5 Tips to Increase Your Rankings in Local Search
97% of internet users are utilizing online media to search for local products. Internet users are turning to Google Places, Yahoo! Local, and Bing Local to find products/services closest to them. 1/5 of Google Web searches and more than 1/3 of their mobile search have a local component.
Local search allows businesses to leverage their customers’ decisions. When an internet user needs to find an accountant in Des Moines, Iowa they go to their search engine to return results. They type in “Des Moines accountant” and up pops a 7-pack of results which includes businesses’: website, phone number, address, reviews, directions, coupons, tags (for less than a dollar a day, businesses can tag their location to stand out), maps, and pictures. Place Pages have an individual dashboard that allows business owners to view information about how many times people have found their business on Google, what keywords are used to find their business, and what areas people traveled from to get to their location.
Google Places, Yahoo! Local, and Bing Local are the 3 main search engines people use. To create a local listing on each of these sites you will need to have an account log in (ex. Windows Live ID, Google Accounts.) The links below will help you set up your local listing on these 3 main sites.
Google Places: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtFuarYnWqU
Yahoo! Local: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfgidVap-mM
Bing Local: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826Xy11H6uw&feature=related
As a business owner there are many advantages of utilizing the local component of search engines, but it’s important that necessary steps are taken to provide a good ranking. Information is drawn from David Mihn’s 2010 Local Search Ranking Factors.
TOP FACTORS TO INCREASING RANKING IN LOCAL SEARCH
1. Claiming your Place Page
Claiming your page is essential for good rankings, however on average only 1 out of 5 businesses have claimed their page. If your page isn’t claimed search engines, like Google, will get information from third party sites, where the information could be incorrect. An unclaimed page also allows anyone to make edits on the page.
A claimed page lets search engines knows they have the most up to date information for the location. It is also vital that information about your business is accurate and consistent among the Major Data Providers (MDP) and search engines.
For example: To see if you have claimed your Place Page, start off by searching your location in Google. If the top right corner of the Place Page says edit this page or business owner, it means you have not claimed your page. If it says owner verified listing, you are good to go. If the page need claiming, then click business owner and it will direct you to log into your Google account and click edit business information. Google will then send letter with a pin and activation instructions.
2. Associating Place Page with Proper Categories
Categories are like keywords, just less specific. It’s important to know what the most commonly searched categories are for your industry. Businesses can now customize categories. This will allow them to differentiate themselves from competitors. Businesses should make sure to use one of Google, Yahoo!, or Bing’s default categories also. This will allow you to pop up with multiple keyword searches.
For example: A pizza joint would want to use the categories of pizza, Italian, restaurant, food, and deep dish.
3. Keyword in Place Page Title and Description
When a customer wants to find information about local upholstery businesses near their home they would type “upholstery” and their zip code. A business with the word “upholstery” in their name is most likely to be one of the first businesses returned because the keyword is in Place Page title. It is customary that your Place Page title is the actual business name. Some businesses go around this rule and they find themselves booted off local pages for breaking standards. So future business owners, when naming your business incorporate your brand with a keyword.
When writing your 200 character description, it’s important to include keywords that you think your customers are searching. If the Place Page doesn’t have a keyword in it, having keywords in the description will help you rank in a broad range of searches. However, do not over pack the description with keywords cause this can also lead to a search engine dumping your listing.
4. Citations
Citations are listings of your business on third party sites that search engines and MDPs trust. Citations are as important to local search as inbound links are to SEO results. Having many citations is a good thing, but having high quality citations from respected sites is a better way to get indexed faster. What make a strong citation are the trust, age and authority of the website containing your information.
Good places for a business to get citations are from their vendors, clients, local charities where they volunteer or donate, partnering companies, and professional organizations. The Web version of the Yellow Pages is also an example of a trusted site that can be used for citations because it is a reputable source for business data.
5. Reviews
Search engines want to know what others are saying about the business. When a business gets reviews, it shows more information in the initial search. A star rating system will also be shown if the business has 5 or more reviews. Reviews are eye candy to customers because customers want know what others experienced with the business, not just what the business has to say about itself. Google and Bing help their listings out by pulling reviews from other sites and posting them to a listing on their respective sites.
