SEO
Do You Still Need Directory Submission For Local SEO?
The primary goal of local SEO is establishing visibility for a local business in the Local Map Pack and/or the top three organic search results. These typically reside just below paid Google ads and the Map Pack.
As with all SEO, myriad factors (i.e., the (in)famous Google algorithm) come into play to determine which businesses get top billing and the resulting coveted organic search traffic.
One set of factors from a local SEO perspective is local presence, relevance, and authority.
In other words, and from a common sense perspective, local businesses need to prove to the search engines:
- They are indeed physically located within close proximity to their customer base.
- They provide services or products which fall into specific categories.
- They are a trusted/authoritative content source and answer their customers’ questions.
Local directories, by definition, are a vehicle through which businesses can address all three of these factors.
As such, the simple answer to our introductory question is yes, you do still need directory submissions for local SEO.
However, not all directories carry the same weight or authority and should be reviewed relative to the value they can offer.
This becomes particularly important for those directories requiring a fee for inclusion.
Further, there are some best practices related to data and contact information consistency to consider during submission.
Finally, tools are available to make the directory listing setup and ongoing maintenance process quicker, particularly for businesses with multiple locations.
There are a lot of directories, and maintaining information and content across all of them can become a burden for a small business.
We’ll review how to address each of these factors and how directories can help or hinder local businesses’ efforts to get found.
Local Presence And Consistency
It should be fairly obvious that for a business to rank well in a particular location, it must be able to prove it exists, resides, or is otherwise able to provide services within its specified service area.
Two primary vehicles for establishing a business’ location are its website and its Google Business Profile (GBP).
A local business website, when applicable, will include its physical address details, which can be tagged with local business schema to make it easier for Google to find and index.
Many sites will also include a map (preferably a Google map), which will likewise be referenced for location validation.
Lastly, geographic details can be incorporated into the title and heading tags, where appropriate, to reinforce the local focus of the business.
Creating and optimizing a Google Business Profile is effectively the process of reinforcing the information and focus of a local business website. Or, for some businesses, the opposite is the case.
Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) information should naturally match across these two properties.
Service areas chosen in GBP should be within close proximity to the business location.
Service categories should likewise be consistent.
Local directories then become an extension of these two primary points of web presence and validation for search engines.
Here too, the goal should be consistency, particularly for NAP information along with website URLs
Pro tip: If you can include more than one URL in a local directory listing, you should look to include as many relevant locally oriented links as possible, e.g., a link to your GBP profile, your Facebook page, and listings in other relevant local directories.
Local Relevance
Establishing local relevance is all about making sure you and your content are appearing in the correct directories and appropriate categories.
Naturally, any categorization should align with how you’ve defined your services or products on your site and in GBP.
There are three types of local directories you can identify and consider submitting listings to.
The first type we’ll call “global” directories. These are services like Yellow Pages, Yelp, and the like, which offer local listings and reviews in nearly every location around the world.
Many of these offer free “listings” but then demand a fee for advanced features, functionality, and/or visibility.
One way to determine whether or not paying a listing fee is advisable is to conduct an organic search on the primary keywords you want your business to be found for, and see whether or not the directory ranks well (or better than you) for those keywords in local search engine results pages (SERPs).
You can also simply ask a rep from the directory whether or not they can provide stats on the organic/referral traffic your paid listing will be able to deliver.
If they cannot provide such stats, you can be wary of their ability to provide a return on your investment.
The second type of local directory is a more industry-specific directory, like TripAdvisor for travel and tourism-related businesses or Houzz for construction and trade businesses.
The same evaluation methods may be used here to determine whether or not these services can potentially deliver value to your business.
The third and final type is the more locally specific directories offered by local Chambers of Commerce, Service Organizations, and other non-global players.
The first two of this type should certainly be considered, as they can have the effect of validating local presence in a less subjective way.
Small, local non-global directories should, as above, only be considered if they can likewise prove the value they will deliver from an organic visibility or referral traffic perspective.
The directories you choose to submit to, and the categories within which your products or services can be readily found, will help to define your business’ relevance within your local community.
Local Authority
Listings within local directories, particularly those with established authority of their own, can help to boost the authority and potential visibility of a business.
You can also use the SERP test mentioned above to identify these authority boosters.
In essence, any directory which outperforms your website or GBP page for a target keyword represents an opportunity to both be found via the directory and gain authority through it.
Some directories, a la GBP, enable content or links to content to be shared.
While this can be time-consuming, it may be worthwhile to distribute your content to these directories in addition to other places like GBP and social media, depending on the visibility and relative local authority of the directory.
Reviews
As noted, many directory services offer review submissions – and while Google reviews are naturally preferred from an organic authority perspective, Google and the other search engines are aware of reviews published on other platforms.
Similar to the local SERP test, you should pay attention to whether or not either you or your competitors have been receiving reviews in places other than GBP.
Keep in mind that your potential customers may be looking at these reviews as well when considering purchasing from your business vs. another.
Managing Multiple Locations
Setting up and maintaining listings across multiple directories will take time, particularly if there are ongoing updates to business details or services.
This is, of course, amplified for businesses with more than one location.
There are paid services and solutions like Uberall, Semrush, and Yext for centrally managing multiple locations, which will typically cover the first two types of local directories referenced here, along with mapping services like GBP, Apple Maps, and Facebook locations.
Some of these services also enable review and social account management.
How Are Your Directory Listings?
So, yes, it’s safe to argue directory submissions are still required for effective local SEO.
To this end, perhaps the best place to start is with the suggested SERP test to understand where your listings and the directories stand relative to your keywords.
Alternatively, many of the listings management services offer a quick auditing tool to help get a sense of what coverage a business has across the most common local directories.
Then you can decide on a submission strategy that fits your visibility and traffic goals, as well as your budget.
More resources:
Featured Image: LightAndShare/Shutterstock
SEO
Google’s Search Engine Market Share Drops As Competitors’ Grows
According to data from GS Statcounter, Google’s search engine market share has fallen to 86.99%, the lowest point since the firm began tracking search engine share in 2009.
The drop represents a more than 4% decrease from the previous month, marking the largest single-month decline on record.
U.S. Market Impact
The decline is most significant in Google’s key market, the United States, where its share of searches across all devices fell by nearly 10%, reaching 77.52%.
Screenshot from: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/, May 2024.Concurrently, competitors Microsoft Bing and Yahoo Search have seen gains. Bing reached a 13% market share in the U.S. and 5.8% globally, its highest since launching in 2009.
Yahoo Search’s worldwide share nearly tripled to 3.06%, a level not seen since July 2015.
Screenshot from: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/, May 2024.Search Quality Concerns
Many industry experts have recently expressed concerns about the declining quality of Google’s search results.
A portion of the SEO community believes that the search giant’s results have worsened following the latest update.
These concerns have begun to extend to average internet users, who are increasingly voicing complaints about the state of their search results.
Alternative Perspectives
Web analytics platform SimilarWeb provided additional context on X (formerly Twitter), stating that its data for the US for March 2024 suggests Google’s decline may not be as severe as initially reported.
From our data (Search Engine website category, US, March 2024) it doesn’t look like we’re there yet: pic.twitter.com/RBUJp4ZLeb
— Similarweb (@Similarweb) May 1, 2024
SimilarWeb also highlighted Yahoo’s strong performance, categorizing it as a News and Media platform rather than a direct competitor to Google in the Search Engine category.
Don’t underestimate Yahoo. They’re doing great. On our platform they’re categorized as News and Media, and hence not a direct competitor to Google in the Search Engine category. But they rank #10 worldwide, #6 in the US, and #1 in their category. Much higher than Bing and OpenAI. pic.twitter.com/O4yJu5QEK6
— Similarweb (@Similarweb) May 2, 2024
At the same time, Google is slightly declining 👀 pic.twitter.com/9i7paeU1QG
— Similarweb (@Similarweb) May 2, 2024
Why It Matters
The shifting search engine market trends can impact businesses, marketers, and regular users.
Google has been on top for a long time, shaping how we find things online and how users behave.
However, as its market share drops and other search engines gain popularity, publishers may need to rethink their online strategies and optimize for multiple search platforms besides Google.
Users are becoming vocal about Google’s declining search quality over time. As people start trying alternate search engines, the various platforms must prioritize keeping users satisfied if they want to maintain or grow their market position.
It will be interesting to see how they respond to this boost in market share.
What It Means for SEO Pros
As Google’s competitors gain ground, SEO strategies may need to adapt by accounting for how each search engine’s algorithms and ranking factors work.
This could involve diversifying SEO efforts across multiple platforms and staying up-to-date on best practices for each one.
The increased focus on high-quality search results emphasizes the need to create valuable, user-focused content that meets the needs of the target audience.
SEO pros must prioritize informative, engaging, trustworthy content that meets search engine algorithms and user expectations.
Remain flexible, adaptable, and proactive to navigate these shifts. Keeping a pulse on industry trends, user behaviors, and competing search engine strategies will be key for successful SEO campaigns.
Featured Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock
SEO
How To Drive Pipeline With A Silo-Free Strategy
When it comes to B2B strategy, a holistic approach is the only approach.
Revenue organizations usually operate with siloed teams, and often expect a one-size-fits-all solution (usually buying clicks with paid media).
However, without cohesive brand, infrastructure, and pipeline generation efforts, they’re pretty much doomed to fail.
It’s just like rowing crew, where each member of the team must synchronize their movements to propel the boat forward – successful B2B marketing requires an integrated strategy.
So if you’re ready to ditch your disjointed marketing efforts and try a holistic approach, we’ve got you covered.
Join us on May 15, for an insightful live session with Digital Reach Agency on how to craft a compelling brand and PMF.
We’ll walk through the critical infrastructure you need, and the reliances and dependences of the core digital marketing disciplines.
Key takeaways from this webinar:
- Thinking Beyond Traditional Silos: Learn why traditional marketing silos are no longer viable and how they spell doom for modern revenue organizations.
- How To Identify and Fix Silos: Discover actionable strategies for pinpointing and sealing the gaps in your marketing silos.
- The Power of Integration: Uncover the secrets to successfully integrating brand strategy, digital infrastructure, and pipeline generation efforts.
Ben Childs, President and Founder of Digital Reach Agency, and Jordan Gibson, Head of Growth at Digital Reach Agency, will show you how to seamlessly integrate various elements of your marketing strategy for optimal results.
Don’t make the common mistake of using traditional marketing silos – sign up now and learn what it takes to transform your B2B go-to-market.
You’ll also get the opportunity to ask Ben and Jordan your most pressing questions, following the presentation.
And if you can’t make it to the live event, register anyway and we’ll send you a recording shortly after the webinar.
SEO
Why Big Companies Make Bad Content
It’s like death and taxes: inevitable. The bigger a company gets, the worse its content marketing becomes.
HubSpot teaching you how to type the shrug emoji or buy bitcoin stock. Salesforce sharing inspiring business quotes. GoDaddy helping you use Bing AI, or Zendesk sharing catchy sales slogans.
Judged by content marketing best practice, these articles are bad.
They won’t resonate with decision-makers. Nobody will buy a HubSpot license after Googling “how to buy bitcoin stock.” It’s the very definition of vanity traffic: tons of visits with no obvious impact on the business.
So why does this happen?
There’s an obvious (but flawed) answer to this question: big companies are inefficient.
As companies grow, they become more complicated, and writing good, relevant content becomes harder. I’ve experienced this firsthand:
- extra rounds of legal review and stakeholder approval creeping into processes.
- content watered down to serve an ever-more generic “brand voice”.
- growing misalignment between search and content teams.
- a lack of content leadership within the company as early employees leave.
Similarly, funded companies have to grow, even when they’re already huge. Content has to feed the machine, continually increasing traffic… even if that traffic never contributes to the bottom line.
There’s an element of truth here, but I’ve come to think that both these arguments are naive, and certainly not the whole story.
It is wrong to assume that the same people that grew the company suddenly forgot everything they once knew about content, and wrong to assume that companies willfully target useless keywords just to game their OKRs.
Instead, let’s assume that this strategy is deliberate, and not oversight. I think bad content—and the vanity traffic it generates—is actually good for business.
There are benefits to driving tons of traffic, even if that traffic never directly converts. Or put in meme format:
Programmatic SEO is a good example. Why does Dialpad create landing pages for local phone numbers?
Why does Wise target exchange rate keywords?
Why do we have a list of most popular websites pages?
As this Twitter user points out, these articles will never convert…
…but they don’t need to.
Every published URL and targeted keyword is a new doorway from the backwaters of the internet into your website. It’s a chance to acquire backlinks that wouldn’t otherwise exist, and an opportunity to get your brand in front of thousands of new, otherwise unfamiliar people.
These benefits might not directly translate into revenue, but over time, in aggregate, they can have a huge indirect impact on revenue. They can:
- Strengthen domain authority and the search performance of every other page on the website.
- Boost brand awareness, and encourage serendipitous interactions that land your brand in front of the right person at the right time.
- Deny your competitors traffic and dilute their share of voice.
These small benefits become more worthwhile when multiplied across many hundreds or thousands of pages. If you can minimize the cost of the content, there is relatively little downside.
What about topical authority?
“But what about topical authority?!” I hear you cry. “If you stray too far from your area of expertise, won’t rankings suffer for it?”
I reply simply with this screenshot of Forbes’ “health” subfolder, generating almost 4 million estimated monthly organic pageviews:
And big companies can minimize cost. For large, established brands, the marginal cost of content creation is relatively low.
Many companies scale their output through networks of freelancer writers, avoiding the cost of fully loaded employees. They have established, efficient processes for research, briefing, editorial review, publication and maintenance. The cost of an additional “unit” of content—or ten, or a hundred—is not that great, especially relative to other marketing channels.
There is also relatively little opportunity cost to consider: the fact that energy spent on “vanity” traffic could be better spent elsewhere, on more business-relevant topics.
In reality, many of the companies engaging in this strategy have already plucked the low-hanging fruit and written almost every product-relevant topic. There are a finite number of high traffic, high relevance topics; blog consistently for a decade and you too will reach these limits.
On top of that, the HubSpots and Salesforces of the world have very established, very efficient sales processes. Content gating, lead capture and scoring, and retargeting allow them to put very small conversion rates to relatively good use.
Even HubSpot’s article on Bitcoin stock has its own relevant call-to-action—and for HubSpot, building a database of aspiring investors is more valuable than it sounds, because…
The bigger a company grows, the bigger its audience needs to be to continue sustaining that growth rate.
Companies generally expand their total addressable market (TAM) as they grow, like HubSpot broadening from marketing to sales and customer success, launching new product lines for new—much bigger—audiences. This means the target audience for their content marketing grows alongside.
As Peep Laja put its:
But for the biggest companies, this principle is taken to an extreme. When a company gears up to IPO, its target audience expands to… pretty much everyone.
This was something Janessa Lantz (ex-HubSpot and dbt Labs) helped me understand: the target audience for a post-IPO company is not just end users, but institutional investors, market analysts, journalists, even regular Jane investors.
These are people who can influence the company’s worth in ways beyond simply buying a subscription: they can invest or encourage others to invest and dramatically influence the share price. These people are influenced by billboards, OOH advertising and, you guessed it, seemingly “bad” content showing up whenever they Google something.
You can think of this as a second, additional marketing funnel for post-IPO companies:
These visitors might not purchase a software subscription when they see your article in the SERP, but they will notice your brand, and maybe listen more attentively the next time your stock ticker appears on the news.
They won’t become power users, but they might download your eBook and add an extra unit to the email subscribers reported in your S1.
They might not contribute revenue now, but they will in the future: in the form of stock appreciation, or becoming the target audience for a future product line.
Vanity traffic does create value, but in a form most content marketers are not used to measuring.
If any of these benefits apply, then it makes sense to acquire them for your company—but also to deny them to your competitors.
SEO is an arms race: there are a finite number of keywords and topics, and leaving a rival to claim hundreds, even thousands of SERPs uncontested could very quickly create a headache for your company.
SEO can quickly create a moat of backlinks and brand awareness that can be virtually impossible to challenge; left unchecked, the gap between your company and your rival can accelerate at an accelerating pace.
Pumping out “bad” content and chasing vanity traffic is a chance to deny your rivals unchallenged share of voice, and make sure your brand always has a seat at the table.
Final thoughts
These types of articles are miscategorized—instead of thinking of them as bad content, it’s better to think of them as cheap digital billboards with surprisingly great attribution.
Big companies chasing “vanity traffic” isn’t an accident or oversight—there are good reasons to invest energy into content that will never convert. There is benefit, just not in the format most content marketers are used to.
This is not an argument to suggest that every company should invest in hyper-broad, high-traffic keywords. But if you’ve been blogging for a decade, or you’re gearing up for an IPO, then “bad content” and the vanity traffic it creates might not be so bad.
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