Offliners: Any Idea How Google Ranks their Local Listings?

MisterMunch · 02-15-2010, 11:04 AM

Hi!

I hope some of you can help me with advice on this. I am going to set up several local listings for different businesses, but I do not have any information on what I need to do to get them to rank higher on the list.

I would also be interrested to know how to drop keywords in there.

Is there any resorces available on this issue (like SEO for loacal search), or do you have any advice? The effort I do will only be when registering at google, but I am also interested to know if other things might help.

Munch

Music City Copy · 02-15-2010, 11:12 AM

Check out David Mihm's stuff on Local Search Ranking Factors. It's awesome.

Local Search Ranking Factors | Google & Yahoo Local SEO Best Practices

killercopy · 02-15-2010, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterMunch

Hi!

I hope some of you can help me with advice on this. I am going to set up several local listings for different businesses, but I do not have any information on what I need to do to get them to rank higher on the list.

I would also be interrested to know how to drop keywords in there.

Is there any resorces available on this issue (like SEO for loacal search), or do you have any advice? The effort I do will only be when registering at google, but I am also interested to know if other things might help.

Munch

Citations will help immensely.

MisterMunch · 02-15-2010, 11:28 AM

Sorry, but what is a Citation? I am total newbee when it comes to local listings

Music City Copy · 02-15-2010, 12:08 PM

A citation is a "mention" of your business on other websites like directories, yellow pages, and any site that has a local focus.

Here's a great resource from OutspokenMedia: Small Business SEO: How To Launch That Web site

Lisa's list of sites to get "citations":

https://my.superpages.com/spweb/prod...siness-listing
https://selfenroll.citysearch.com/
ADD or CHANGE YOUR LISTING
Free Advertising | Get a Free Business Listing on YELLOWPAGES.COM
Find Your Business
Business Listing Management
http://www.openlist.com/update/
http://www.yelp.com/

MisterMunch · 02-15-2010, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Music City Copy

A citation is a "mention" of your business on other websites like directories, yellow pages, and any site that has a local focus.

Here's a great resource from OutspokenMedia: Small Business SEO: How To Launch That Web site

Lisa's list of sites to get "citations":

https://my.superpages.com/spweb/prod...siness-listing
https://selfenroll.citysearch.com/
ADD or CHANGE YOUR LISTING
Free Advertising | Get a Free Business Listing on YELLOWPAGES.COM
Find Your Business
Business Listing Management
http://www.openlist.com/update/
http://www.yelp.com/

So in good old SEO terms, that would be backlinks, only from local directories (or national directories with local subpages). I understand the backlinks/citations would be to the website and not the local listing itself. This is currently out of my controll, as I am only assigned to build the local listings. Still, it is good information. I guess this will also help for local SEO.

freudianslip27 · 02-15-2010, 01:25 PM

I'd also suggest completely filling out the local listing. Put pictures in, a youtube video, and so forth. I even create coupons for my customers (If they don't have a coupon, I just take a picture of something on their site that emphasizes something they do).

Even just claiming your listing will help immensely. I've noticed that it is easier for a longer-established business to grab a top listing.

Matt

Music City Copy · 02-20-2010, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterMunch

So in good old SEO terms, that would be backlinks, only from local directories (or national directories with local subpages). I understand the backlinks/citations would be to the website and not the local listing itself. This is currently out of my controll, as I am only assigned to build the local listings. Still, it is good information. I guess this will also help for local SEO.

Actually. it's not exactly just "backlinks" that count as citations. It's actually "mentions" of the business on local-focused websites. No link is necessary.

So, for example, if there is a listing of your business on Yelp (or any of the others) EVEN WITH NO LINK, that will count as a "citation".

As long as the address and phone number are the same, Google Local Business Center will give it all that good "link juice" as it's called in organic SEO.

A citation is different from a backlink. No link is needed. Just a listing of your business's information.

Hope that helps clarify.....

mezloh · 04-06-2011, 08:26 AM

My most useful tip is to optimize every title (blog post and pages titles), all images (on site and in GP and other sites that allow images), videos, with the keyword (or product name, service) you are targeting followed by - your business - your city,state

Hint: If you use the All In One SEO plugin or similar plugins for wordpress just add your business name, city, state in the titles and then every time you create a post or page this will be added to the end of every title after a | seperator.

I tested this theory out on youtube with my video titles and it only took 5 minutes to take the top 5 spots (5 different videos) in the google video search results. And this was after the videos were posted a couple weeks ago. I went in and changed/optimized the titles like my recommendation above, 5 minutes later I took over the top 5 search results for videos and #2 and #3 organic results plus 3 other top 10 spots. I mean the results showed up without pinging, indexing or anything.

So far 12-14 images in the image search results, A Spot in Google Places, #1 for blog search results, and 5 of the top 10 organic search results out of 2.3 million results.

This goes to show the power of Google's focus on returning relevant local results. I am a one man web consulting business while most of my competitors are medium to large web consulting companies. They are supposed to know better right?

kposs · 04-06-2011, 09:07 AM

Don't neglect the off-site links. I work with a lot of local search sites and keyword anchored backlinks work for me every time.

I create backlinks with all combinations (keyword city, keyword state, keyword city st, keyword city state) starting with the main city/region for the business and working down to smaller cities and regions in the area. I sometimes have 200 to 500+ keywords in rotation.

attorneydavid · 05-10-2011, 08:25 PM

kposs- are you backlinking the places page or the site?

kposs · 05-10-2011, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by attorneydavid

kposs- are you backlinking the places page or the site?

Hi David,

I'm backlinking the site.

thanks,

Valerie

redlegrich · 05-10-2011, 10:58 PM

If you are focused on Places then get Offline Bully. Their step by step process is really stellar. Also, many of the processes and suggestions will work great for image and video SEO. Very good stuff.

02-15-2010, 11:28 AM	#4
MisterMunch Advanced Warrior Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Oslo, Norway Posts: 632 Thanks: 56 Thanked 85 Times in 70 Posts	Re: Offliners: Any Idea How Google Ranks their Local Listings? Sorry, but what is a Citation? I am total newbee when it comes to local listings

02-15-2010, 12:08 PM	#5
Music City Copy don't be a fraud War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 33 Thanks: 5 Thanked 9 Times in 8 Posts	Re: Offliners: Any Idea How Google Ranks their Local Listings? A citation is a "mention" of your business on other websites like directories, yellow pages, and any site that has a local focus. Here's a great resource from OutspokenMedia: Small Business SEO: How To Launch That Web site Lisa's list of sites to get "citations": https://my.superpages.com/spweb/prod...siness-listing https://selfenroll.citysearch.com/ ADD or CHANGE YOUR LISTING Free Advertising \| Get a Free Business Listing on YELLOWPAGES.COM Find Your Business Business Listing Management http://www.openlist.com/update/ http://www.yelp.com/

02-15-2010, 01:25 PM	#7
freudianslip27 Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 1,316 Thanks: 26 Thanked 177 Times in 117 Posts	Re: Offliners: Any Idea How Google Ranks their Local Listings? I'd also suggest completely filling out the local listing. Put pictures in, a youtube video, and so forth. I even create coupons for my customers (If they don't have a coupon, I just take a picture of something on their site that emphasizes something they do). Even just claiming your listing will help immensely. I've noticed that it is easier for a longer-established business to grab a top listing. Matt
	WarriorForum Rules!

04-06-2011, 08:26 AM	#9
mezloh Travis Holzem War Room Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Minnesota Posts: 123 Blog Entries: 4 Thanks: 14 Thanked 18 Times in 15 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Offliners: Any Idea How Google Ranks their Local Listings? My most useful tip is to optimize every title (blog post and pages titles), all images (on site and in GP and other sites that allow images), videos, with the keyword (or product name, service) you are targeting followed by - your business - your city,state Hint: If you use the All In One SEO plugin or similar plugins for wordpress just add your business name, city, state in the titles and then every time you create a post or page this will be added to the end of every title after a \| seperator. I tested this theory out on youtube with my video titles and it only took 5 minutes to take the top 5 spots (5 different videos) in the google video search results. And this was after the videos were posted a couple weeks ago. I went in and changed/optimized the titles like my recommendation above, 5 minutes later I took over the top 5 search results for videos and #2 and #3 organic results plus 3 other top 10 spots. I mean the results showed up without pinging, indexing or anything. So far 12-14 images in the image search results, A Spot in Google Places, #1 for blog search results, and 5 of the top 10 organic search results out of 2.3 million results. This goes to show the power of Google's focus on returning relevant local results. I am a one man web consulting business while most of my competitors are medium to large web consulting companies. They are supposed to know better right?
	[WSO]Video Marketing Supremacy - Video Marketing & Submission Business-in-a-Box Use this easy software and make $$$ with Video Marketing Robot?

04-06-2011, 09:07 AM	#10
kposs Booya! War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: NC, USA Posts: 402 Thanks: 33 Thanked 37 Times in 31 Posts	Re: Offliners: Any Idea How Google Ranks their Local Listings? Don't neglect the off-site links. I work with a lot of local search sites and keyword anchored backlinks work for me every time. I create backlinks with all combinations (keyword city, keyword state, keyword city st, keyword city state) starting with the main city/region for the business and working down to smaller cities and regions in the area. I sometimes have 200 to 500+ keywords in rotation.
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02-15-2010, 11:04 AM	#1
MisterMunch Advanced Warrior Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Oslo, Norway Posts: 632 Thanks: 56 Thanked 85 Times in 70 Posts	Offliners: Any Idea How Google Ranks their Local Listings? Hi! I hope some of you can help me with advice on this. I am going to set up several local listings for different businesses, but I do not have any information on what I need to do to get them to rank higher on the list. I would also be interrested to know how to drop keywords in there. Is there any resorces available on this issue (like SEO for loacal search), or do you have any advice? The effort I do will only be when registering at google, but I am also interested to know if other things might help. Munch

02-15-2010, 11:12 AM	#2
Music City Copy don't be a fraud War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 33 Thanks: 5 Thanked 9 Times in 8 Posts	Re: Offliners: Any Idea How Google Ranks their Local Listings? Check out David Mihm's stuff on Local Search Ranking Factors. It's awesome. Local Search Ranking Factors \| Google & Yahoo Local SEO Best Practices

05-10-2011, 08:25 PM	#11
attorneydavid HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 168 Thanks: 32 Thanked 25 Times in 22 Posts	Re: Offliners: Any Idea How Google Ranks their Local Listings? kposs- are you backlinking the places page or the site?
	Check out Webcentric Local Business Marketing my new offline marketing book based on my experiences promoting my local business. Great for knowing the perspective of a business owner. Only $3.50 on Kindle. -East Memphis Homes.-

05-10-2011, 10:58 PM	#13
redlegrich HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Seattle WA Posts: 373 Thanks: 37 Thanked 81 Times in 75 Posts Contact Info	Re: Offliners: Any Idea How Google Ranks their Local Listings? If you are focused on Places then get Offline Bully. Their step by step process is really stellar. Also, many of the processes and suggestions will work great for image and video SEO. Very good stuff.