What Are The Most Important Local SEO Factors?
By Kurt Steinbrueck
June 8, 2011 
5 Comments
Local SEO is crucial for local businesses and organizations. Local businesses who do not make the jump from off-line marketing to online marketing will suffer the consequences. Churches and ministries who don’t are missing out. So, what do you need to do to show up in the local search results?
Local SEO is growing in importance every year. At first the search engines created map services with listings. Then the search engines started including some of those listings in the universal search results. Today, those local listings can take up most of the real estate in the universal search results. At the same time the search engines more and more are localizing the general results, tailoring the SERPs according to the IP location of the searcher. So, even when people aren’t searching for a specific location, Google and Bing are serving up results for a specific location. Today, (according to Google) 20% of all searches are related to location and that number jumps to 40% if you look at only mobile searches.
Most Important Factors:
David Mihm recently released a survey of 33 local SEO professionals about what the most important factors in local SEO are.
Top Ten Factors in Local SEO:
- Physical Address in City of Search
- Manually Owner-verified Place Page
- Proper Category Associations
- Volume of Traditional Structured Citations (IYPs, Data Aggregators)
- Crawlable Address Matching Place Page Address
- PageRank / Authority of Website Homepage / Highest Ranked Page
- Quality of Inbound Links to Website
- Crawlable Phone Number Matching Place Page Phone Number
- Local Area Code on Place Page
- City, State in Places Landing Page Title
Do You Disagree?
The trick with local SEO and SEO in general is that there’s a lot we don’t know for sure. We have theories based on tests and experience, but they are still theories. So, one of the better ways to get a good idea of what is important and what works is by surveying lots of people who work in SEO. Since they are still theories, there’s some disagreement. So, I encourage you to take a look at the full survey to see what each SEO had to say about the various questions. It’s a pretty long read, but has lots of good info.
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml
Photo by Mays Business School
What factors do you think are most important?
A "Place Page" is a page created by Google in their local listings, right?
Pretty much, yes. The only thing I would change to your description is that Google doesn't have to have created the listing. You can create a Google Places Page as well.
Okay, the thing that gets my goat–and yes I have a goat to get–is Google inserting a category THEY picked on the place page and then leaving you no way to remove it. I've reported it as being wrong more than once and they've even called to verify that I want it removed–twice. But it's still there and first in the list before the ones I manually chose. It's a related category but something that takes a totally different skill and I don't do it. I've received calls from people looking for that other service and then ask why I have it listed on Google if I don't do it.
Now that I'm through venting–LOL–this is a great article. I've done most of these. I do find that so many other places–that I've updated manually–show up close to the top, before my website, in searches for my service. Is that a bad thing or does it matter which ranks highest?
Pam,
Sorry to hear about the situation changing the category in Google. I'm a little surprised that you're having this much trouble, but then again, it is Google. Have you claimed the listing?
I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you saying that local listings you've created on other sites, like CitySearch or Yellow.com or even Google Places are ranking better than your website in the universal results? If so, I don't think it's the best situation, but it's not terrible either. At least you're only being beat by your own listings. That said, it would probably be better if your website ranked higher. You'd have to work on the optimization / links to improve that.
Let me know if I misunderstood your question.
Thanks Kurt!
Yes, I claimed my Google Places listing along time ago. Filled in all the info, pictures, etc., including five of my own categories. Yet they still assigned one of their own sorta-related-but-not-the-same categories!
Yes, you understood correctly. For a local search I pop up first in Google Maps and then on down with YP, Manta, YellowUSA, LinkedIn, etc. I am the first actual business website to show up, but it's still on page three! We won't even discuss if you're not searching locally. (Most of my business is local, but I would like to branch out at least statewide.) Yes, I definitely need to work on it! I think links are my real downfall.