10 Ways to Boost Your Local Search Rankings

 

In Monday’s blog post, we shared an article from comSource, a data aggregation firm (the Nielsen ratings of the internet) which reported a dramatic increase in smartphone map app users in the U. S.  We highlighted this article as one more example of the significance of accurate, up-to-date local business profiles.

Another recent article, this one from Search Engine Watch, reported results of SEO expert David Mihm’s annual Local Search Factor Ranking List. Mr. Mihm compiles this list from the feedback of 33 optimization experts, and this year’s list examined a total of 98 factors.

While it would be tedious to analyze all 98, the author of the SEW article highlighted 10 actionable items that business owners can tackle themselves:

  1. Make sure your physical address is listed in the city where you want to be found. Sounds simple, but this is a detail that can be overlooked.
  2. Manually “verify” (or “claim”) your ownership of the company’s Google Business page. This step allows you to edit your profile, and access statistics.
  3. Assign proper categories to your business.
  4. Use logical categories for your business, and use standard terms. If you’re a house painter, use categories such as “painting” or “remodeling,” not obscure terms like “surface artist,” which can get you overlooked by search engine crawlers.
  5. Have your address listed on your company website, and make sure that address is crawlable (listed as text, not embedded in an image).
  6. Have a well-ranked (page rank) company website.
  7. High-quality inbound links to your company website.
  8. Have your phone number listed on your company website, and make sure that phone number is crawlable (again, in text form, not embedded in an image).
  9. Have an accurate local area code listed on your Google Places page.
  10. Have your city and state listed in the page title for your Google Places landing page.

For more information on local search marketing and maintaining healthy business profiles, reach out to us online or, give us a call at (281) 816-6932 or toll-free at (855) BIG-SPLASH.

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