Google Local Search Ranking...how? Different SEO Methods?

ngriffin360

ngriffin360

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Ok so in some ways im a newb and in some ways a veteran with IM. I guess ill chalk up my ignorance in regards this question to not being as diverse as i should in my knowledge base.

Does anyone have a at least somewhat intuitive guide to generating keyword rank just for local Google search? If its in BHW i somehow have not been able to stumble across it.

General SEO i have a working understanding of...but is there a parallel path that is necessary for local search ranking?

I would love to hear the BlackHat and WhiteHat rundown, or either or...

Any input is appreciated.
 
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Are you talking local seo as websites or local seo as Google Places?
 
JimmyConway said:
Are you talking local seo as websites or local seo as Google Places?
Click to expand...

Im referring to when you put as an example "'city name' automotive repair"...and it shows local based results on that city..which feels like it may be died-in-the-wool SEO.

And also curious when you put just "automotive repair" and the top section is all the local results im assuming based on IP or other localized criteria.
 
I am working on trying to influence results based on a specific location as specified in the sidebar, however the results can change greatlyevery few days. Haven't figured this one out yet.
 
Comic said:
I think you mean places which is ranked based on citations.
Click to expand...

That's almost the right answer, only it needs a lot more FEELING, otherwise someone might look at that nerdy avatar and that username that does NOT inspire confidence and think he's just another anonymous butthole with an opinion. And that would be El-Wrongo.

CITATIONS. Or, put more succinctly:

C I T A T I O N S

What are "citations"? you might ask. Damn good question. Go find out.
What are citations good for, another eager chipmonk might enquire. Yet another damn good question.

Why are citations important? How do I get citations? All of those are good questions.

Is there anything else to think about, in the beginning, other than citations? No, other than on-page SEO, no. You do on-page SEO and citations. Obviously kw research so you are optimizing for the right (meaning profitable) keywords, but in the beginning the end-all, be-all is citations.

Don't pay not one bit of attention to any of these big-city hucksters, what-with their big-time keywords like "viagra" and "guaranteed weight loss" and "how to sell shitty backlink services to noobs that don't know a goddam thing" (that one there is called a "long tail keyword, btw). One of those guys might show up and say "Hay boy, yew look like yer pretty smart there fer a new guy, say whyontcha lemme do ya a favor and sell you one of these damn FINE link pyramid wheelie thingies (big, gold teefie grin) and if you pay cash today, I'll throw-in a few sprinklings of link juice spam-a-rama goshgonkulaters too, at no additional charge."

Just keep on walkin' past that there huckster son, cause you didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, and this ain't yore first rodeo.

What you do instead is start looking for a list of FREE local citations and start submitting them. Google+ Local is first & foremost, and then I have a prioritized list from there, and others might have their own and disagree and they might be right but there are roughly 10 or 20 that are MUST HAVE, as in, you are stupid to not have them, and then there are the rest that are also important but not as important as the first group. I'll throw in a few to give you all some sense.

Pay attention to me heah, and ignore that huckster in his $1,000 suit. He paid for that suit by cashing in on people's fear and ignorance, and besides that you also got Jimminy Cricket on your shoulder, listen to him to, and he'll tell ya the same thing.

Yahoo Local
Bing Local
Yelp
Manta
Local.com
yp.com
etc...

Go to yext to get the list. Don't even think about paying for Yext. Yext is owned by that huckster's great-great-grandpappy. There's more Citations than what's on Yext's list, but that's a good starting point for the newb that's lost in the wilderness without a home, nor even a rock to lay his head upon.

Alright, that's enough for now. Maw just showed up with some hot pecan pie, and I gotta run. You-all come back now, heah?
 
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One of the ranking factors for Google Places is citations, which are simply a reference to the business's name, address and telephone number; so for example, you could build citations in business directories.
 
B. Friendly said:
That's almost the right answer, only it needs a lot more FEELING, otherwise someone might look at that nerdy avatar and that username that does NOT inspire confidence and think he's just another anonymous butthole with an opinion. And that would be El-Wrongo.

CITATIONS. Or, put more succinctly:

C I T A T I O N S

What are "citations"? you might ask. Damn good question. Go find out.
What are citations good for, another eager chipmonk might enquire. Yet another damn good question.

Why are citations important? How do I get citations? All of those are good questions.

Is there anything else to think about, in the beginning, other than citations? No, other than on-page SEO, no. You do on-page SEO and citations. Obviously kw research so you are optimizing for the right (meaning profitable) keywords, but in the beginning the end-all, be-all is citations.

Don't pay not one bit of attention to any of these big-city hucksters, what-with their big-time keywords like "viagra" and "guaranteed weight loss" and "how to sell shitty backlink services to noobs that don't know a goddam thing" (that one there is called a "long tail keyword, btw). One of those guys might show up and say "Hay boy, yew look like yer pretty smart there fer a new guy, say whyontcha lemme do ya a favor and sell you one of these damn FINE link pyramid wheelie thingies (big, gold teefie grin) and if you pay cash today, I'll throw-in a few sprinklings of link juice spam-a-rama goshgonkulaters too, at no additional charge."

Just keep on walkin' past that there huckster son, cause you didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, and this ain't yore first rodeo.

What you do instead is start looking for a list of FREE local citations and start submitting them. Google+ Local is first & foremost, and then I have a prioritized list from there, and others might have their own and disagree and they might be right but there are roughly 10 or 20 that are MUST HAVE, as in, you are stupid to not have them, and then there are the rest that are also important but not as important as the first group. I'll throw in a few to give you all some sense.

Pay attention to me heah, and ignore that huckster in his $1,000 suit. He paid for that suit by cashing in on people's fear and ignorance, and besides that you also got Jimminy Cricket on your shoulder, listen to him to, and he'll tell ya the same thing.

Yahoo Local
Bing Local
Yelp
Manta
Local.com
yp.com
etc...

Go to yext to get the list. Don't even think about paying for Yext. Yext is owned by that huckster's great-great-grandpappy. There's more Citations than what's on Yext's list, but that's a good starting point for the newb that's lost in the wilderness without a home, nor even a rock to lay his head upon.

Alright, that's enough for now. Maw just showed up with some hot pecan pie, and I gotta run. You-all come back now, heah?
Click to expand...

Love this post. Great read :-)
 
I'll check that out tomorrow :-)
 
Hy.

I would also like to share my experience about this, but before that I must say that my experience with this topic is on a different local environment, So not sure if can apply to your situation because on my local area G places and yellow pages websites are not so influential, more than that my competitors have really good establish websites so the possibility that G will not have so much data to show so it will go for what it can get is very low.

So, taking in consideration my introduction here is how I get setup this thing.

I go and look a little bit at my customer search behavior and ask my self what I would type if I will be a guy from location "X" and I will need the services that I provide so I come up with a few long tail kw.

To be more specific the website that I'm talking about provide translation services.

So I build up a list of long tail kw with the name of the city in them like: English to Italian translator in city or certify English to Italian translator in city....

After that I look over the list an search for a pattern, after that I build up some sql list with names of languages and city's, where I have added some line with a few word about the languages and the city's and then I get to PHP and start to automated build links with the names of the location and the language in them and from that extract some paragraph from this description to add as content. For content I also used some generic content that help the visitor to understand tahat I can offer him what he need and to contact me.

But as said this work in different local environment than yours and the pattern was a easy one.

Thank you and thank you B. Friendly for that great post.
 
My answer is going to be inferior compared to the others that have already been posted, but it's in relation to a topic I'm pretty keen on: putting effort into knowing the client/potential client!

Have you tried getting your name out there in the community? Maybe your city has some kind of community forum/posting board that you can participate in and network with others?
 
In terms of ranking in Google Local (now part of G+) one of the major (perhaps the major) factors is that the address of the business must EXACTLY match the listing in Google. I had a client that wasn't ranking in the 7 pack and it was as simple as a slightly way the address was entered.

Google checks external business directories (like InfoUSA) to confirm the business is real and is actually located at the entered address. So, another major factor is to ensure that the business is correctly entered into all of those directories. After that citations are useful (doubly so now for thing like restaurants, hotels, etc. - Google bought Zagat and Frommers so we can see where this is headed).
 
Lazlo1967 said:
In terms of ranking in Google Local (now part of G+) one of the major (perhaps the major) factors is that the address of the business must EXACTLY match the listing in Google. I had a client that wasn't ranking in the 7 pack and it was as simple as a slightly way the address was entered.

Google checks external business directories (like InfoUSA) to confirm the business is real and is actually located at the entered address. So, another major factor is to ensure that the business is correctly entered into all of those directories. After that citations are useful (doubly so now for thing like restaurants, hotels, etc. - Google bought Zagat and Frommers so we can see where this is headed).
Click to expand...

Not to post-snipe, but I'll have to check into InfoUSA. Thanks for that bit of information!
 
Winston_Smith said:
Maybe your city has some kind of community forum/posting board that you can participate in and network with others?
Click to expand...

These are important, but 2nd Tier. Get all the "big" ones first. You work this list in terms of how much link juice they give the site. The suggestion is a good one. One example might look like a local Chamber of Commerce, or a Business Directory.

Here's how you find them:

1) Pick your best keyword and enter it into Google
2) Make note of the top 3 local businesses for that kw
3) Do backlink analysis of those sites, looking specifically for high-PR citations. There could be a lot, so you'll have to discriminate which ones to do first. If all 3 of the top-ranked local businesses have a particular citation, then that becomes a "must have". If 2 of the 3 have one, then you have an edge on the 3rd. (This is how I evaluate what the best use of my time is.)

As someone else mentioned, you can ignore citation links from places on the other side of the planet. They aren't going to do you site any good for local results.

NOTE*** All this is for LOCAL results. The rules are slightly different. Things that work/don't work in Local may be the opposite in "global/organic". There are side-discussions on the differences between Local & non-Local SEO. I hypothesize that in some circumstances it's an either/or proposition. So be careful about the advice you take and where it comes from, because those methods & techniques that are widely accepted as "conventional wisdom" might actually cause a minus in local results (while giving you a plus in organic).

This is yet another reason why citations are important at first. By the time you do ALL the citations, you should have learned enough SEO to have some judgement about what you might do next (if it's necessary. Truthfully, most niches are so non-competitive citations alone are enough to put you at the top of page 1)

Lazlo1967 said:
In terms of ranking in Google Local (now part of G+) one of the major (perhaps the major) factors is that the address of the business must EXACTLY match the listing in Google. I had a client that wasn't ranking in the 7 pack and it was as simple as a slightly way the address was entered.

Google checks external business directories (like InfoUSA) to confirm the business is real and is actually located at the entered address. So, another major factor is to ensure that the business is correctly entered into all of those directories. After that citations are useful (doubly so now for thing like restaurants, hotels, etc. - Google bought Zagat and Frommers so we can see where this is headed).
Click to expand...

This point is critical and needs to be reiterated. I had a situation where my client was at #5 for no good reason, and then I discovered I spelled a two-part name two different ways, i.e. "Josey Wales Window Washing" vs. "JoseyWales Window Washing".

Half my citations were spelled one way, the other half spelled the other. Google+ Local only saw those citations that had the same spelling as it had. When I fixed all my citations, my rank went to #2 in less than a week.

And, as an added bonus black hat pure evil afterthought, a VERY BAD SEO could deliberately edit a competitor's citations and give them a very slight misspelling. A non-SEO professional would never know, and it would effectively kill the value of the... oh, I don't know, say for example YELP citation.

Not that I would ever do such a thing. For free, I mean.

:D
 
All this is absolutely fantastic stuff to read, thanks. I'm really struggling getting my head round all this. I think I really need help to be honest but I'm a little scared of contracting someone that could put me in a worse position than I started :)
 
Ironlung said:
All this is absolutely fantastic stuff to read, thanks. I'm really struggling getting my head round all this. I think I really need help to be honest but I'm a little scared of contracting someone that could put me in a worse position than I started :)
Click to expand...

You can go for outside help for task that do not have critical importance and that you can control and supervise.

Many times this kind of task eat you all the time. Finding someone that can help you with the easy and time consuming task give you the opportunity to focus on more critical task.
 
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