The whole world is local to somewhere, says Ian Miller, search director at Crafted Media. Here are five steps to leveraging local search listings
Google states that 20 per cent of all searches have a local intent, that’s 2.8 billion searches per month globally. Of mobile traffic, upwards of 50 per cent of searches have local intent. Twenty-three per cent of time spent accessing the Internet is on a mobile device and more than four million business listings on Google have been claimed by business owners.
Pretty thought-provoking stats, eh?
But what are local listings? Local listings are not generated out of Google’s normal ranking algorithm, but those where it returns some form of map, i.e. ‘Place’ pages (characterised by their dark pink map marker) or integrated listings with mixed natural and local listings. These are usually generated for searches with a local intent or those terms that Google has decided return a better experience for a user if it gives local results. In addition, location-aware mobile devices, such as iPhones, mean Google can return these local listings knowing exactly where you are.
So how do you ensure your business maximises local listings?
1. Claim what’s rightfully yours
Your first port of call is Google Places, which is where you can ‘claim’ your business listing. You can add a Place page for every business location – the more you list the better coverage you can have. Make sure you fill out every possible element of the Place page – business hours, detailed description, you can have 10 photos and link to five YouTube videos (even if it’s your logo and the front of your building) and you can also be listed in up to five categories including custom categories. Check out your competitor’s listings and don’t forget: if they haven’t filled out a section it doesn’t mean it’s unimportant but an opportunity to steal a march on them. If you have too many locations to enter manually, then Google offers a whitelisting service.
Quick tip: Make sure you are trying to claim your listing with a Google email account on the same domain as your website, for example [email protected] – rather than your personal email address.
2. Citations are the new links
Google likes links. It’s always been hungry to map out the Internet and a large proportion of its ranking elements favour websites and businesses with more links.
However, in local search there’s a big opportunity as citations are the new links. This means getting your business details listed on as many different websites as possible. They need to match up with the business address, website and phone number as both your Place page and on your website itself. List each business location on as many of these sites as possible: Hotfrog, Yell, BizWiki, Qype, FreeIndex, Thomson Local, Yelp, BView, UpMyStreet, Trusted Places, Scoot, Tipped, Infoserve, City Visitor, Touch Local, UFindus and Smile Local. All of these are trusted and appear as sources under the ‘More about this Place’ menu on a listing. Some have paid-for options, but all have a free listing of some sort.
Quick tip: There are services that’ll add these en masse for you, but manual submission is always better.
3. It’s who you know
As well as citations on generic sites, it’s helpful to get listings on as many other relevant sites as possible. Do you belong to a local chamber of commerce? They probably have a members’ section. Networking clubs, professional bodies, business listings in your town or if your business sponsors a local school, nearly all of these can lead to having your business name, address and website listed on a highly relevant, local website. On a wider scale, ensure your business details are listed in full on ‘distributors’ pages on supplier’s websites and leverage any other industry links.
Quick tip: Scan your invoices as they come in for companies with websites who might link to you, often gems can be unearthed in the unlikeliest of places.
4. Customer reviews are king
Alongside your proximity to a searched-for location, and the citations mentioned above, generating customer reviews is one of the most helpful things to achieving a good listing. Following successful transactions, consider asking customers to leave reviews on your Google Places page, Qype or Yelp websites. In no time at all you can start getting significant numbers.
Quick tip: Don’t be afraid of the odd negative review. If you promote this to your best customers, it’ll quickly be drowned out and it actually helps you get a critical mass of reviews.
5. Don’t copy, imitate
In nearly every vertical, there’s one company that does things very well and can be used to crib from. See where they’re listed and mentioned around the web. Often a lot of them will be relevant to you, so you can get listed there as well. But don’t slavishly chase down every link. Look at how you can do what they do, but better.
Quick tip: In Google, search for competitors’ links using: “competitor.com-site:competitor.com”. This will return pages mentioning their website from around the web.
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