Google Goes Local: How to Use the Recent Changes to Google’s SERP to Your Advantage

Google claims that over 20 percent of all searches are for local businesses, places, etc. With the changes Google has made to their SERP’s they are clearly favoring local search results.

The Changes

Google Place pages now appear like full search results, with the Map moved to the far right.
When Google determines the search term is definitely local, Place pages will dominate the results, often appearing above organic results (i.e. Pizza in Portland).
When the term is likely local, the Pack 7 will appear among the results (i.e. pizza).

With Google placing their Place pages among organic results and in many cases, above organic results; your Place page ranking has become more important than ever. To improve your ranking you need to:

Optimize Your Google Places page
Optimize Your Website and Landing Pages For Local Searches
Leverage Citations
Get More Customer Reviews

1. How to Optimize Your Google Places Page

Claim Your Google Place Page

Google may have already generated a Place page for you. Just claiming your Place page can help improve your rank. And if you plan to do any optimization to try and out rank your competitors, you can’t start without first claiming your page.

Setup Service Area

If you’re a plumber that services Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond but your business address is in Redmond, you will not appear in searches for a “plumber in Seattle” or “plumber in Bellevue”. You’ll need to go into your Places page and select “Yes, this business serves customers at their locations” and then define your service area to include Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond.

Verify Address Is Correct

This has as much to do with customer service as it does with SEO. If you do have a physical address; like a restaurant or store, make sure Google Places has the address listed correctly. And don’t use a PO Box.

Always Show Address

Google Places gives you the option to hide your address. DO NOT hide your address! Though this may change in the future, hiding your address can have a negative impact on your ranking even for service areas.

Choose The Right Categories

Do some market research and find-out the most commonly used business categories, associated with your business. You can check out your competitions’ Place pages and Superpages for category ideas. Also be sure to use at least one of Google’s default categories.

Use Keywords In Place Page Description

Though you shouldn’t stuff your description with keywords, writing a full and complete description using keywords will help your ranking.

Add Photos And Video to Page

Including photos and/or video on your Place Page will contribute to your page’s completeness and improve your ranking, and also help your page stand out among the search results. Making your page more useful to customers will not only improve your click-through-rate but will also improve your conversion rate too.

List Phone Number with Local Area Code

Make sure that the phone number you list on your page has the same area code as your target market. If you don’t have a local number, get a free one using a service like Google Voice. You can even set it up so that when a customer calls your new local number it’ll send the call to the phone you’re currently using.

Things to Avoid

Multiple Places Pages with the same phone number
Multiple Places Pages with the same address (If you rent office space with many businesses in the same building, be sure to include your suite number.)
Hiding Your Address
Never use an 800 number

How to Optimize Your Linked Website and Landing Pages for Google Places

Having a company website can also help your Places Page ranking by adding to your company’s credibility. The links you list on your Places Page should point to area specific landing pages, which only contain information for a specific area (i.e. Link To Portland Landing Page, Link to Oregon City Landing Page).

Include city and state in all of your website title tags – This will help both your organic and local rankings
Include your full address on your landing pages – Make sure that the address you use is formatted correctly by typing it into Google Maps.
Include your local area code phone number on your landing pages
Include the location keyword in the anchor text of inbound links like this: plumber in Portland
The URL’s should contain the location keyword: http://mycompany.com/Portland-Plumbing
If you have multiple locations, create separate landing pages for each location

Things to Avoid

Never list a PO Box on your website without including your physical address
Never include 800 numbers – If you have an 800 number listed on your website and no local numbers, it can lower your ranking.

Leveraging Citations

Being listed on 3rd party sites like Superpages, Yelp, Citysearch, etc. helps to establish your credibility which improves your ranking. Here are the most important factors that will affect your page ranking.

Consistency – Make sure your business name, address, and phone number are the same for all directories and that it exactly matches the information on Google Places.

Quantity of Citations – The more directories you’re listed in, the better.

Quality of Citations – Being listed in the directories of well-known and trusted directors can really give your page ranking a boost, as can being listed in local directories.

Additional site: Municipal Sites (Chamber of Commerce, Local Directories), Kudzu, DexKnows, Angie’s List, Merchant Circle.

Customer Reviews

Though Google has stated that positive (or negative) reviews do not affect Place page ranking, other review factors can have an impact on your rank.

Volume of Reviews – The impact that volume will have on your ranking will depend on the review volume of your competition. Try to have at least as many customer reviews as your competition.

Velocity of Reviews – If you get a ton of reviews all at once, it will look spammy to Google and you may get penalized. Ideally, you want a constant stream of reviews.

Reviews Left Directly On Google – Reviews left by Google accounts with a long account history are more likely to be trusted by Google, than those people that sign up for a Google account just prior to writing a review.

Location and Product Keywords in Reviews- Though you won’t have any direct control over what your customers write, you can suggest they mention your location and product or service when writing a review.

When it comes to customer reviews, being passive won’t cut it. You need to actively ask your customers to review you online. Reach out to the customers you’ve recently sold to and ask for their feedback. If you need to, offer your existing customers a discount on future purchases for writing up a review.

Other sites: Bing, Kudzu, Qype, Local.com, MerchantCircle.

SEO Suggession