your website you want to rank too. Lots of em.
Citation Signals
I’ll put citation building ahead of behavioral signals because citations are much easier to implement. Citation signals have decreased in importance significantly over the last few years, but at 7%, they are a must do in my book.
The quality and number of citations will play a role in how well your site ranks in the local map pack. Use Moz’s local business listing checker to claim citations that will help you rank better. Citations are sites like Google Places for Business, Yelp, FourSquare, Bing Locals, Best of the Web and many, many more.
There are many local business listings services out there as well as paid business listings suggestions. Check out this write-up from BrightLocal offering a candid comparison of the main local citation service players.
Behavioral Signals
Behavioral signals include click-through rate (CTR), mobile clicks to call, and dwell time. Behaviroal signals can best be influenced with actions geared to increase CTR or dwell time.
I have seen situations before where a website that ranked worse than competitors actually got more clicks. How can this be? Well, in the Google search engine results pages (SERPs) you have the ability to manually adjust the way your results appear. You can adjust the title tags, meta descriptions and URLs to influence click-through (within your website).
Not sure where to start? Just type in the terms you want to rank for and see what your competitors are doing. Can you craft a more compelling title tag and meta description that encourages a click more so than your competitors?
Also, the user experience (UX) on your website can influence dwell time (the length of time a person spends looking at a webpage after they’ve clicked a link on a SERP page, but before clicking back to the SERP results). If you have a beautiful, trustworthy website with clean navigation and easy-to-find information, you can increase the time visitors spend on your site, and effectively improve your chances of increasing dwell time and behavioral signals.
Personalization is at the bottom of this list but is still a prominent ranking factor because it takes into account things related to the user: search history, search location, device, etc.
While you can’t manipulate this, it’s important to know that this is also why many businesses don’t rank as well as they think they should. For example, if you are a dry cleaner in Queens but think your location is close enough to Brooklyn that you should also rank there, you are probably getting dinged by the Personalization factor.
Google takes into account a searchers proximity to your business when delivering search results and a poorly optimized business may rank better than you if their proximity is closer to the searcher.
This is related to the factor of having a Physical Address in City of Search.
This means you actually have an address in the city you are trying to rank in. If you don’t it is not likely that you’ll rank as well. Think about it. Google wants people who are looking for West Palm Beach dentists to find dentists in West Palm Beach. Sorry Lake Worth dentists, stay in your own territory!
Local SEO Rankings Takeaways
The average person (non-SEO) would likely not understand half of the above which is why getting local SEO help can be very valuable to your business.
Here is what to know about local SEO for the layperson who wants some traction:
Start with solid on-page optimization– take some time to learn about title tags, meta descriptions, and keyword usage. Implement these into every page of the site with your newly tagged city, state and product/service rolled in.
Build citations– build a sh*tload of citations. Consider using one of the citation services mentioned above. These citation metrics are analyzed by Google every six weeks and there is no telling when that six weeks begins or ends. Point is after you build all these citations it might take some time to be reflected in your rankings.
Build links– build links to your domain and links to the internal pages you want to rank. Building links is hard. Building good links is even harder. Check out this post on one website that generated tons of links and traffic using The Skyscraper Technique. This same site has lots of other great advice on building links.
If you are a brand, franchise, or a local brick-and-mortar with multiple locations or are opening your second location, this post is for you.
All too often, and this is often seen even with the biggest of brands, companies aren’t optimizing their local SEO for multiple cities the right way.
To be clear, we are talking about ranking for local search related to your business and the promise of ranking within Google’s map pack.
By the end of this post, you’ll know whether or not you are doing multilocation local SEO properly, or what you can do to fix it if you’re not.
The Importance of a Local Business SEO Strategy
According to a recent survey by our friends over at Brightlocal, 35% of consumers search for local businesses multiple times per week. And, this number is growing, it was 28% in 2020. To look at it another way, only 1% of consumers said they never use the internet to search for local businesses.
Plus, if the evidence for a review strategy isn’t enough to get all of your local businesses more search engine exposure, check out the data on online reviews that showcases that we trust the third-party opinions of others.
How to do SEO for Multiple Locations
Now that we’ve gotten some fun facts out of the way and you can use them to report to your CEO about why you need a bigger budget to fix all your local business issues, here’s how you can make moves to get to the top of the map pack for searches related to your business in your local area.
Optimized Individual Location Pages
This is perhaps the most erroneous multilocation SEO error. If you have one, centralized page for all of your locations, you need to take it a step further. Each one of your locations needs its own dedicated page that covers a specific city or region.
For multilocation SEO, each location needs it own URL for a specific or region (ex. /locations/location-a/).
Yes, that means your locations page with the nifty search by city, state or zip feature is still not good enough.
Here’s an example of a company that did it wrong.
I performed a search for “Muscle Maker Grill Miami” and the top result was the Location page, NOT the specific location page:
This is because they don’t have specific locations pages.
Take the SEO element out of it for a moment and just consider the user experience element; when I as a user search for a specific business why should I have to go through multiple steps to find it?
The answer is, “you shouldn’t.” This can be solved by a dedicated page for the business that is located in the city I searched for.
Here’s an example of a company that did it right:
You see, Starbucks’ various locations come up for the search, as they should. And if we click the website links in the map pack, we see that they link to individual company pages, not a central one:
We’ll refer back to this page as a good example later in the post.
To expand on this recommendation of a dedicated page for each location, make sure that your newly constructed individual pages are actually indexable by Google and other search engines. If Google can’t find these pages and index them, they won’t be able to deliver the results to users.
Quick input on local meta data
Title Tag Format:
Local geo-indicator | Article | Brand Name (ex. Biscayne Blvd. Miami Coffee Shop | Starbucks)
Meta Description Format:
You’ll want to shoot for about 150-160 characters and include your target location in the meta description. You may also want to add your phone number to cater to mobile searchers who want to quickly call.
H1 Heading:
You can use a similar tag here as you do with your title tag. (ex. Biscayne Blvd. Miami Coffee Shop)
Multiple Local SEO Domain & URL Strategy
In a recent and highly recommended Search Engine Land post by Andrew Beckman on the domain structure of multi-location SEO, we can summarize a few talking points that you’ll want to consider when creating your domain structure and URLs for your locations.
Beckman discusses what are called “centralized” and decentralized” multilocation SEO strategies. The Starbucks example of what to do above, is centralized, meaning the franchise or top of the chain manages how their local businesses are managed.
This is in comparison to a decentralized local SEO strategy where local businesses under a brand are free to create their own website landing pages and domains instead of keeping them centralized on one domain like Starbucks does.
Here’s some examples from the Search Engine Land post of why the decentralized approach is a bad strategy.
The above domain is an example of a branded domain with a geographic modifier, the “lakeworth-westpalm” portion of the domain. What would have been better is:
lawndoctor.com/locations/lakeworth-westpalm/
In this case, the Sports Clips franchise doesn’t make mention of the brand in their domain whatsoever. They, unfortunately, were given the freedom to create their own domain, geo-modified for their Glendale, CO area.
Recommended URL:
sportsclips.com/locations/glendale-co/
Why a Decentralized Local SEO Strategy is not What You Want
The post mentioned goes into a lot of detail on this, so I will summarize why decentralized is not good for a multilocation local SEO strategy:
This makes each location responsible for its own local SEO, making it vulnerable to mistakes which ultimately can hurt the parent brand.
This creates an extra and unnecessary expense as the brand needs its own separate campaign.
This negates the ability of the sub-locations to share domain authority that would exist across one domain. Links, content, and brand mentions are spread across the web, rather than in one location which would assist all locations in ranking for non-branded searches such as “men’s haircuts Glendale, CO,” which is what you are really after with SEO anyway.
Recommended URL Strategy for Multiple Locations
Here’s what your multiple location URL strategy should look like:
This is the page that mentions all of your locations.
examplesite.com/locations/
This is a page of a specific location.
examplesite.com/locations/location-a/
*Notice the locations are in the sub-directory, not the sub-domain (glendale.examplesite.com).
Using the Extra Mile Approach for Multi-Location SEO
The Extra Mile Approach I am about to discuss is definitely one of those things you have to determine based on your personal needs. When trying to rank a location, you’re challenged not only by the proper setup of all that is mentioned on this blog post, but also the competition of the local businesses you are trying to outrank.
Your website may already have the advantage of being “centralized” and having a bunch of subdomains and a site that has an excellent Domain Authority, therefore increasing the likelihood all your locations will rank in their respective areas.
However, let’s say you have a location that just is not making the cut although you’ve done everything right. You may have to go the extra mile and create what is essentially a micro-site around the location.
Before we get into that, here’s why your local competitors might be outranking you.
Let’s say a local non-multilocation business has a website and is doing local SEO. Every page on their site is likely optimized for that location/city, sending Google lots of signals that help it rank for all types of searches related to that business.
Your multi-location business, however, only has one page dedicated to the location (examplesite.com/locations/location-a/), providing you much less opportunity to push the same local signals as the mom and pop down the street.
The Extra Mile Approach, and solution to this, is the micro-site or sub-pages of your sub-page. Let’s look at an example of what this would look like for you:
Right now, you have one local SEO page for one of your business locations:
examplesite.com/locations/location-a/
But, you need to give this location some more juice so it ranks, so you build out more content around it on additional pages, using the existing URL structure:
/locations/location-a/gallery/
/locations/location-a/reviews/
/locations/location-a/directions/
/locations/location-a/blog/
/locations/location-a/blog/post-1/
/locations/location-a/blog/post-2/
This type of content will provide lots of additional geo-targeted content that allows you to compete with the other websites that have tons of other local search signals you might have been missing out on. Some ideas for these sub-sub-pages:
Gallery– Pictures of your shop, local events, etc. Optimize the images with local identifiers to give yourself even more juice.
Reviews– You can recreate all your local 5-star reviews on a page. This works especially well for those particular searchers who specifically type in “[brand name] [city] reviews,” and trust me, a lot of people do this. More on reviews below.
Directions– Make this as intuitive as possible, with not only an embedded map but even instructions from the north, south, east, west.
Admittedly, the Extra Mile Approach for local multi-location SEO is time-consuming. But done properly, it will surely make more people drive the “extra mile” to come to your business instead of the other guy.
Google My Business for all Your Locations
The next step after setting up your locations on separate sub-directories is creating (or updating) Google My Business (GMB) pages so that they point to your new sub-directories.
A common error I see with brands big and small is that they point the link in the GMB profile to their homepage. Google clearly states in their local guidelines that you should “provide one website that represents your individual business location.”
Optimizing Your Google My Business pages
Make sure all your business page information is the exact same as on your GMB page.
Name: This is to be your exact business name, not the business name and location. Look at the Starbucks example above, the locations are all called “Starbucks,” not “Starbucks Miami” or “Starbucks Biscayne Blvd.”
Address: The website should be an actual brick-and-mortar location and be consistent with how it appears on other websites and your website. Don’t use P.O. Boxes or your friend’s business address in another city to appear bigger than you are (Google will find out).
Phone: You’ll want a local, dedicated phone number, per location, listed in your GMB. If the business has one phone number for all locations, you’ll run into trouble. You can always try to get a Google Voice phone number and forward it if you must.
URL: As mentioned, this should be the URL of your individual location page (examplesite.com/locations/location-a/), not your homepage.
Categories: Choose the most accurate category for your business as the primary category. Don’t go all bananas choosing multiple sub-categories thinking you’ll rank for everything; you won’t. Check out this (somewhat unknown) common category list.
Complete Profile: Make sure to complete as much of your profile as possible. Logos, photos, business hours, fax, etc. Everything you can to help your potential customers, and Google, out.
Consistency: For multiple locations of the same category, ensure your categories are the same for location-to-location.
Citation Management: NAP
After you’ve properly setup your website and optimized your Google My Business pages, now it’s time to build citations. The most important thing you’ll hear SEOs talk about with citations management is “NAP,” which refers to Name, Address, and Phone number.
The NAP is important because consistently having the same NAP on all your citations helps you rank. Not doing so hinders your ranking ability. This is important because some citation sites will pull data from other areas, called aggregators, and this information can often be incorrect.
For example, say you start claiming citations and you notice that Yelp has a listing for you already. Thing is, maybe the phone number is wrong. There is an obvious human element here that should be a major concern (you don’t want people calling the wrong phone number), but you don’t want Google to index all these listings of yours and see that they are consistently inconsistent.
This will affect your ability to rank locally, which is why a citation campaign often involves two aspects:
Claiming of new citations
Cleaning up (and claiming) inaccurate citations
How do you manage citations you ask? Well, there are a number of local SEO resources that will help you do this:
As many as it takes for you to rank is the simple answer. At Digital Elevator, we traditionally build about 80 citations for our clients, mixing the high-power citations (like Yelp, Bing, YellowPages) with niche, local directory listings.
Take the SEO element out of it for a second and consider how important it is for your business to appear properly across the web. Many of these citation sites – Yelp, TripAdvisor, Angie’s List – get millions of visits, so it pays to be featured in all the possible locations your potential customers might be hanging out.
Put in the SEO element, and you’ll be a rock star in search engines and on these other sites.
Local Business Reputation Management & Reviews
You heard it here first, good SEO doesn’t fix bad business. If you knock on your SEOs door and you have a local business with 3-star (or lower) average ratings, don’t expect a quick fix.
As you can see in the graph above, reviews are the second most important aspect of ranking in the local map pack and the seventh most important aspect in local organic rankings.
Local SEO Review Strategy
Without going all willy-nilly into what you should do, I like the approach of the following strategy that we often use for our clients:
Have your clients get an email/cell phone list of all of their new clients (existing clients will work too)
Send an email/text to all these clients asking them to review you
Have two clickable options on the email/text:
One for “I had a 5-star experience”
Another for “I was dissatisfied with the level of service I received”
For users that clicked the favorable response, take them to a page on your site that has direct links to the review sites you want to promote the most
For users that clicked the dissatisfied response, take them to a page on your site that provides the following:
An apology as to why they did not receive the level of service they expected
Options to communicate why: email, phone, a form
An offer to make things right if they connect with you and tell you why
I find this approach works well for pushing reviews to the sites that people want to use. It also alleviates some of the low reviews you might get because people always like to know that a company cares about them.
You can also take an easier route and try to automate reviews with a text messaging-based application such as Birdeye or Klaviyo.
I recommend sending customers a direct Google My Business reviews link. Check out Whitespark’s free tool to create these links.
Multilocation SEO FAQs
What is multiple location SEO?
Multiple location SEO is the process of ranking each of your business’s locations for the respective geographic region with the goal of top rankings in search engine results pages.
How do I optimize SEO for multiple locations?
The steps to optimize your website for multiple locations are summarized as follows:
Create a location page on your website for each location
Link Google My Business locations to the respective website pages
Get reviews to each location
Do location pages help SEO?
According to reputable industry surveys, location pages are the third most important aspect of ranking in the local maps and the most important part of ranking in organic results.
How do you add multiple locations on Google?
Simply login to Google My Business and click the “Add business” button. You’ll have the option to add a single business or add multiple businesses via a downloadable template.
Do Local Multilocation SEO Like a Pro
Now that you are armed with a wealth of data of what to do and what to avoid, you’ll be able to fix or optimize all your listings going forward. If you have a lot of locations, you may find that the hardest step is getting started, not optimizing your website, Google Pages, building citations, and boosting reviews.
If you need help with your multilocation local SEO strategy, reach out to Digital Elevator today to learn how we can help you.
