Raising your Local-Search Visibility

Virtually any merchant would love to appear at the top of the neighborhood local-search results that appear in the top block of major search engines. Showing up first when people are searching for a local product or service gives you a much better chance of getting their attention. After all, people are impatient. They’re not likely to click through to a second page of results to find your business.

The problem is, if you don’t know how local search works, it’s hard to understand how to make that happen. Just try searching for "florist (your city, state)" on any of the major search engines. On the surface, it's hard to see why Rosa’s Flowers appeared above Amy’s FTD Shop and below Andy’s Gifts.

Fortunately, you don’t have to learn some mysterious secret to get a handle on increasing you local search visibility. Let’s look at some pointers that will give you a much better understanding of how local-search optimization at the business listing level works.

Key Factors That Determine Your Local Search Position

While each search engine and local online directory has its own formula for determining what order in which to present results, Virtually all engines weigh the following factors when determining the frequency and order in which to present local-search results. Below, I’ve listed those factors are and explained how they work.

* Alphabetical order

As you’ve probably noticed, when business listings appear in print Yellow Pages or other directories, companies with names at the beginning of the alphabet have a definite advantage, because they appear on the initial pages of the book. (That’s why you’ll still see some plumbing services named "AAAAAAA Plumbing Company" — it’s a form of search optimization that pre-dates the Web!)

On the Web, of course, things are different. Online, alphabetical order is only one of a handful of criteria that dictate how high up on the search results page your business appears in local-search results. But it does have some impact on how your business shows up in search results.

* Distance to center of ZIP code or city name queried

Though the search engines do give some weight to alphabetical order, they also consider how far a business is located from the area a consumer is searching. When the search engine presents its results, businesses whose name starts with "B" might appear much lower on the search results page than one starting with "Z" if business "Z" is closer to area where the consumer is searching. The engines can do this because they “know” where the center of the city is, thanks to the databases they use for mapping and directions. They use this detailed data to estimate how far you’d have to drive to visit the businesses they find for you. . 

If you think about it, this makes sense. From a consumer’s perspective, you don’t just want the right type of business, you want the most accessible one too.  Unfortunately, you can’t control whether this works in your favor or not—you can’t move your business each time someone searches!—but know this is still part of understanding how local searches work.

* Consumer ratings and reviews

Virtually all search engines give consumers a chance to rate businesses (usually on a one to five star scale) when the consumer clicks on a business listing.  And of course, good ratings are a plus for your local business. But did you know that even negative ratings will cause a business to show up closer to the top in local search results pages than those without ratings or reviews?

The truth is, the search engines like listings that have reviews or ratings attached to them. Why? When consumers have rated or reviewed your business, it makes your listing more informative to other consumers (and interesting) — so search engines give added weight to that input. After all, like any other business, search engines always want to put their best foot forward. Since even a negative review can offer valuable information to other consumers, the search engines are going to spotlight reviews if someone takes the trouble to write one.

* Keyword content

If you have a Web site, and you’ve tried to get it near the top of search engine page results, you probably already know that using the right keywords is a critical part of search marketing . So you won’t be surprised to hear local-business listings do better when they include the right keywords, too.

Keywords help search engines decide whether your content is relevant and important to the consumer who’s making a search. However, few businesses realize that their business listings will appear more frequently and higher in the results of local searches if they include the right keywords in their listing. For example, if a consumer searches using the keywords "anniversary flowers in Chicago," florists that included the keyword "anniversary" in their online listing will rank more highly than those that just include themselves in a general "florist" category.

Make Local Search Rules Work For You

So, as you’ve seen above, it's possible to change your local search engine ranking significantly—and attract the interest of countless local buyers--if you know the rules.

So take advantage of what you know! Go out there and get customers to rate and write reviews of your business (remember, they don't have to be long). And when it comes to links, keywords and other tools to make sure you connect with motivated, ready-to-buy online consumers, Localeze can help. We're here for you when you're ready to enrich your listings with keywords that uniquely identify your business and what it offers. 

Ultimately, you'll find that it's easy, and well worth the effort, to improve your local-search visibility. After all, local consumers are searching because they're ready to buy. Make sure you’re there when they come looking for you.

Defining Two Types of Local Searches: Recovery and Discovery
by Gib Olander

When it comes down to it, there are two main types of local search queries that a search engine needs to be able to handle. John Battelle’s book The Search describes them as follows: “This perfect search also has perfect recall. It knows what you’ve seen and can distinguish between a journey of discovery, where you want to find something new, and recovery when you want to find something you’ve seen before.”

In this article, we’ll explain how these two searches work and why they’re both important for businesses.

Recovery searches

There are many times when people using a local-search application are trying to recover a bit of information or the address of a business that they know exists. It’s easy for consumers to find an unhelpful recovery search dissatisfying because they know the item exists.

A 2002 survey of search-engine users by iProspect drives home the importance of effectively fulfilling recovery searches. The iProspect survey noted: “If a search is deemed unsuccessful by the user, 27.2% of users immediately switch to another site/search engine.”

The problem is that in today’s world, nearly 50% of all businesses do nothave a Web presence. Without a Web site or HTML-based profile, these local businesses don’t have any listing that the various spiders, bots and slurps of the world can find. In other words, if left to their own devices, the search portals would fail at a recovery search.

To address this problem, search applications have begun licensing databases (such as the Localeze local search repository). These databases contain the “base” information on all US business locations, whether they have a Web presence or not, allowing a search application to fulfill recovery searches. The business attributes that make up “base” data center around business names, business address, phone numbers and business classifications.

Discovery searches

The second type of search, a discovery search, is much more difficult to address but it is just as vital for a successful local-search application. In the local-search sense, a “discovery search” is when a person has a need and knows where, geographically, she or he wants a product or service. But the user doesn’t know which business to turn to in order to get that particular need met.

For example, consider a person who wants to find a one-hour dry cleaning service in ZIP code 60606. This person knows what they want (one hour dry cleaning) and knows where they want it (ZIP code 60606). However, he or she doesn’t know WHOprovides that particular service in that ZIP code. After all, all dry cleaners do not provide one-hour service. The person using the local-search application is trying to discover the answer to her or his question.

Answering discovery-type local search queries poses problems for any search application without a complete local-search database. This problem again stems from the fact that most businesses still do not have a Web presence.

Those businesses and their unique qualities are invisible to a Web-crawled index. To successfully fulfill a discovery-type local search, an application needs more than just the name, address and phone number.

A local-search application needs to understand the fabric of a business and identify the particular thing that makes a business unique. People making local-search queries want context that allows them to understand what each business does to distinguish itself from other businesses in their same category and same geographic space.

The information needed to understand what is unique about a business range from the simple — hours open and payment types accepted — to the more complex attributes like a business’ specialties and the products it carries.

Does your local data work?

A local-search application should have an understanding that there are two types of local-search queries to answer. This level of technology will help you evaluate the quality and depth of your index or database. Ask yourself:

• Can you answer both a recovery or discovery query?
• Will your application allow your users to recover information they know exists today? For example, can they recover the phone number of their favorite pizza place or dry cleaner?
• Is your search index deep and complete enough to answer unusual queries?
• Will your search result offer a user relevant data beyond a category list of businesses?
• Can you help your users discover the one-hour dry cleaner in their neighborhood?

If you can’t answer these questions with a “yes,” then the Localeze local-search database will help.

If you have a business location, or you represent a business with physical locations, please take some time to evaluate whether or not you have made enough information public for a search application to find you for recovery and discovery searches. If you don’t, you could be discouraging users from returning to your site rather than building their trust.