2. Introduction to Local Business ProfilesMany online directories and local search engines are adding more
dimensions of information onto a business’s basic listing. Providing as
much detailed information about your company as possible through these
profiles could be beneficial in terms of converting users of those sites
into new customers for you. As you pass through each local search engine
and directory to check and update your listings, notice what other
opportunities may be available to you to enhance your business’s
information (see Figure 4). Such enhanced profile information can include things like
hours/days of operation, products and manufacturers carried, special
offers, years in business, photos, video, slogans, business categories,
keywords, certifications, menus, amenities, and payment methods, among
others.
Add the URL pointing to your company’s website to any/all of these
local information websites. Nearly all local information websites
NoFollow their links, so they do not
have a direct SEO benefit, but you do want to make it easy for visitors
to these websites to get to your site. You’ll notice that some directories and search engines are
compiling all of this profile information from a variety of sources, so
be aware that information supplied to one local information site could
automatically begin appearing in many other places. We will discuss the subject of optimizing your local business
profiles in much more detail shortly. 3. Local Agency ManagementSome companies may be overwhelmed by the prospect of updating and
monitoring information through the many avenues we listed earlier. For a
small business with just a few locations, the main work is in the
initial integration and updates—thereafter you just need to periodically
check and intervene as necessary. (You don’t have to do your updating
all at once. You could make a list of the most important online sites
where your information may appear and methodically work through them as
time allows.) But checking and updating information for dozens to thousands of
locations would not really be feasible to do by hand. In those cases, it
would probably be sufficient to just focus on the top Yellow Pages, the
business information aggregators, and the top search engines—from those
information sources, your proper information would likely trickle down
to all the rest. If your company has a substantial number of
brick-and-mortar stores, you could contact each of the top Yellow Pages,
aggregators, and search engines, and offer to supply them with a
periodic feed of your business listings. If you’re still overwhelmed at the prospect of handling the update
duties we previously outlined, a number of companies have sprung up to
provide a management service for local profile information; if your
business has many locations, you should review the cost/benefit of
outsourcing the management of your data to one of these specialists.
Here are the top three: 4. Optimizing Your Website for Local Search EnginesIf you have been around for a while, your business probably is
already included in the local search engines, since they compile data
from the aggregators and other online directories. Once your business’s
listing is loaded into the local engines, you must determine how to get
your business to rank higher when users search for your industry’s
keywords. On the next few pages, we will outline things you can do on
your website to prepare it for better rankings in local search
engines. All of the basic SEO factors can come into play and can help to
influence your rankings. These factors include having good, specific
text in each page’s title, H1 tags, meta description, page content,
IMG
ALT attributes, inbound links,
and so forth. But some things are specific to local search, such as the
following: If your company has multiple locations, it is not necessary to
have a standalone website or subdomain (e.g.,
loc1.example.com,
loc2.example.com,
loc3.example.com, etc.) for each outlet. In
fact, it is probably better if you don’t, since each business
location would likely produce similar website content. However, it
probably would be helpful for you to create a separate profile web
page on your site for each distinct location. Many sites with chain
outlets will list all outlets on one page—that is not optimal. It is
better to have one page be about one store location and another
about a different location so that you can leverage all the on-page
elements to create a page focused on that location. Have your page title, H1 tags, and content include the
business name, type of the business, and location name—for example,
“Acme Café: French Restaurant in Boston, MA.” For multiple
locations, make the title different on each location’s page. Include
the neighborhood, street address, area nicknames, and other
location-distinguishing information. The home page and/or Contact Us page should have the main
location’s basic listing information (street address, city, state,
zip code, phone numbers, etc.) displayed somewhere in the HTML text.
You should also add the basic listing information in the
hCard microformat, which is a method for
encoding address information on web pages for this purpose (learn
more about it at http://microformats.org/). If
you have multiple locations, display the basic information on each
location’s profile page. Place differentiating information on each store’s pages,
including a map, hours of operation, brand names, product photos,
“in business since x" information, menus with
prices (if it is a restaurant), ratings (if applicable),
certifications, bonded status, and similar information. Of course,
include specifics about the physical location, as we previously
mentioned. Be aware of your proximity to your city’s
centroid (the location that the search engine
defines as the center of the city). This is likely something that
you cannot change at this point, but if you were considering moving
your company to a new location, take into account where your city’s
centroid is located, and try to find a place closer to that point.
Many of the map search engines will display the businesses located
closest to the centroid first for any particular category or keyword
search. Note that this is something that all the search engines now
downplay as a factor, as it is less important than it used to
be. Proximity works the same way for zip codes. If a user searches
for businesses within a specific zip code, the businesses closest to
the zip code area centroid will likely be displayed first in the
list. Note, though, that zip code searches are not commonly
performed in the United States (you can verify this with your
favorite keyword research tool). It is very nearly a secret that good user ratings are one of
the biggest factors for ranking high in a number of the local search
engines, particularly Google Maps. Google Maps has compiled ratings
from many other directory sources to get a universal rating for a
business, so having high
average ratings in Judy’s Book, CitySearch, Superpages, Yellowpages.com, and others
will help improve your chances to rank higher in map search
results. Google has its own user ratings to combine into the mix as
well. But how do you improve these ratings? As always, Google does
not want you to artificially influence the reviews, and most of the
online ratings have varying degrees of fraud detection, so Google
would likely discount reviews if it believes they are being
manipulated. Do not attempt to set up multiple user accounts to rate
yourself well or reduce your competition’s ratings, though!
Likewise, do not pay customers for beneficial reviews—if such a
practice were discovered, you could lose all of your beneficial
ratings. Focus on working in ways that are allowed under all the
search engines’ rules: just ask people to rate you. By asking enough
happy clients to rate you, you might be able to drive up the
positive reviews, which can bring rankings benefits. One thing you
can do is post a sign on your premises encouraging customers to
review your business on Yelp and other places, as well as post a
Yelp widget on your site. As part of good reputation management, you should monitor your
online ratings in the various sites, and try to respond to
complaints/issues as quickly as possible. Develop external links pointing to your website. The best
links to support local search come from other locally and topically
oriented sites with locally and topically oriented anchor text. For
example, “Atlanta rental cars” is better anchor text than “rental
cars.” Of course, all natural inbound links are
beneficial. If your local business has its own blog, add a blog map or
feedmap (http://www.feedmap.net/) to it. This will add a local
signal to the blog, as well as bring it to the attention of other
bloggers in your area who are also participating in
feedmaps. For businesses such as restaurants, it may be beneficial to
add photos of celebrities who have visited the establishment. This could translate well online, too—people perform searches
on celebrity names all the time, so if you are lucky enough to have
celebrities frequent your restaurant, uploading photos of them can
help attract celebrity watchers to your business. The main thing is
that it could drive up inbound links, and get users to linger longer
on the site, perhaps bolstering the site’s quality scores. Community interaction can assist in online promotion. One
great way to obtain local area links is to support charitable
efforts in the area and to sponsor local events. Although it may
seem crass to get link value out of charitable efforts, this is one
of the best ways to support your local community while bolstering
your business in the online marketplace. Don’t feel guilty for
creating a win-win situation! Such opportunities could
include: Local charity races/walks, particularly if they list
sponsors or sponsor logos on a page on their site. Request to
have those linked to your local business site. Inbound links
from these sites are very beneficial, and this is a valid way to
get them! Sponsorship of the local college or high school sports
teams and bands. Also, request that they list sponsorships on
the school website. Local fraternal organizations, which may offer
opportunities for links. Examples include the Freemasons, Lions
Club, and Shriners. Charitable events that you host yourself. Is anyone
organizing the provision of food for the needy at Thanksgiving?
If not, organize it yourself and host the information pages off
your own website. This could draw many others to link to you as
they help in promotion efforts.
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