Hi Dakota_G,

This is a good topic and you've come up with some good ideas to get started on your content development. You might find some of the suggestions in this article useful, as well: https://placester.com/real-estate-marketing-academy/real-estate-local-seo-tips/

Competing with a company like Zillow, if you are marketing a small-to-medium realty firm, may not be a realistic goal to set, at least not for the top search phrases you'd probably most hope to rank for. You may need to think of sites like that as places to get listed rather than to surpass in the SERPs for core terms.

So, where does this leave a company like the one you are trying to market? Typically:

1. Competing for longer-tail searches

2. Competing for something other than the "10 blue links", like featured snippets, video results, image results,  local pack results, etc.

Some of the ideas you've had, like providing weather results, are probably not going to be worth your time. People already have apps for that, or get their info on that right inside Google's results. But if you can come up with the best possible answers for questions that people are asking and that haven't already been covered with a perfect answer by a huge powerhouse publication, you might be able to start seeing some more visibility.

I would identify long tail terms that directly relate to your geographic and industry market. Do the searches for these terms. See what comes up. Look at featured snippet opportunities, People Also Ask boxes, Answer The Public, Google Q&A queries, Quora topics, etc. I'd begin gathering direct feedback from your firm's clients. What are their FAQs? Investigate FAQ schema to answer these queries.

Finally, I would look at those top sites that are outranking yours and see if there are opportunities for you to be interviewed by them as an expert, to be listed on them, to guest post on them and similar activities so that you at least have a presence on platforms you can't surpass.

I hope these suggestions help.

Hi Strathcom,

I am looking into this for you. Trusted businesses are sometimes given the phone-only option, just as less trusted businesses are often given the postcard-only option. Let me see what I can find out for you. I will return.

Update: Looks like you have already started a thread at the Google and Your Business Forum and received a good reply from Treebles: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/business/OXYk9JlWCCY/s8n4jpjN514J[1-25] Also, in case you didn't see this similar thread, here is one with a response from Jim Jaggers regarding making 4 verification attempts to cause the postcard option to appear: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/phone$20tree/business/mPIRxdm5vQw/iqcf5gh9--4J[1-25] Hope this helps!

Hi Gavo,

While what Marcus points out is true (you can prompt local results for web design companies by adding 'in' to your query), it's important to understand that Google does not view web design companies as being truly local, hence their lack of inclusion in the results for the most common service + city or city + service queries. To my understanding, Google's thinking on this is that most web design (and SEO) companies operate virtually (don't meet with clients face-to-face).

So, you can add your web design company to Google's local index, and you can build citations for it, but it's likely that your overall organic rankings will hinge more on other forms of marketing in which you engage. Think content development, earning links, social outreach, etc.

Hi Timothy,

The purpose of building citations on local business directories (whether manually or via a paid service like Yext) is to build up the authority of your basic business data (your business NAP - name, address, phone number) so that people can find your business in a variety of places and so that all of the data proves that you have a consistent, specific brand name, physical location, local phone number and website.

I am not aware of a list of which directories, specifically, pass page rank, but trying to look at this from Google's perspective - Google would be aware that most directory listings are built by the business owner. In other words, the links they contain are being intentionally built by the business itself. Thus, I would assume that even those directory links which do pass page rank are not going to be as highly valued as links you earn in other ways (voluntary mentions, guest posting, etc.).

Because of this, I don't consider citation building to be equivalent to link building. The latter requires additional and different efforts.

Hi Ruben,

I would not advise going for 8-12 new reviews in a week. I think Andy's suggestion of staggering your requests over several weeks is a better idea. What you're trying to avoid here is having your hard-earned reviews filtered out by Google's review filter. Frequency is one thing that appears to trip that filter, so most Local SEOs recommend a slowly-but-surely approach to requesting reviews.

Hi Ruben,

Sounds like a good plan, and it's one you should continue to go by, for all time.