SEO for local results?

[pdstein]

Hey SEO Gurus,

A couple week ago I noticed my church (Cypess Meadows Community Church - Clearwater/Safety Harbor, FL) was not ranking well for any search phrases like "churches in Clearwater, FL" in Google, Yahoo, MSN, or Ask - not for a local search or for a general web search. The site didn't any locaiton information in the title, description, or keywords tags, so I went into the site and modified them.

Bam! Within a week the site was on the first page of the general web search results for all 4 search engines. However, the site's rankings in the local search results didn't change hardly at all. It's like 56 in google local and 135 in yahoo local when searching for churches in Clearwater, FL.

Why are the local results so different from the general results?

What are some of the key tactics for optimizing a site for local search?

Is it just a matter of getting links from Internet yellow page type local directories, the chamber of commerce, etc?

Thanks for your help,
Paul

[kgun]

Originally Posted by pdstein

Hey SEO Gurus,

That is not me, but I can try to answer.

Originally Posted by pdstein

What are some of the key tactics for optimizing a site for local search?

Using local keywords.

Originally Posted by pdstein

Hey SEO Gurus,

Is it just a matter of getting links from Internet yellow page type local directories, the chamber of commerce, etc?

That is important IMO.

In short advertise you site in local digital and traditional media.

[kimber23]

one thing i've noticed is that the local results seem to update less frequently, so you may need to wait a little longer to see changes there.

as far as optimizing for local results, make sure you have verified your business in Google Local Business Center: https://www.google.com/local/add/. then read Mike Blumenthal's blog: Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search | Developing Knowledge about Local Search. that should get you going in the right direction.

[epep]

Hi Paul,

I've done some considerable work with Google Local and all I can come up with, I have no idea.

Google gives a ton of hints on their help page:
How does Google Maps rank business listings?

What I can gather from experience and previous postings, it seems that Google takes distance from a geographic point into consideration. This makes it difficult for locations that are far from the "central" location of a city to rank highly. This isn't the only ranking factor however, as you cans see when you search for your keyword and set your location as a city.

Otherwise, it appears that Google Local is a lot more sluggish than is Google's web search. It takes merely days to get into Google and the spider re-caches pages constantly, but the Google Local results don't change as often. It can often times take *months* to get into the Google Local machine and it often times takes just as long for items to be updated.

In sum, I'm willing to bet that a lot of the same algorithm that deals with the Google web results is used in the Google Local results, but there are some extra locality elements and the refresh rate is much slower.

That's just my 2 cents. Founded entirely by experience, but unfortunately not research.

EP

[jameshills]

I assume you are talking about the google local type searches ...

I have had SOME luck with Google Local this by adding reviews with local terms as well as putting the town name in the title and/or description - as appropriate.

I haven't quite gotten it able to work 100% of the time though for categories that are outside of the stock categories though. i.e. I have had success with "marketing, elgin, IL" but for "home staging, elgin, IL" it hasn't worked as well.

[epep]

Good point James.

I've had very good luck with Yahoo local entries that have ratings and reviews attributed to them. I've always found Yahoo's local engine more responsive to changes in the listing too. I got a friend's chiropractic listing ranked #1 for his city after there he was only in the listing for about 3 weeks and had two reviews. His listing is NOT associated with a website, since he doesn't have one yet either. I'm working with him to remedy that last part, but in the meantime, he's enjoying a steady stream of new patients off of that listing. All the while, his Google local listing is sitting somewhere in the middle of the pack.

EP

[incrediblehelp]

I guess the obvious question is did you create a local listing on the various search engines?

https://www.google.com/local/add/

[pdstein]

Thanks to everyone who has responded so far. You've provided lots of great insight...

- results seem to update less frequently - good to know
- make sure you have verified your business in Google Local Business Center https://www.google.com/local/add/
- Mike Blumenthal's blog: Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search | Developing Knowledge about Local Search
- adding reviews with local terms

The one that's most irritating is that "Google takes distance from a geographic point into consideration." IMO, if you're searching for something in a city the fact that one organization is located in what is considered to be the center of town doesn't necessarily make it more relevant. What if someone lives on the edge of the city? I guess they have to start somewhere.

It looks like Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask all give a lot of weight to the distance from the city center. What's interesting is that if you drag the maps and recenter them, it looks like Yahoo, MSN, and Ask automatically show you new sites based on the new center, but Google doesn't.

Any other advice?

- Paul

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I guess the obvious question is did you create a local listing on the various search engines?

https://www.google.com/local/add/

Not yet. Didn't know about it until today.

[incrediblehelp]

That will definitely help you rank

[webharvest]

I've must agree and have seen the same lag in google local as indicated above.

The key is making sure your Title/Description and Keywords contain the search terms you are interested in. The keywords are not as important but they definitely don't hurt.

Don't quite checking and adjusting your techniques. SEO is never over

[jameshills]

Another thing to consider in large metro areas like Chicago is that while many people will search for "chicago chinese restaurants" ... it might be even better to go for "schaumburg chinese restaurants" since no one is going to drive more beyond their local area to visit an unknown place and it is easier to rank relevantly.

Like anything though, that will work better for certain types of business than others ... I suspect Churches are one of the ones that will work like that, where as one of our clients in Central Florida selling Custom Pool Tables needed to rank well for a broad geographical space i.e. "central florida" but also key areas like orlando, tampa etc.

One way to generate traffic to your various local listings would be to post links on your site to them, I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect that will help you as well.

i.e. "Check out our reviews on Google Local" ... probably wouldn't hurt to include good anchor text there as well too

Overall though, strong authorative links from local oriented sites will help you on local search as well as simply searching in the main SE's - things like chamber websites, local newspapers, blogs with a strong local focus etc. Depending on your church's structure, you might want to also ensure that there are links from various ministry websites back to your main site. i.e. a women's group website might link back to your main church website ... they probably do already, but certainly that will help, especially if they have content about the local area i.e. activities that mention geographic locations etc.

Anyhow, good luck with everything

James

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by pdstein

Hey SEO Gurus,

A couple week ago I noticed my church (Cypess Meadows Community Church - Clearwater/Safety Harbor, FL) was not ranking well for any search phrases like "churches in Clearwater, FL" in Google, Yahoo, MSN, or Ask - not for a local search or for a general web search. The site didn't any locaiton information in the title, description, or keywords tags, so I went into the site and modified them.

Bam! Within a week the site was on the first page of the general web search results for all 4 search engines. However, the site's rankings in the local search results didn't change hardly at all. It's like 56 in google local and 135 in yahoo local when searching for churches in Clearwater, FL.

Why are the local results so different from the general results?

What are some of the key tactics for optimizing a site for local search?

Is it just a matter of getting links from Internet yellow page type local directories, the chamber of commerce, etc?

Thanks for your help,
Paul

Paul if you mainly want better results in the local search, you better edit your geo target in Google's Webmaster Tools.

Here is also a tutorial that can help you out: Local Search Engine Optimization

[lesterj]

Good article Webnauts. I'm sure if Paul follows those tips he'll improve his church's local search rankings....eventually (when they are updated by the SEs).

One thing I've noticed is missing from all the articles I've found on local search SEO is how to track the rankings of a site in the local results. I use IBP to create reports and their ranking software appears to completely ignore the local results, even when those local results are displayed in the regular web search results (IE: the map at the top of Google results). I've done some searching to see if any other software offers a way to track local rankings, but can't find anything.

Does anyone know of some software that includes the ability to get a site's rankings in the local SERPs?

Thanks.
LesterJ

[davidweb]

DAVID WEB COMES TO THE RESCUE

This website most probably has been approved within regional category of DMOZ ( The big, old, fluffy, sleepy PAPA of Google).

DMOZ listings within regional category can boost your rankings within a particular region

I do hope you got the answer

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by davidweb

DAVID WEB COMES TO THE RESCUE

This website most probably has been approved within regional category of DMOZ ( The big, old, fluffy, sleepy PAPA of Google).

DMOZ listings within regional category can boost your rankings within a particular region

I do hope you got the answer

He would get the answer if you could also tell our member how to get quickly indexed in DMOZ.
And by the way, there are a lot of equally weighted regional directories that you help him equally.