Posted on: May 5, 2009 by Syzlak
So for the past 2 months or so Google has been inserting their map based local listings (affectionately referred to as the 10 Pack) into broad search results. Thus, when a non-geographically targeted search was used or even when a user was not logged in, Google would show local results regardless (irregardless for you Steph). While this was certainly helpful for the user, it has become a bit of a headache for the SEO, the business owner and the online marketing director. Today, a top 5 listing does not hold the weight it once did, because for the average user positions 4-10 are now below the fold. While this is a great opportunity for local businesses to thrive, (and in today’s horrendous economic climate, I’m actually a fan of this) it makes it that much harder for the nationwide business to succeed.
Unfortunately, it would appear that Google may have gone one step further.
This morning I checked in on my allergy doctor’s website. He’d recently asked me for a few tips to increase his search rank. I was pleased to see his site in the #2 position on Google for the very broad term: allergy clinic. I was so pleased that I asked the good Hack to perform the search and bask in my pride and glory. His response?
i see some sketchy looking allergy doc at number 5
What the hell?
Undaunted, I ask my old friend Luke to give me a third set of eyes on the situation. He too saw the listing in the 5th position. So, what was going on?
Luke lives in Bend, Hack lives in the nether regions of my mind, neither of them live in Portland. Where does Google draw the “local dividing line?” Is it DMA restricted? If I lived 10 miles away, would it be the same? Was Google honestly giving an organic boost to a local listing based on my location? Yes. In fact, Luke’s company had been noticing this of late as well and even had a rather serious sounding meeting to discuss it. He’d pointed out that because of this, “running reports geographic locations in the U.S. is no longer accurate” and that it even applies “when using google.kr, google.fr, etc.”
Fantastic.
Google has just pushed down organic rankings for even more nationwide companies. It’s one thing to have the 10 Pack show up in the 4th position, but giving local companies organic precedence means that many nationwide companies will fall even further below the fold…perhaps even to the dreaded second page of results.
While this isn’t bad for the local business that wants local customers, it does pose an interesting problem for the semi-local business – the local business that wants outside customers. At the web development agency where I work, one of our clients is Legend Homes, they’re a Portland home builder that focuses on green-built homes. So, naturally we try to target Portland and Oregon keywords, but also “green” keywords. In addition, they are looking at selling homes to people who are moving to the area, not necessarily living in the area. With the vast amount of competition in the housing market (real estate, home builders, private sellers, etc), it’s already a challenge to establish solid footing with a lot of these keywords. Now, throw in the fact that listings will appear differently outside of any given location, and you’ll see the problem with Google’s new approach to local search.
Posted on: March 12, 2009 by Syzlak
Over the next few days, I’ll be recapping various sessions from SearchFest09. Today, Local & HyperLocal Marketing
Local & HyperLocal Search Marketing
Let’s start by setting the stage a little bit. While most of my work involves being a snarky asshole on a blog and working on Nationwide PPC, Display and SEO, there was once a time when I was strictly a local marketer. It was ages ago back in 2004, before the IYP was a major player, when the world of local was dominated moreso by the “super-aggregators” like BellSouth, Verizon and SuperPages. Back then, the world was different. You could outrank a competitor by paying more than they did, and Overture (yeah, I know) would actually tell you how much to bid to jump ahead of your rivals. Bruce Springsteen called them glory days, RuPaul called them glory hole days, I called them the days when you could walk into work hungover and still please your clients.
So, although I don’t do a lot of Local Search today, it’s still fascinating to me.
SearchFest 09 - Local...with a guy in the way
First up, Greg Hartnett of Best of the Web.
Surprisingly, his advice is to start your online campaign with the web directories. While I can’t disagree, it does kindof feel like Google saying the best place to start is AdWords. However, to qualify this he encourages us to work only with the good ones.
- Yahoo Directory
- Best of the Web
- Business.com
He also stresses the importance of finding and utilizing local niche directories. This is really one of the best pieces of advice during his entire presentation. One of the things that can really hold back a local campaign is the failure to be seen in the right places.
What’s another great piece of advice? Properly using phone numbers and addresses. This is something that we used back in ‘04 to differentiate the 500 Atlanta Plumbers for which we used to have to write titles and descriptions. One thing that Greg pointed out is to use 1 phone number and address per page, as search engines will be confused as to which phone number/address to associate with the listing. Priceless. This has a two-fold effect. First, you’ve made the engine’s job easier, which is crucial because we all know that the search engines are too stupid to process 4 phone numbers, secondly, you’ve a reason for 3 more pages of content, phone numbers, et cetera to work for you on the engines.
Last thought – Greg seems like he could be a tough guy.
Now, Mary Bowling from seOverflow.com
I have 2 pages of notes on Mary’s presentation, that being said, you’re not getting all of them here. Sorry, but you don’t want to be reading my site for 10 minutes either.
Of the things that I do wish to share, the first head smacker was when Mary introduced an age-old local marketing idea to the crowd – create a geo-targeted tagline. How insanely simple. It’s so simple that you probably know about 30 places around your town (maybe 4 places for my potato farming readers and those stuck out in the middle of Canada 
) that have geo-targeted taglines. Neighborhoods, cities, region, state, anything can be used; just take whatever you want, combined with your service (e.g. Boise’s Famous Pizzeria), and boom goes the dynamite.
The other, slightly less obvious, suggestion Mary had was to pusue citations in whatever form (not just links). Apparently, seeing a business name referenced throughout the web builds trust with Google and other engines. Obviously, it’s easier to pursue a reference or review or note than a link, and although it may not have the strongest end impact, trust is trust, and is best to be built than squandered.
Last thought – Mary needs a PowerPoint consultant
Next, my man, Matt McGee – Small Business SEM
First, Matt recaps what’s happening in the Blogging and SEO session “Blogging is good for search.” Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get on with the conference. Matt’s still got it.
The local blog, Matt and his wife run 4 of them. His wife being a real estate agent, obviously has great reasons for having a local blog. It conveys an inherent knowledge of their city, the schools, restaurants, stores, doings, et cetera. A level of expertise is communicated to the readers, while, most importantly, not plugging any real estate content along the way. This is a common mistake for the small, local blogger – the thought that their blog must actually serve a purpose to their business aside from content, traffic, readership, subscriptions, comments, links, advertising space, references…do I need to continue?
So many small business/local blogs fail on this very first step. I’m a plumber so I need to have a blog all about plumbing, or I’m a dentist so I could write about silly things that happen when I put patients under. Well, yes, I’d read about how you lost your licesnse to Dr., however, you could also just write about the new restaurants going in across the street and capitalize on the traffic that’s interested in those restaurants. The same people that are looking for those new restaurants probably have teeth, and they might live in your neighborhood. Put it together Hoss.
Again, I’ll hold back on Matt’s presentation as I want to save some info for myself; however, this was really the crux of his presentation.
Last thought – Only Matt could make Tri-Cities sound nice
Also, I have to get one plug in here for David Mihm & Patrick Sexton’s GetListed.org. It’s a great little tool for any company with a local office to leverage their local presence.
That’s all for now, Technical SEO will be up soon.
