There’s a wrong way, and a right way to do Local SEO. While it may seem obvious to anyone who understands the basics of running a business, the “wrong way,” e.g. taking shortcuts, may sometimes provide short term wins, though it almost certainly will cause long term losses. That’s because in order to effectively perform search engine optimization, especially for a local business, the focus should be on the branding and longevity of your business, rather than on scams to game the system.

Many digital marketing companies employ a few unscrupulous tactics, which may work for them or their clients in the short term, but in the long term, it essentially demonstrates how ineffective they are as a digital marketing company. One major example of this is fraudulently listing multiple versions of the same business in order to get more visitors. What some of these companies do is create multiple digital marketing companies, or listings for businesses they represent, using variations of their address, etc. to create an anti-competitive strategy to lure visitors into thinking they are calling different companies, but they are in fact calling the same company under another name.

This strategy was employed by most who were marketers in the early days of the internet. In the 90’s, most search engines defaulted to alphabetical order, so many companies would create alternate websites using a number or a letter in the domain name, to help attract visitors to the website. Google recognized this and shifted search results in a way that helped make this an almost obsolete tactic. Unfortunately, many businesses, especially digital marketing companies, still use this tactic today. Think to yourself, if a company has to use these kinds of strategies, is this a company that actually understands marketing and can actually do a good job for your business?

The answer to that question is obviously no. That’s because many digital marketing companies are simply selling their services, and while they may employ a developer or graphic designer, they likely don’t actually understand marketing. They are a volume business, looking to grow through quantity of clients, rather than quality of services. In fact, I have emails from employees at one of these types of companies that admit that they scam customers to bulk sell these services. Eventually, search engines find out about these companies, and will penalize, reduce their rank, or ban them all together. Search engines have records of these tactics, hell, they can pretty much track everything we do nowadays... Eventually, these strategies will come back to bite you where the sun doesn't shine. 

The best way to actually create an effective local SEO campaign is to make sure your information is consistent, your business listings are updated, and you provide accurate information across the web. As long as you do that, you are following the correct strategies. When you hire a local SEO company, they should give you clear details as to what they are doing for your local SEO campaign, and how they are managing your listing. They should improve this process, rather than risking the success of your business.