Web Essentials

SEO Experts weigh in

Recently there was a survey asking SEO Experts a bunch of different questions. One of them was what they thought was the most important factors they recommended people focus on to get good results for local businesses on Google Places. I thought it was pretty interesting (and not only because these are the same things we focus on when we work on our clients websites.) Notice that some of these SEO factors are not on the Google Places page at all. Some are not even on the client’s website either. The notes in between the SEO recommendations are mine.

Here are the Most Recommended SEO Factors to Focus on for Good Results in Google Places

• Physical Address in City of Search (Place Page)

This is kind of obvious. If your address is in one city, but you want to rank in another, you will not do as well. Basic SEO says we’re looking to show the most relevant information and Google sees the address in the proper city as relevant. What can you do if you serve more than one city? A few things. One is to make sure the rest of your factors include the city name you want to rank for. Another is to get an address in each city.

• Manually Owner-verified Place Page (Place Page)

This seems like it would be something everybody has done, but you’d be surprised how many Google Places pages have not been claimed by their owners. Let’s just say it’s a lot. If you haven’t claimed your page, then it’s a good bet you haven’t added anything else to your Google Places page and for sure haven’t optimized it or kept it fresh.

• Proper Category Associations (Place Page)

Sometimes this gets confusing for many people. It is totally easy once you realize how people search for you. Just make sure you know your keywords and your business. What makes you the most amount of new customers?

• Volume of Traditional Structured Citations (Local Directories, Data Aggregators) (Off-Place/Off-Site)

This definitely is important! And it’s the first one that is ongoing. The first step is to get citations at local directories other than Google Places. Yellow Pages, The key is to make sure that the proper information is at each and that they match. If that happens, the next step is almost never done by business owners. We actually only do it for highly competitive businesses. It takes awhile, but isn’t too expensive to add. We call it the local blitz.

• Crawlable Address Matching Place Page Address (Website)

Easy to do. Just make sure there is text on your website that is an exact match for the way the address is on your Google Places page. You can also add a link to your hcard/vcard on the front page. That looks like it is going to be more important as time goes on and and it is an easy way to get your info crawlable.

• PageRank / Authority of Website Homepage / Highest Ranked Page (Website)

See this is another one of those things that shows you it is all connected. If your website has good SEO and ranks well, it helps your Places page. So many people think I’ll just make this great looking page and then I don’t need to do anything else. Then later they wonder why they get no business from their site.

• Quality of Inbound Links to Website (Off-Place/Off-Site)

Backlinking, getting more links pointing to your site, is key in all aspects of SEO. This is one of those never ending tasks, especially in competitive businesses.

• Crawlable Place Page Phone Number (Website)

It’s funny, but this is so easy to do and yet I find many businesses that get a special phone for different ads and none match. Even some of the Local Directories provide phone numbers. There’s a better way to track and it doesn’t hurt your SEO or your Places rankings.

• Local Area Code on Place Page (Place Page)

For so long we were told that people would be more likely to call an 800 number than a local number, and in some cases that may still be true. But to get local business and be at the top of local search in Google Places, you have to have a local area code in your phone number.

• City, State in Places Landing Page Title (Website)

This is another easy one to do, but also to mess up. The clue in all of this is be sure they match up. If you use “CA” in one, don’t use “ca.” or “Ca” or “Calif” or “California” in the others. Simple for the pages, but also be sure it is the same in the “Title”. Also nothing says that the landing page has to be the front/home page of your website. Hint: think of tracking.

Anyway, interesting survey results from some of the top SEO guys. Especially interesting is that Social Media has not made it yet on this list. Knowing that social influence has entered the Google algorithm, I would expect that if this survey was taken just a few months later Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and perhaps LinkedIn would be important parts of it. It definitely is an important part of our marketing and our SEO. Considering that Facebook and YouTube are starting to get more traffic than any search engine, except perhaps Google (for now) and that Twitter has become a major source for news searches. It will become (if it isn’t already) a major player in SEO for Google Places and for your website.

I would add just one last comment. Make sure you completely fill out the Places page, make sure that your website and Places page are linked, make sure the data is accurate, make sure you get testimonials from happy customers online, make sure your SEO on both your site and your Places page is good and lastly keep adding lots of links.

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