The last post I wrote was pertaining to local search and the benefit that it can bring to your business.  I would like to keep with that topic and take it one step further to discuss some ways to assist you in raising your rankings within local search.  Because the competition you will be facing on the local level may be more important to you, it is vital to ensure that you get your listing as close to the top as possible.  As Google accounts for over 71% of all searches made on the web we will focus on improving local rankings via Google Maps; however, much of this information can be echoed on other local listings sites.

The first step, which is the most obvious, is to get listed.  Visit the Google Local Business Center and fill out a profile your business with as much detail as possible.  Google Maps gives you the ability to add photos and videos to your profile which you should absolutely take advantage of.  As discussed in the previous post, local search engines allow you to fill out these business profiles in order to give searchers a preview as to what they will find on your actual web site (assuming that you have one).  Once you have completed your profile do not forget to verify your account.  I recommend doing this via the phone option, as the mail option states that it may take 4-6 weeks which will dramatically slow down the process of boosting your results. 

Make sure that you keep the information in your local listing profile as current as possible as Google gives more weight to those sites who accurately display information across all local search engines  To be more specific, standardize all of the information that you have control over for these online business profiles.  If Google is able to connect all of the dots between your online profiles it “trusts” you more and thus gives you more visibility.  Ensure that you do not have multiple locations, phone numbers, prices, services, etc., listed on other sites.

In addition to making your business profiles uniform, ensure that you include the same information on your website.  Best practices state that you should include the name of your company, the full address, and your tagline on the home page of your site (all in text so that search engines can read it).  This is simply reiterating the point of conforming all of the information that you can control about your business on the web in order to build trust with search engines. 

This may seem obvious, but make sure that you choose the right categories to list your site in when creating profile.  Many local search engines will give you very hefty lists of industries to choose from which can take some time to dig through before you find the proper placement.  Generally, you will begin at a broad level and work your way down to the specific niche that you work in.  A good way to check and see if you are choosing the correct category is to run a test search and see what comes up in the results.  If you see people who you would perceive to be your competition than you have done well, if not, refine your selection.

Follow these simple guidelines and you will be well on your way to better rankings within local search.  If you have any additional suggestions that you would like to offer feel free to share them.  More to come…

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