Top Local Search Ranking Factors: A Guide to Optimize your Local Listing

How to Rank High in Local Search

Yesterday read one very good article on MOZ about amazing local search engine ranking factors. Here i am writing about some of the take away from that post by Miriam Ellis.

Initially David Mihm came up with his list of Local Search Ranking Factors. He came up with a list of around 100 local search ranking factors after doing an industry survey and research.

After brushing up all those ranking factors Miriam Ellis came up with a refined list of search ranking factors.

Proper Category Associations :

Listing your local business against proper business category is very important from users and search engine point of view. Both users and search engine crawlers look for relevant business under a relevant business category.

To get your business listed in Google Local Business center you will have to select one of the listed business category among several local business categories over there.

Physical Address in City of Search

As a local business owner or to get your business listed for a particular city, you need to provide a physical address of your office. Google shows your local listings based on the location you have provided.

Consistency of Structured Citations

As per the Wikipedia "Citation is a reference to a published or unpublished source (not always the original source). More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of acknowledging the relevance of the works of others to the topic of discussion at the spot where the citation appears. Generally the combination of both the in-body citation and the bibliographic entry constitutes what is commonly thought of as a citation (whereas bibliographic entries by themselves are not). References to single, machine-readable assertions in electronic scientific articles are known as nano-publications, a form of micro-attribution."

      Inconsistent citations might involve:

• A difference in the business name (i.e. Smile Dentistry vs. Smile Dental Clinic)
• A wrong street address, a typo in street address numbers, or a missing suite number
• A wrong or different phone number, a toll free or call tracking number
• A different or wrong website URL

Quality/Authority of Structured Citations

We all know that having a business listed in high authority and quality website will always get more exposure in comparison to a business listed in low quality or authority website. So our prime focus should be to target high authority websites. 

Some of the high authority local business listing websites are:

• Google Places
• Google+
• Yahoo Local 
• Yelp
• Bing
• Merchant Circle
• Local.com
• Express Update USA(Info USA)
• Map Quest
• Insider Pages
• Four Square

HTML NAP Matching Place Page NAP

Google always does a cross check for your business listing by matching your listed details with the web page URL you have provided. If you have provided all the correct details then your listing is good or else you might not get visibility for your business listing.

You can always re-work on your business listing if you find some issues or want to make some changes  in your listings.

Quantity of Structured Citations

There are multiple citations like business name, address, contact details, about business and others which a business owner has to put in while creating a local listing. But to be competitive with other competitors and get higher visibility in search results every business owner have to include extra citations.

So quantity and quality of structured citations also plays major role in search local listings.

Domain Authority of Website

Domain authority of any website also plays a major role in higher ranking in local searches. You can check for your domain authority using Moz Bar. For different factors contributing in Domain Authority check Domain Authority Factors.

Individual Owner Verified Local Plus Page

For every business owner, to get their business listed in Google Places they need to verify their listing. Usual method used for verifying listing is through post card where Google sends a verification code through post to your listed physical address.

City, States in Places Landing Page Title

You should have your city, state and other local information in your page title of the web page which will be linked with your local listing. 

This way your proximity of getting higher local search ranking will increase. 

Proximity of Address to Centroid

Traditionally, the centroid in Local Search has been defined as the city center identified by Google in its Maps product. You can go to maps.google.com, type in a city and state and get a result that looks like this, with Google putting a red pin on the presumed city centroid.

Quality and Authority of Inbound Links to Domain

High quality and authority incoming links also play a major role in getting higher local search ranking. Remember one thing always focus on Quality and not on Quantity. 

With latest changes happening in Google Algorithm, Google now look for quality links only to provide ranking. 

Quantity of Ratings and Review for your Listings

It is currently felt that the number of reviews your business earns on its Google Places Local page influences rank more than reviews you might earn on other review platforms. You can easily see how many reviews you have by clicking either on the "reviews" link on your Google Places Local link in the main search engine results, or by visiting your listing  page directly.

NOTE: Only things to remember here is that you should not try and write review by your self as this may be considered as self promotional thing, which is not liked by Google.

Product/Services in Business Title

The business title of your business is its legal name or DBA. It is believed that having the name of a core product or service in your business name may give you some advantage over competitors who lack this.

Quantity of Citations from Locally Relevant Domains

Having your business NAP (name, address, phone number) mentioned on a website that relates specifically to your geographic community acts as a locally-relevant citation. This type of citation reinforces Google's trust in your relevance to your locale.

Proximity of Business Physical Address from the Point of Search

Google prefers to display most relevant and near by results in Local Search, from the location of search. If Google feels that your search term has a local intent, they will automatically detect your physical location and show you local results.

This phenomenon of proximity demonstrates Google's bias towards businesses with a physical location within a specific geographic area. If your business is physically near to the searcher, your chances are good of showing up in the local results, but if it's too far away, it is unlikely to be included in the results.  

Quantity of Citations from Industry Relevant Domains

Just as it can be helpful to earn to have your name, address and phone number listed on locally-relevant websites, being included on industry-relevant sites can improve your authority and rankings, too.

  

Local Area Code on Local Plus Page

Using your local area code phone number as your primary phone number on your Google+ Local page is considered a best practice. The area code of the phone number should match the area code/codes traditionally associated with your city of location.

Remaining three points are almost covered in previously discussed points.

For more details on Local Search Ranking Factors, please follow original source @ Top 20 Local Search Ranking Factors