Simple Tips To Set The Stage For Local SEO In 2015

After Google's most recent local algorithm update, the rules have changed for local SEO. Columnist Greg Gifford discusses how you can do well in local search in 2015.

The year is almost over, and many businesses are starting to look forward to 2015 and discuss their marketing plans. Luckily, David Mihm, the local search guru at Moz, just released his annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey, which helps give us local marketers more insight into which ranking factors matter the most.
The survey shows a definite shift toward more traditional web ranking factors. Last year’s Local Search Ranking Factors survey had Google Places and Citations weighted heavily, but this year’s study shows that on-site signals and links are the most powerful factors.
This shift is consistent with Google’s recent local ranking algorithm update, Pigeon. Many Local SEOs claimed they weren’t hit by Pigeon – but it’s more likely that, because they took a more wholesome approach to local SEO, their sites simply had more authority to begin with.
The most important point we try to hammer home to potential clients is that you can’t fool the nerds at Google. Everything you do, both on and off your site, should be working toward the end goal of making your user experience awesome… not trying to fool Google into placing you higher on search results pages.

So, taking what we’ve been able to figure out about the Pigeon update and adding in the results from the 2014 Local Search Ranking Factors survey, here are two simple tips to help you set the stage for Local Search success in 2015:

1. Be Awesome
2. Earn Awesome Links

Yes, it’s really that simple… but at the same time, it’s really not that easy for local businesses. Take a look at your competitors in your vertical – nearly every website has the same or similar content, and most sites don’t have that many inbound links.

Okay, So How Are You Supposed To Be Awesome?

The best thing you can do for Local Search success in 2015 is to take all the energy you put into trying to fool Google and instead use that energy to make your site better.
Take a long, hard look at your site and look at your competitors’ sites. What can you do to be better? You know that your potential customers will be looking at multiple sites, so make your site the best in your vertical.
Make sure you’re avoiding these common pitfalls – they’re all basic, but we still see far too many sites tripping up on these:

1. No Home Page Content. Your customers (and search engines) need to know what you’re all about. If your home page has a slider/banner and just a few sentences, you need to add more useful content there immediately.
2. Only A Few Sentences On A Page. Your customers (and search engines) are checking your website for useful, relevant information. If you offer a product or service, don’t just say, “We sell X, call us for more information!” Today’s shoppers want immediate information, so you need to pack every page with useful content.
3. Spamming Keywords. Far too many websites rely on this outdated tactic. You’re not going to rank well everywhere in your state simply because you listed out 100 cities separated by commas on your home page. Does that huge list of cities provide useful information for customers? No. Does it help you rank in Google? Definitely not. Get rid of the junk and populate your site with relevant, informative content instead.
4. Awful Title Tags. You’ve got about 500 pixels of width for your title tags; anything longer will be truncated when it’s displayed in search results. The title tag should summarize the page – it shouldn’t be a huge chunk of keywords you’re trying to rank for. Put your primary keyword phrase at the beginning and your business name at the end. If you’ve got 100 keywords stuffed into your title tag, you just look desperate.

Don’t Forget Your Local Optimization

With on-site signals now carrying so much weight, it’s more important than ever to have your local optimization ducks in a row. It won’t do you any good to bang out a ton of citations if your site doesn’t include the local signals that Google expects it to have.
Again, these are old-school basics, but we hardly see any websites correctly optimizing for local areas:

1. Include City/ST in your title tag. Remember, the title tag is incredibly important for optimization, and including your city and state is an important signal for local relevancy.
2. Include City/ST in your H1 heading. It doesn’t have to be the entire heading in and of itself — what’s important here is to include your city and state in the page heading to further show local relevancy.
3. Include City/ST in your content. Far too many sites forget to include City/ST information inside the site content. Optimizing for local search won’t work unless you’re talking about your local area in your content.
4. Include City/ST in your alt text on images. It’s amazing how many times we see sites that don’t include alt text. Remember, Google can’t see what’s in your images, so alt text helps provide a better understanding of your page content. Including City/ST information can really help boost local relevancy.
5. Include City/ST in your URL. If you’ve got the ability to edit your URL structure, try to include your city and state information in your URLs. Again, this can go a long way toward providing a stronger local signal to both customers and Google. Important Note: if you’re going to update your URLs, don’t forget to set up 301 redirects so that the old address is permanently pointed to the new one.

These are all just specific tactics to help with the main goal: to make your site more awesome. Stop thinking about how to make your site rank, and start thinking about how to make your site the best in your niche. That’s how you’re going to get your site to rank better and convert more visitors.

soucre:
SearchEngineLand.com
Greg Gifford

Google Pigeon Update - A Collection of Expert Opinions

Each year Google's algorithms are changed between 500-600 times. Most of these changes are minor. Occasionally Google will roll out a major change, such as; "Panda" and "Penguin". 

For digital marketers knowing when these change occored helps to explain changes in ranking and website traffic. Resulting in improved search engine optimization. 

For a complete list and description of all Googles updates click here. 

Googles latest update has been called "Pigeon" due to of a lack of an official name from Google. The named was dubbed by Search Engine Land on Jul 31st. The name was decided because the update is a local search update and pigeons tend to fly back home. 

According to Google the local search algorithm will work deeper with sites web search capabilities. Local sites are already experiencing improved visibility in Google Search Engine results:

"It looks like Yelp and other local directory-style sites are benefiting with higher visibility after the Pigeon update, at least in some verticals. And that seems logical since, as Google said, this update ties local results more closely to standard web ranking signals. That should benefit big directory sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor — sites that have stronger SEO signals than small, individual restaurants and hotels are likely to have." 
                                                                                                          ~Search Engine Land

Nicole Hess Senior SEO Strategist at Delphic Design said to Search Engine Land on Monday:

Nicole Hess

"After reading about the potentially spammy results being brought in by the newest Google local algorithm update, I immediately began wondering the affect of it on several of my clients.

First and foremost, a national client of mine has hundreds of locations that conduct business independently and need organic traffic to produce valuable business leads.  I began digging into the data to spot any trends that already may be happening or developing and take action on it.

In reviewing the local rankings pack, I did not find spammy results creep into listings; although, I have seen this in some searches – such as “Casino” and “Interior Design” – but not in this client’s space.

My three primary observations:

1. Locations not appearing in local results: There were a few locations that are not appearing in the local pack of results, though at some previous point did appear there. The average drop in traffic for a location that is no longer in the local pack is 16% less traffic month over month (and this is in a good season where overall organic traffic is increasing).
2. Locations appearing in local results, less traffic: Of the 50 locations I reviewed, seven are receiving less organic traffic month over month, though still rank in the Local results and have the same organic rankings. Five of the seven locations rank second in a pack of seven local results and for each of these, there are paid ads with star ratings that appear above the local pack.
3. Locations getting more traffic: Ten of the 50 locations I reviewed are receiving more organic traffic, on average 24% more organic traffic than the same week of the previous month.  Each location ranks in the local pack and most rank No. 1 or No. 2 in the local pack. Their organic rankings have also maintained steady positions month over month, so that factor can be eliminated.

Also, while there were still paid ads, most listings had paid ads that didn’t have star ratings to detract from the organic results. Noting that this is a good season for the client where organic traffic is improving in general, I’m not ascribing all the lift to the local pack rankings, though the lift in traffic for these locations is greater than the month over month lift in organic traffic overall.

So it appears there has been some favorable shifts caused by Pigeon driving more organic traffic.

From what I have witnessed, some local ranking shift has occurred and is driving more organic traffic to several locations. Being out of the local pack correlates with a loss of organic traffic for a few locations. A loss of organic traffic is also occurring where listings are competing against paid ads that have star ratings."

Mike Blumenthal, search Expert and Author of Google Places and Local Search Blog Blumenthals added: 

"To a large degree the jury is still out on the what, whys and outcomes of the recent Local algo update. Things have been changing since the roll out Thursday evening and are just now stabilizing.

Mike Blumenthal

Things we do know: there seem to be fewer seven-pack results than before although the drop is not as big as first reported as Google seems to have changed the impact of some local query modifiers. It was originally reported as a sixty percent drop in MozCast, and by their metric it was. However many of their search queries no longer seem to function the same way.

Things that seem to be “more so” since the change include:

• Localization of geo search results appear to have increased based on user’s location.
• Brands appear to have benefited with additional listings in the pack results and more three-packs.

The update does appear to have reduced duplication between the organic and local results. After the October 2013 update that ended blended results, a number of sites were seeing both organic and local pack results. Those seem to have been reduced to one or the other.

The directories, at least anecdotally, appear to have benefited from the change.

On many searches the radius of the “view port” of the Map has changed. This obviously leads to an effective ranking shake up as the businesses visible within the view have changed. On some searches we are seeing cross geo border expansion of the port and on others a reduction in the radius, totally excluding the locations in the burbs.

Whether this is a cause or effect, we simply can’t yet tell but it does lead to turmoil in the rankings.

One could group this update with a number of other recent Google updates that have reduced visual “distractions” from the main search results; loss of video snippets, the loss of author photos, reduction in the number of review stars shown, etc. etc.

The impact is still unclear; we will have to wait for analytics data to accumulate to assess the net of the change both specifically and more broadly."

Since the release, savvy search marketers noticed fluctuations and changes in the quality of the search results since – some may call it Pigeon version 1.1 has been released.

One example was the embarrassing NY hotel listing showing Expedia, which was fixed sometime last Friday.

Before:

After:

When asked if Google had made a small update to their local search algorithm, Google would not confirm or deny the change. Google did say that they “don’t have a specific update to announce here.” Google added “we probably won’t detail all the changes to local search algorithms as we go.”

I doubt we will hear from Google about new local search algorithm updates in the future based on this last statement.

Enjoy a Brief Power point:

Compiled By:
Josh Martin

Sources:
SearchEngineLand.com
Moz.com
Marketing Day.com