Local Search

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Gerard — No Comments ↓

Local Search is probably the most interesting area within Search Engine Marketing right now. There are so many changes going on with Google Places (formerly Google Maps) it really is a very fast moving place to be involved with.

Google has naturally recognised that Search on a local level is becoming more and more important. This is partly because user adoption of using Search as a tool for finding local resources is increasing, partly due to the prolific growth of smart phone technology.

A brief history – originally Google Maps presented results independently of both the Paid and Natural results. These results were presented on the first page of results in a smaller font size. They can be seen at the top of the results below –

In order to appear in these results a business needed to sign up to Google Maps and enter all of its key business information. It could list itself in a number of categories and would receive stats monthly regarding impressions, views and search keywords triggering the above. The key difference was that a business didn’t actually need to possess a website to appear in these results.

Fast Forward to autumn 2010. By this time Google Maps had been renamed Google Places and the bombshell was dropped – Google had integrated the natural results with local results. Now I think it fair to say that this shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone with an interest in this area – after all it was the biggest growth area in Search (for reasons outlined above) and Google had recently been reported as investing 150 new jobs in Dublin specifically for Google Places development.

For all the non-forward thinking SEO organisations out there who’d focused only on the natural results and not spent time understanding how Google Places operated, this meant that overnight they lost a whole host of front page positions for clients.

Why? Google had altered its algorithm significantly taking both on-website and Google Places factors into consideration when deciding the most relevant results. So far it has trialled various display methods including –

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Note – This change has also had a significant impact on AdWords account strategy (in effect positions 4 – 6 exposure has been reduced with the map taking those slots).

No doubt there will be plenty more changes to come in this area. From a business perspective local search is becoming increasingly important, here are some tips and advice –

Register your business! It may sound obvious but if you don’t register your business for a Google Places listing places.google.com/business then you are not going to appear in the listings. Worse, it can and increasingly will effect your main website listing performance

Build content within the results page. Always remember that search engines love content. This applies to the Places pages, complete all fields, add video, get images uploaded.

Remember your keywords. Don’t forget the keywords you are targeting on your website. If you don’t know what they are then you should! Reuse these words – remember to co-ordinate these activities.

Stay within the guidelines Although sometimes it appears Google doesn’t always apply its own guidelines uniformly, its better to stay within the guidelines than have your listing removed.

Encourage Reviews. No doubt taking its lead from other social media platforms and applying the same principles Google likes businesses which have been reviewed. Just make sure you aren’t the one submitting them all.