CITATIONS: A Most Important Part of Local Search Optimisation

Thursday 27 August 2009

One of the best ways to improve your Local Search Ranking is by splashing citations for your business around the Internet.

What is a Citation?
In the context of Local Search Marketing, a citation is simply your business details (name, address, telephone number etc.) displayed on another website. Google especially, gives a lot of weight to any citations it finds. If you have some knowledge of organic search engine optimisation, you'll understand the importance of backlinks - citations are analogous to backlinks in Local SEO.

Getting Citations
Although you can get citations from any website on the Internet, you should be aiming for those that rank well in search engines - a citation on Auntie Maud's blog won't make much difference to your ranking whereas a citation on your industry body's website will. You are aiming for quality over quantity and websites associated with your industry are even better. A quick email or phone call to the website owner is all you need.

As a sidenote, if your business has a website, make sure your contact details are displayed on every page, perhaps in the footer or sidebar. In effect this is citing yourself but it really does help your rankings.

Finally, the best source of citations are online business directories such as Yell.com, TouchLocal and BView. Most allow you to submit your details for free. The only difficulty is sorting the wheat from the chaff. There are thousands of directories and most of them won't really improve your rankings very much, so choosing which ones to spend time on can be a little overwhelming. I will write a post in the near future about the best directories to submit your details to but in the meantime, the three listed above are a good start.

Tip #1: You Don't Need a Website To Rank High In Local Search

Wednesday 26 August 2009

A popular misconception about local search engine marketing is that you need a business website get a decent ranking. I've even heard one person (who shall remain nameless) say that you can't get listed by Google and Yahoo if you don't have a website.

Nothing could be further from the truth - here's some screenshots to quash this line of thinking:



Both screenshots show the local search results for the phrase "builders maidstone", the first being from Yahoo! and the second from Google. The number one business in both cases does not have a website, yet they sit atop the rest, many of which do have websites.

Although a business website can be very useful (and maybe essential, depending on your line of work) to your overall marketing strategy, it is not essential to be listed in the major local search engines.

Yahoo! UK Local Business Listing HowTo

Sunday 16 August 2009

Getting listed in Yahoo's Local Business Directory is a 2-step process:
  1. Submit your details
  2. Confirm your listing
Then it's around a 5 week wait (although this can vary) before you start to appear in local searches.

Submit Your Details
Yahoo! have outsourced the management of their UK Local Business Listings to a company called Infoserve. These are the guys you need to submit your details to. Click here for the submission form, fill it in and wait for a phone call.

Confirm Your Listing
A day or two after submitting your business details, Infoserve will give you a call to "confirm your listing". They'll go through your details with you to make sure everything is correct.

Actually, what they're really doing is trying to sell you sponsored advertising space on the Yahoo website. Be courteous, listen what they have to say then firmly tell them that all you want is the free listing. It's important to hear them out because they are the people that will ultimately get you listed. Some of their operators can be a bit pushy but most will be quite reasonable. For some industries the paid lisings can be a great marketing method but for most the free listing will suffice.

Wait
Now all you have to do is wait a variable amount of time before you appear in the lisings (it all depends on when they are next updated). From my experience, this can be between 2 to 6 weeks.

The Most Important Element of Your Google Local Listing

Monday 10 August 2009

To benefit those readers who don't have a lot of time, before I begin with waffle I'll answer the question in the title - the single most important element of your Google Local listing is your business' name.

Although there are many other elements that combine to make a successful listing in Google Local, the wording in the Company/Organisation box can be the difference between a good listing and a great one.

A Real-World Example
To give an example of just how important it is, I'd like to share with you a listing I created for my web design business, based in Nuneaton.

My business is named Shore Dutton Internet Consultancy, and my Google Local listing was ranked in around fourth place for terms relating to website design and Nuneaton. I'd been running a few experiments and had created a second listing for the same business except for a few alterations in the address and a change in the business name to Shore Dutton Web Site Design.

This simple change catapulted my second listing into the top spot for the same terms ("website design nuneaton"), as can be seen in the screenshot below:



You'll notice that my original listing is ranked in seventh place despite the fact that it has multiple reviews, images and citations from authoritative websites. The new listing has no reviews, images or citations, yet sits in the top spot.

You'll also notice that all of the top five results have a variation of the phrase "web[site] design" in their title.

Conclusion
So, how can we put this knowledge to good use?

Whatever business you're in, make sure that keywords associated with your business are included in Google Local's Company/Organisation field. For example, if you are a plumber and you're legal business name is "Joe Bloggs & Son", your Google Local listing might read "Joe Bloggs & Son Plumbers and Heating Specialists".

In addition, be sure to use terms that people will use when searching for your business. The term "Building Services" may sound better for your legal business name, but the term " Builder" is a lot more relevent to your audience.

A simple tweaking of your business' name can result in a massive increase in exposure.

NOTE: A word of warning - If you have already claimed your Google Local listing, a change to your business name removes your listing from all search results until Google confirm the change (by sending a confirmation code via snail mail). This can take a few weeks to complete.