News & Updates
The Top 10 Local Search Tips to Get You Noticed in Search Engines – 2011 Updates
Aug 2nd, 11
The pace at which businesses must react to changes in local search marketing is more rapid than ever. This month, we will highlight some of the most important tasks that you can do to be relevant in search engines.
One of the most challenging aspects of local search is that there are new ways that they display pure and blended results. Blended results show a hybrid of results from Place pages and website-related snippets on the search results page. Pure results are the pure Place page listings. It seems that the variation of these results is simply part of a large scale experiment by Google.
Here, we are focusing on blended results on Google. There have been no techniques proven to aid in Bing and Yahoo local results that are not relevant for Google.
Recently, David Mihm of David Mihm, Inc. published his fourth annual report on Local Search Ranking Factors. Each year, David conducts a survey of search engine marketing professionals and compiles them to determine the top factors in obtaining higher local search rankings. In this issue, we are giving you the updated top ten.
1. Business Address in City of Search
Can’t do much about this one except move your office or get a P.O. box. If your business address is in the city being searched or nearby, your business will rank for city searches.
2. General Importance of Claiming Place Page/Local Listing
It is recommended that you not only claim your page, but build it out with purpose. I you have not claimed your listings, get started by visiting the following sites: Google Places, Bing Local and Yahoo Local.
3. Associating Place Page with Proper Categories
When setting up or editing your page, make sure to choose relevant product and service categories.
4. Volume of Citations from Major Data Providers + IYP (Internet Yellow Pages) Portals
A citation is where your business name and address is mentioned on another website. These can come from directories, blogs or just other sites.
5. Crawlable Address Matching Place Page Address
Your website needs to have a Crawlable address that can easily be found by search engines when crawling your site. Ideal pages for a text-version of your address include your home page, about us page, press page or contact page. Also note that it is a negative factor to have multiple Crawlable addresses on your places landing page.
6. PageRank / Authority of Website Homepage / Highest Ranked Page
This tells us that the local results algorithm is giving more authority to traditional ranking factors. Your PageRank is a quality score that is given to your website. The takeaway here is that you should continue to focus on organic rankings and make sure that your web address is included on you Places listing.
7. Quality of Inbound Links to Website
Another important factor in traditional organic optimization, the quality of inbound links jumped way up on the list and will likely continue to have a significant impact on blended results.
8. Crawlable Phone Number Matching Place Page Phone Number
Similar to having a crawlable address, your phone number must be present and crawlable in important areas of your website. Make sure the phone number on your Places page is accurate, that it matches the number on your website and does not have multiple phone numbers on the Places landing page.
9. Local Area Code On Place Page
This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s certainly worth verifying that the correct area code is used on your Places page. If it’s not, claim your listing and change it.
10. City, State In Places Landing Page Title
If you are focused on local search, having your city and state in the title tag of your website landing page is a must do task that will trigger local searches that include the city/state derivative.
To learn more, check out the full list of Local Search Ranking Factors.
What Local Search Means to You
Obviously, local search is a very important factor in marketing your business on the web and it can be difficult to keep up with the changes in the ranking factors, especially when you need to be focused on running your business.
If you need help getting found in local search, we’d be glad to help.
Thanks for your time! We all appreciate it.
Client Story – J.R Hoe & Sons
With a long history of manufacturing quality cast and fabricated metal products, J.R Hoe & Sons produces and supplies its “Hoe of KY” construction products to contractors throughout the region. It designs and fabricates structural steel for major infrastructure projects throughout the Eastern U.S. and it produces parts for manufacturing equipment that is shipped around the world. If you ever happen to stop and read a manhole cover, there is a good chance it will contain the "Hoe of KY" seal.
J.R. Hoe & Sons partnered with eLink Design to enhance its web presence with a new design and website optimization for its core products.
About The eLink Design Internet marketing Newsletter is a monthly publication which offers analysis and tips into how you may transform your company’s Internet marketing strategies.   
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