The Maine SEO Blog

Over a year ago, I wrote about optimizing your website for local search. While all of those tactics are still important (and will still work), certain points have become more important than others.

So here it is. How to optimize for local in 2010…

1. Submit to local directories.

Submit to every one that you can get your hands on. And let me warn you…there are a lot. But take the time and do it, filling out as much information as you can. Here are the important ones I use:

• Google Maps (or Google Local Business Center)
• Yahoo Local
• Bing Local
• Best of the Web
• Superpages
• Localeze
• TripAdvisor (if it applies)
• Yelp (if it applies)
• Insider Pages
• Yellow Pages
• Kudzu

If you want a truly complete list, check out this post by Local SEO Guide.

1 ½. Update your local listings.

In order to truly leverage these listings, make sure you update them. Think of them as local profiles – a place where you can upload images, video, even coupons (similar to your Facebook fan page). Keep your profiles fresh – just like your website.

2. Gather reviews.

Even as things have changed in local search, the importance of local reviews haven’t. Long story short, the more positive local reviews you have, the higher you rank! So ask your clients and customers to give you a review.

Get a negative review? Not to worry; face it head on, and reply right on the thread with an apology and a promise to fix what went wrong. More often than not, they’ll remove the scathing review or write a positive follow-up!

3. Optimize those title tags.

This one’s pretty self explanatory: make sure your location is in your title tags.

4. Address & Phone Number

Your address and phone number should be on every page of the website. Not only is this helpful for customers, but also for search engines. The footer is a good (and subtle) place for your address and phone number.

5. Social Media

Nearly every social profile will have an area for location. Use that to your advantage for your business!

Not only will your social profiles rank well for queries for your business name and location, but the implications of real time social search could also play into effect in the future:

Using these tactics isn’t a sure fire way to get to the top of Google Maps, but it’s certainly a start.

Nicki Hicks
Go local

Ever come home from a conference, start sorting through your notes and think I know I learned something, but what the heck was it? Closely following will often be: Now I remember what I learned, what can I use to help my business?

There’s a lot of information in the SMX live blog recaps, a lot of which involves quick note taking and scattered thoughts. So in an effort to consolidate (in an admittedly very long post) and walk away with something helpful, here are my takeaways:

(more…)

David Mihm, Designer & Local Search Marketer, davidmihm.com

What local search looks like

• the 10-pack
• driven by google.com, yahoo.com, etc.

Organic search ecosystem

• Google
• Yahoo/Bing

Local search ecosystem

A little more complicated…

Local search ranking factors

• Verified local business listing
• Off-page/off-listing criteria
• Customer reviews
• Traditional on-page criteria
• 7/ top 10 are specific to local

Developing your local mindset

• SEO is about optimizing sites, local is about optimizing location
• Consistency: name, address, phone number are critical (don’t use tracking phone numbers, don’t stuff keywords into business name)
• Building out business profile, you’re not creating an ad

Local Search

• location (verification, claiming, off-site references, categoreies, reviews)
• website

Traditional

• Website (on-page, title tags, link building)

Mike Blumenthal, Owner & Local Marketing Expert, Blumenthals

How Google Ranks your listing

• Web page totals in Maps (citations)
• Geo references and reviews
• Business name
• Business category
• content

The “new” PageRank

• Score of website
• # links referring to business
• Highest score of those links

How Google scores your website

1. In-bound links from documents that mention the business with full or partial name and/or address
2. in-bound links with business name in anchor text
3. business name in title tag
4. all or part of business name in domain

Takeaways

1. Choose your business name and domain carefully for use in local
2. Think about gaining inbound links with your business name as anchor text
3. Be sure your title tags reflect your name
4. Strike a balance between optimizing your site for local and Google Maps

Mary Bowling, SEO, Director of Search Marketing, seOverflow

• Sometimes the local 10-pack is a 3-pack
• 10-pack isn’t exactly the Maps results
• You cannot be in the 10-pack if you don’t have a Google Local Business Listing

Optimize your Maps listings

• Use your main keyword phrase and complementary terms in your profile descriptions
• Grab the long tail by including:
  - your products and services
  - the brands you carry
  - the locations you serve
• Choose – or create – the right categories (choose two/three existing categories, then create the remaining two/three that apply to your local listing)
• Create attributes (other information not already included – but DO NOT KEYWORD STUFF)

Create citations

• AKA web references
• They don’t have to include a link
• Mine competitors’ web pages (would that site also be willing to give you a citation?)

Get reviews!

• Reviews are exactly what people (and Google) are looking for
• Google pulls reviews from across the web (so it doesn’t matter where your customers leave them)
• Come up with a system to encourage reviews by happy customers
• Yahoo has mentioned after a certain number of reviews, they’ll start figuring out whether your reviews are positive or negative

Your website and the 10 pack

• Use your website to build trust and reinforce you LBL info by:
  - linking to your Maps lisitng
  -  get links from local websites (Center of Commerce,e tc.)

On-page optimization

• Add location!!
• Place full street address and phone number on every page of your website
• Optimizae your Contact/About page for business name/location

Standaradize

• Use same name, address, phone number everywhere
• Got to sources of business data and standardize
• Get listed on local directories

Check for Location Trust

• Check data providers
• Search for your business name
• Search for your phone number
• Search for your address

How to track the pack - how to track the 10-pack with Google Analytics

Will Scott, President, Search Influence

Barnacle SEO: attaching oneself to a large fixed object, then waiting for customers to float by in the current.

Local search: how?

• “Web references” = links, Links = trust
  - Yellow Pages
  - Local directories
• Links aren’t critical – the correlating factors are name, address, and phone

Places to submit:

• Wire Fan
• Mixx
• Yahoo! Local
• City Search
• Super Pages
• Insider Pages
• Yelp
• Yellow Pages
• BrownBook.com

How can you do the same

• Maximize local listings with SEO
  - Keywords in titles and copy
  - Links to local profiles (even low-quality links will do, leverage social bookmarking/directories)

Andrew Shotland, Proprietor, Local SEO Guide

Top SEO’d IYPs (Internet Yellow Pages)

1. SuperPages
2. CitySearch
3. Yelp
4. Yahoo Local
5. InsiderPages
6. Yellow Pages
7. Biz Journals
8. AreaConnect
9. MagicYellow
10. Switchboard
11. Here are more

Rankings by site type

1. Local Business – 32%
2. IYP – 27%
3. Vertical – 17%
4. Article – 6%
5. Local Vertical – 5%
6. LYP – 5%
7. Natl Chain – 4%
8. Unrelated – 2%
9. Gov – 1%
10. Edu – 1%
11. Social – <1%
12. Video – <1%

Which Yellow Pages sites should you use for which categories?

Questions

• Google’s Local Listing bulk upload instructions
• Choose a certain number of “barnacle” or IYP sites, because you’ll want to continuously update them.
• Like traditional SEO, keep profiles “fresh”. For example, in Google Maps, update coupons, photos, videos, etc. especially if your customers are used to it.
• What social media sites are good for local businesses? Twitter for a company like a pizza place, for a company like a plastic surgeon: Facebook. For a more professional company, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the easiest SM site to talk people into, and to ease them into others.
• Vertical is important for review sites (Urbanspoon and Yelp is mandatory for restaurants, TripAdvisor for hotels)
• Barnacle sites outrank you: you can get ahead of yourself.
• Other important sites that will get picked up by a ton of others: Openlist, Zvents, Local.com, Mojopages, Immercifind
• How to prevent local listings sabotage? Make your listing consistent across every IYP and every submission.

For every local client we have, we always submit and verify them to the major local search engines – including Google Local Business Center (essentially Google Maps). Recently, Google added a great addition to the works – the Local Business Dashboard! Here’s Google’s official story on it.

Some say the addition was simply for those with limited web presence, although if sites are even showing up in local search results, I’d say they’re doing something right. Regardless of the reason behind it, these statistics will be helpful for any local business: from those with a huge search presence to those with none. Furthermore, even with Google Analytics, this information is awesomely powerful; not to mention, you wouldn’t be able to figure it out any other way.

Your business info

If you already have an account, you know that there is a ton of information you can include in your local listings –  from what you do, to payment taken, to business hours, to tags, to photos, to video. What’s more, the dashboard acts as many social profiles do, with a % complete meter – to further persuade you to continue filling out information.

Activity & Totals

Activity is set up very similar to Google Analytics – impressions indicating how many times (in the past month – or whatever timeframe you select) your listing has shown up as a result. What I find even more impressive is the fact they drill down into actions: those people who click for more info on the Map, for driving directions, and those who click the link to your website.

Top Search Queries

Here’s where you can verify that you’re being found for the correct keywords. The only problem I can see: you don’t see the locations searchers used. In other words, for flyte, all of these keywords look great. But we don’t know if they were looking for website design in Portland, Maine or Kennebunk, Maine. My guess would be the former; but for a lot of our clients who are in lesser-known towns in the middle of Maine, that information is vital.

Where driving directions requests come from

Again, priceless statistics: who’s thinking of coming to your location? Are you investing in those opportunities enough? This information may be a little less important for a company like ours than, say, an Inn or hotel who finds they get a ton of driving directions requests from the Boston area. That might convince them to advertise a little more in Massachusetts.

Coupons are another addition to the dashboard. You can further enhance your local listing by adding coupons for customers who find you via Google Maps.

Nicki Hicks
What are you waiting for? Go submit your local biz!

I just noticed today a new little addition to Google Maps: markers for the paid search results!  Now, I’m not sure if I was simply late to this news; but no where in any of the major search news blogs or even the Offical Maps Blog is there any mention of this.

I’ve noticed the addition for nearly every industry – every one that would have AdWords ads.  This search was for “hotel portland maine”.  The top three results seem normal enough. One paid search result and the next two organic.

What floored me was on the map, the Holiday Inn now has a marker!  What’s more, is this result shows up above other result closer to Portland.  As a matter of fact, this particular Holiday Inn isn’t even in Portland, but South Portland; and as we’ve seen, results are based upon proximity to the city or (possibly) reviews.  Is it possible that now bids can help you get on the first page of local listings?

Nicki Hicks
Small Business SEO