Local Business Ranking

• Local Search Ranking or Local Business Ranking is all about establishments that trade from a physical location.

Their online presence aims to get more customers to walk in to their stores.

Example: restaurants, bakery, grocery stores, etc.

E-commerce Sites vs.

• E-commerce sites are global sites that operate mainly on the internet.

• Their physical location has little bearing on their products and services.

Example: Amazon, eBay

Source of Information

• David Mihm– The most recognized local search expert.– Works for a company named “Moz.” – Website: www.moz.com– He surveys over 50 SEO professionals every year.– He consolidates the data to create a survey data

outcome and identify trends.

7 Signals for Local SEO

Key Elements of Local SEO:1. Business Signals2. External Local Signals3. Unpaged Signals4. Link Signals5. Review Signals6. Social Media Signals7. Behavioral Mobile Signals

Changes in Signals

• NAP – stands for Name, Address, Phone Number

A company like Amazon or eBay doesn’t have many physical locations or phone numbers. But local business or local franchised business will have these details.

The consistency of NAP in local business directories or internet yellow pages are important.

Growth in Signals

• A study is conducted every 2 years.

The most growth in signal strength has actually occurred in link signals, which is 20% of the algorithmic weights.

Link signals has gone up 9% from where it was two years ago.

Growth in Signals

• Link quality is extremely important.

Links referred as “bad neighborhoods” or “purchased links” or “link farms” will have almost no weight in the signals.

Signals such as links from internet yellow pages, directory or local community websites or local review sites will have some significant impact on other signals.

Growth in Signals

• Google adds more weight on Review signals.

Growth of Review Signals is about 80%.

Growth of Social Signals is only 5%.LikesSharing of stories Even Google+ has been downgraded

Local Search Engine Optimization

• Advice: “Best practice is still best practice.” – Get reliable and credible links.– Ask for honest reviews.– Check the data regularly.– Fresh content is valuable.– Have consistency of your NAP and keywords.

www.MOZ.com

• MOZ.com will allow users to:– Read the Blog “2015 Local Search Ranking Factors”– See 50+ contributing authors– Read comments from each of the authors– Enter a conversation– Provide a contrasting view or comments– Add their auto leads for the quality of the data– Or simply say, “Thank you.”

• Monte HuebschCEO of AussieWeb & AussieWeb Conversion

• Links:www.aussieweb.com.auwww.aussiewebconversion.com