With Google’s Hummingbird out in the market, plenty of SEO strategies have been polarized. Search engines have become smarter than ever before.What is Google’s Hummingbird actually, It is a local SEO tool, which returns relevant, personalized and localized results for searches?
Local Search Optimization is an indispensable aspect of SEO.Why?It has helped local business owners, internet marketing professionals, in adopting the best search engine practices, case study analysis and experiments.
Some of the local SEO Concepts that would help you nail down your competition are enlisted below: The entire article is based on questions frequently asked by local business owners and SEO professionals.
Local Listing Ranking Factors
Ongoing optimization is the key to success in an increasingly competitive local SEO market.Algorithm updates cause fluctuations in search engine ranking.On page signals, for example, is one of the factors assuming highest priority in Google algorithm. Some such factors are enlisted below in the priority in which they affect the Google algorithm:-
On Page Signals:
- City, State in Landing Page Title
- Product / Service Keyword in Website URL
- NAP* in hCard / Schema.org
- Product / Service Keyword in Business Title
- Loading time of landing Page
- City, State in most H1/H2 Tags
*Citations commonly referred as NAP in Local Circles – Name, Address, and Phone
Link Signals
- Location Keywords in Anchor Text of Inbound Links to Landing Page URL
- Velocity of New Inbound Links to the URL of a Landing page.
- The quality of Inbound Links as well as those linking the domain.
- The quality of Inbound Links linking the Landing page URL.
- DA (Domain Authority) of Website
- PA (Page Authority) of Landing Page URL
- Diversity of Inbound Links to Domain
- Quantity of Inbound Links to Domain
My Business Signals
- HTML NAP Matching My Business Page NAP
- Distance of the business from the searcher.
- Bulk Owner-verified My Business Page
External Loc. Signals
- Proximity of Address to Centroid
- Geographic Keyword in Website URL
- Consistency of Structured Citations
- Physical Address in City of Search
Review Signals
- The number of reviews of native Google Maps
- Diversity of third-party sites on which reviews are present
- Volume of Testimonials in hReview / Schema.org
- Authority of third-party sites on which reviews are present
Behavioral/Mob. Signals
- Click-Through Rate from Search Results
- Quality/Authority of Structured Citations
- Mobile clicks to call, Check-ins, Offers, etc.
Social Signals
- Google+ authority, Facebook likes Twitter followers, etc.
SEO Strategy for Multi-Location Business
Suppose if you run a fast food chain across the city and you have multiple outlets, then what would you do to handle multiple locations in your business? Intriguing? The solution is right ahead:-
Local Businesses having multiple locations can be dealt with easily:-
On Google, every physical location can have a listing and separate Google+ page. So, if you either have two locations in a city or hundred, you can have a listing for each.
– Simply provide a unique page for each entity and treat each location as a unique entity.
– Provide directions to the location, and reviews about each outlet.
– Analyze how locations are performing independently.
– Identify your key factors in terms of rankings, traffic, and goal completions
– Use customized approach in order to nail down the competition.
User experience and correct citation are the two main factors that help your brand outshine the rest of the crowd.
Handling different websites for one company can be incredibly time-consuming.Local SEO helps in catering to multiple websites at the same time in the following manner
– Create different editions of pages such as ‘About ‘ and ‘Services’, etc
or
– Use subfolders or subdomain.It is simpler when you are geotargeting a particular aspect of the website. This way all the URLs for non-geo-targeted material remain the same.
Both the methods are the same .They can be used interchangeably.
User experience and correct citation are the two main factors that help your brand outshine the rest of the crowd.
Handling different websites for one company can be incredibly time-consuming.Local SEO helps in catering to multiple websites at the same time in the following manner
– Create different editions of pages such as ‘About ‘ and ‘Services’, etc
or
– Use subfolders or subdomain.It is simpler when you are geotargeting a particular aspect of the website. This way all the URLs for non-geo-targeted material remain the same.
Both the methods are the same .They can be used interchangeably.
Importance of Citation Directories in local SEO promotion
Yelp is an excellent example of an innovative citation directory.It does well in the search results. How can a citation directory yield good search results when others have failed to do so?
The solution is simple:
Apply manual cross check and moderate the listings on a regular basis .This maintains freshness of content.
What separates a good local directory from a bad one?-
Local and unique content.
What is the best way for a directory to get this content?-
User-generated reviews.
The main purpose of local directories was to develop websites for business owners.Such websites contain their business information and listings.
Local directories weren’t made for spamming links.They contain varied information sometimes,example phone details,postal details etc.
So, in any case they cannot be considered as a directory of websites that was strictly for getting a link.
Citation Consistency is a better approach for the local internet marketing system. The accuracy of data would be beneficial for both the Citation directory & Local business owner.
Google map optimization tips
Local SEO strategy requires you to optimize Google Maps. Some of the major local SEO optimization points with respect to Google Maps and Google Plus are:-
Accurate NAP
– When accurate NAP (name, address and phone number) details are available.
Address Match On Website
– The NAP details must match with the ones on your website.
Proximity to Google’s City Marker
– When your location is closer to a city recognized by Google on the map.
Number of Reviews
– More the number of reviews on Google+ implies-’A JOB WELL DONE!!’
Quality of Links
– The websites that feature your business or website or NAP details should be of good quality.
Number of Local Citations
–There are thousands of places where the name of your business, address, phone number or
website appears.The quality of these citations is crucial.
Number of Third-Party Reviews – Number of reviews you receive on sites other than Google+.
Final Words
Always use information like your city, state or region in your meta-data and web page content.It provides better local SEO opportunities. Always remember to improve your image alt and headline tags. Do not forget to improve your link headline tags!
Small things like details of your company name, consistency, etc. should be reliable in all your online information. These details appear everywhere on your web page- your blog, your social networking systems, and all local internet directories and review websites.
