Andrew Shotland

Andrew Shotland – CEO @ Local SEO Guide

Guest bio

Andrew has over 20 years of experience on the Internet.

He was a founding member of NBC’s Internet group and former GM of NBC.com

He helped start Insider Pages, a pioneering local-social search engine, which CitySearch acquired in 2006.

He is a regular contributor to SearchEngineLand.

He is the co-founder of BayAreaSearch.org, the Bay Area search marketing professional association.

Please welcome the CEO of Local SEO Guide, Andrew Shotland!
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Knowledge Bombs:

18:08- How does Andrew get page one ranking on Google?

Andrew jokingly suggested that the best way to get to Google’s page one rankings is by starting an SEO show and hiring a celebrity to host it.

18:54 – When did Andrew first got into SEO?

Andrew got into SEO without knowing it at first. It all started when he worked on a website which is essentially an early version of yelp back in 2003. This is where he was exposed about all things SEO to make their site gain traffic and grow.

22:43 – How did Andrew learn SEO?

Aside from hiring SEOs and learning from them, Andrew was very active in joining forums about SEO and had connections with people that are also experts in SEO. This is where he got the knowledge about SEO and honed his skills in the long run too.

28:24 – What are some SEO strategies that Andrew uses that are still working on 2022

Andrew suggests that you need a basic Google business profile, and focus on your location pages on your website. Doing so helps your site to be “perfectly SEOd” as possible.

30:09 – What is Andrew’s definition about “perfectly SEOd” website?

For Andrew, a perfectly SEOd website depends on what you are trying to achieve for that site. This works well for a multi-location site where you have a specific local target market. Also, ensuring the site has all the basics ready such as phone number, and address, for example, will guarantee better local traction.

33:19 – What are the best tips for businesses for multiple locations?

Andrew shares two tips that are best for multi-location sites. First, is to have a clickable directory for the different locations on your home page. And second, is to make sure that your services page will have links directly to the content/service of what you are providing.

35:36 – How does it feel working with enterprise SEO clients?

According to Andrew, it’s quite tricky because of its complexity hence developers are needed to iron things out. But most importantly, it’s about focusing on the content that you want to show up on Google by applying link strategy, and by doing research.

38:40 – What are Andrew’s resources in looking for enterprise backlinks?

A very common strategy that Andrew uses is by creating a way for local businesses to promote your site. Andrew also suggested to create a certain functionality on your site depending on what your service. For example, if it’s a food site then create a menu, or if it’s a beauty site then have a catalog for your products.

41:52 – What is SEO forecasting?

In this section, Andrew gives us some tips and tricks to do SEO forecasting. Based on Andrew’s experience, he had a bunch of developers to create a forecasting model that they can use for clients to have content inputs, look at historical site data, and more.

45:07 – Is the ROI a part of the forecasting model that Andrew uses?

Andrew shares that it depends on the client’s conversion data if he can trust them or not. He said that he has tons of experiences about clients without a reliable conversion data too.

45:59 – What are Andrew’s top LinkedIn posts that gets the most engagement?

Andrew doesn’t keep track of his LinkedIn presence but he remembers that most of his blooper reels are getting the most engagement since they are fun to watch.

51:26 – What does Andrew think of the future of SEO?

The possibilities and opportunities of SEO are infinite, as what Andrew had said. But he implied that no matter what the future of search is, there’s always an instance where exploits will happen the more it evolves.

52:25 – Andrew’s advice in becoming an SEO professional

Building a website, being connected with the community, or even finding a small business in your local area and helping them, are some of the ways that can make you an SEO professional according to Andrew.

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Google News:

How does Google Search roll out algorithmic updates? John Muller explains

I’m curious if anyone was affected negatively by the latest update.

If so, what were some of the factors you’ve noticed that most likely contributed to it?

Please put it in the live chat or the comments below.

A new episode of Bill and Ammon’s Bogus Hangout was released this past week.

If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s one of the original SEO shows that started on YouTube over a decade ago and was hosted by the late Bill Slawski.

Ammon is continuing the show with the crew.

The link to the latest episode is in the description.

Chris Penn tells us two things we need in parallel to an SEO strategy.

I’m always advocating for building a brand.

For every company I work with, I aim to get their organic brand searches higher than their non-brand searches.

How can you increase rich results in the SERPs? Our friends at ShcemaApp give us a tip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH6gsN_sg8

There have been studies where adding keywords in your code like schema helps with your rankings.

Test it yourself.

Speaking of testing. On the latest SEO Fightclub, the crew shares their most important but commonly overlooked ranking factor.

Do you know what ranking factors we’ll be learning about today? Local ranking factors!

This brings me to my favorite part of the show.

Be sure to ask questions, and I will address them in the order they are received.

Here’s a word from our sponsor.

https://ahrefs.com/awt

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