Five Non-Local SEO Tips

It seems that everything has gone local with with search engine results lately. With Google, if you don’t rank in the top three for many queries, you are buried below seven local businesses and below the fold. Of course, you are also buried beneath the Adwords ads and the Related Searches, too.

This is a boon to local businesses as they now have the opportunity to appear on page one of the Google serps through their Google Places profiles. Of course, this is a big, fat middle finger pointed at non-local web-only sites without the local offices and locations that many of the big chains can leverage. (Image below)

Emphasis on local means fewer organic results appearing above the fold.

So, what is a web-based site to do? Here are five SEO tips that I have come up with to cope with this love affair with local that Google is having. I’m hoping that readers will contribute some of their own.

1. Stay in the Top 3: Yeah, this is a no-brainer, but Google has put the pressure on more than ever before to keep top rankings. They’ve always been the goal, but now they are a must. You can’t be content with being in the top five anymore.

2. Leverage Universal Search: Remember that all kinds of media can appear in the serps – video, images, news, etc. Optimize for all. You might not appear in the top three, but your images or videos might appear somewhere on the page. The more exposure for you, the better. (See image below)

3. Go for the Longtail: The local search results appear to come up more frequently for less specific queries like "tires" and not for more specific information like "snow tires" so optimize around keyword phrases for related queries. (See image below)

4. Cozy up to your PPC person: Do some research using Google Correlate and Google Trends and find out where you might want to target local PPC campaigns. This is a perfect example of SEO and PPC working together. For example, according to Google Trends, Burlington, VT would be the top city searching for "snow tires" so that might be a good target for local PPC if you sell that type of tire. And, of course, Google will be more than happy to take your ad money!

5. Submit a feed: If you offer items that qualify for Google Merchant Center, create and submit feeds so that you have the opportunity to appear in the Google Shopping results. Frequently these are at the bottom of the page, but sometimes they are higher up. Again, it’s one more opportunity for exposure on page one of results. (See image below)

Local search results don’t appear to kick in on more specific queries.

OK, that’s what I have come up with so far. I’d love to hear ideas from readers, so please, post them here.

Originally published on SEO In the Desert

There are 14 Comments. Add Yours.

Aceh Software Store
June 27, 2011 at 12:29 pm

I have read this post a few days and I trust and very nice info about seo tips also thanks for sharing it to me
Tyent
December 7, 2011 at 10:35 pm

I’ll be incorporating a lot of these tips with my site. Many thanks.
AustinSeoServices
June 25, 2011 at 11:35 am

This is great advice, Richard. Google’s injection of these Places results has really upset some of our SEO and SEM clients. Our Austin online marketing company has a lot of B2B clients with global sales who are being pushed down in the search rankings by much less meritorious pages just because they are local.

And there’s no way for people who don’t want local results to configure Google to turn this off. I suppose Google is doing this to reward Places listings and local advertisers, but this is damaging the quality of their search results.
Guest
October 18, 2011 at 12:20 pm

Thank you for the tips and I will continue observing Google and see what are the possible things business can do as far as SEO.
Marie Walker
July 4, 2011 at 2:26 am

My web site http://personalpresenceni.co.uk/ is still in it’s imfancy and I am avidly reading all topics giving any assistance in the area of SEO. so thanks for your article
Brad - Gold Coast SEO
July 3, 2011 at 4:54 am

Some great points in your article Richard, I especially like using AdWords to further research a main term to help find those phrases with lower competition.

I thing I have recently noticed is that Google is also starting to show local results for longer tail search phrases, eg, targeting a location with review in the search phrase didn’t not show the local business listings, but now Google has also started to show them, making more long tail difficult in some industries such as accommodation difficult.
Business Mind
April 23, 2012 at 4:27 pm

Great SEO tips! However, some of the strategies must be alter due to the latest update in Google.
Gym Rank
June 23, 2011 at 12:09 pm

Really, Useful Tips for Local Google SEO which is assurance to be in top 3 if followed accurately.

Thanks – Web AllWays
Chris
June 23, 2011 at 12:13 pm

Very interesting article.Thanks!

I have been waiting for almost a year now to be placed on google place, we have sent for 2 different passwords to verify the listing but still no joy!

Any ideas?or is there anyone you can contact?

thanks,

Chris
Rika Susan
June 23, 2011 at 12:31 pm

Thanks for sharing these excellent SEO tips. We can’t focus everything on the local stuff, so it is good to get some balance. These are very helpful.
Jason Feldman
June 23, 2011 at 12:33 pm

I’m very frustrated with google places myself. It keeps creating duplicate listings for us. I have ensured that all the citations list our name and address the same, engaged multiple people including a google exec to try and get this resolved. No luck. And the weird part about it is that are places profile with 3 reviews (none on google, only pulled from other parts around the web), ranks much higher then our google profile with 17 reviews. I have claimed both listings, they are identical, reported the problem to google umpteen times over the past 3 months….

still waiting

Jason Feldman, Feldman Feldman & Associates, PC
Phil Franckel
June 23, 2011 at 12:58 pm

As a Google user, I find Google places very annoying. I have always used Google to search for information and have never used Google as a yellow page directory. When I need a yellow page directory, I use one of the yellow page sites.

This change for Google is a major change to their brand and I think is a big mistake. I had no objection to the original placement of the Google local listings which was originally at the top right of the page and later at the top of the page with the local listings to the right of the map. However, replacing the natural search results with Google local listings has turned Google into a yellow page directory. I believe this is a golden opportunity for a new search engine to replace Google. I certainly would like to find a Google replacement. I’ll stick to the yellow page sites to find local businesses.
Phil Franckel
June 23, 2011 at 1:08 pm

I just updated Firefox to Firefox v5 and lost the Google toolbar because it is not compatible with the new version of Firefox. In its place, I found a Foxit toolbar which is using Ask.com for searches. I noticed that Ask.com is not using local listings, so I will try using Ask.com for my searches. If I like it, Google will have lost at least one customer. I’m sure that there are lots of people unhappy with seeing local listings instead of real search results.

A suggestion for Google in case Google reads this article and the comments is to create a big yellow Google Places button that users can click on when they want to see local search results. This would allow Google to essentially create a new add-on brand instead of ruining their brand. When Google introduces new technology, they should consult with a brand consultant. I’m available or they could consult with Ries & Ries which they can easily afford.
Guest
June 23, 2011 at 1:11 pm

We love Google Places, we work with local businesses and other businesses that are having issues with their Place page. Duplicate issues, not ranking issues, optimized issues. Happy to help – Yep, we love that Google has put so much weight on the local search results.

One of the best articles on this subject. Click Here!



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Five Non-Local SEO Tips

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