MILESTONE CONFIDENTIAL
Local Search Ranking Factors Benu Aggarwal [email protected] www.milestoneinternet.com blog.milestoneinternet.com http://twitter.com/milestonemktg http://www.facebook.com/Milestoneinc
http://bit.ly/LocalSocial
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Agenda
About Milestone Local Search Ranking Factors Best Practices Google Place Local Search on Mobile Reviews – Why, How? Problems, Solutions,
Opportunities Upcoming Trends Final Walkaways
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Milestone at a Glance
Mission
Founded
Location
People
Products
Customers
Driving Reservations for the Lodging Industry on the Internet
1998
HQ - Santa Clara, CA (Silicon Valley)
Sales Offices – US, Mexico, India
90 Employees
Website Design, SEO, PPC, Social Media Optimization, Social Media Monitoring Tools, Hotels to HTMLs – A complete guide to internet marketing for the lodging industry
900+ Customers
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Factors Impacting your Local Search Today
2
IYP’S Listings
Best of the web Yellow Pages Info USA
Local Search Ranking Factors
Reviews
Your Site
Hotpot
Tripadvisor
Yelp
5
4 Hyper Local
Title Tags
H1, H2 & Alt Tags
Anchor, Rich Snippet
Address & Footer
Custom Maps
1 On Page Optimization
Claiming Local on SE
Updating Local with correct information
Local
Facebook Places Gowalla Foursquare
Local
Claiming Local on SE
Updating Local with correct information
Local Claiming Listings
100% Enhanced Listings
Add pictures and videos
Google Offers (Coupons)
Add Google Tags, Events, Boast, Location Ext
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Google Offers, Tags
Boast, Location Extension
Local 3
6 Mobile
Mobile location-based PPC QR codes Reviews Mobile sites
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How – Integrating SEO Strategy to the On-Page Optimization 1
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Website Optimized for Local Search
Display Address in text Phone numbers
Location MAP
Image names and ALT tags Should have city-state keywords
Add physical address text to bottom of every page. Add hCard Microformat to enable rich snippet.
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Rich Snippet
What/Why - Rich snippet?
Rich Snippet is Google’s way of indexing most critical and time sensitive information on a website faster.
User can achieve rich SERPs by providing certain information on the site such as address, phone numbers, reviews, events etc in the rich snippet format .
Helps user get relevant / realtime information quickly.
Site is indexed faster by Google.
Address Reviews
Events
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Maps and Coupons – Customizable and personable
What is a Custom Map (E-maps)? • A dynamic map posted on the website,
which contains information about the property and nearby attractions
• The custom map is created on a spreadsheet and shared publicly on Google Doc.
Why should we do Custom Maps? • Easy to manage local attractions. • Custom maps are easily crawl able by
search engine. • Add attractions on Google Doc’s and it
reflects the map real time. • Places account gets more credibility • Helps drive more traffic • Map with attraction gets high visibility in
mobile/local search
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Maps and Coupons – Customizable and personable
Results?
Hotels places listing started to show search queries that custom map is optimized for.
This means that custom map is driving traffic to listing/site for local attractions.
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Off Page Factors – Accurate & Consistent Information
IYP’s: YellowPages.com
SuperPages.com
MagicYellow.com
Info USA
Localeze
City Search
Acxicom
Insider Pages
Business.com
Best of the Web (botw.org)
Yelp & Trip Advisors
Reviews sites
Several other relevant city and state directories
Business Directories / Verticals
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Best Practices - Local Search
Enhanced local listings
Description written keeping local and regional factors in mind
Check if your website is optimized for local search?
Consistent information – IYP’s, Business & Vertical, Hyperlocal
Securing valuable local citations / listings
Custom local PPC campaign
Google eMaps tagged with local attractions
Promotion - Wikipedia profile, real time search and use of social channels to promote / network locally
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Best Practices – Google Places
Validate and Enhance Google place listing. Claim and delete duplicate listings.
Use exact business name as it is on maps & real world. Do not add additional keywords in the title of the listings.
Proper Use of Categories. Do not add random categories. See which categories are recognized by google in that location.. Use 7 pack help finding in relevant categories.
Reference Social Media Profiles. Add as many photos / videos as possible. (Owner/ User created video on You tube)
Fix incorrect marker location. Add coupons, Google Map and tags
Include keywords and geomodifiers in “Additional Details”
Multiple businesses are at the same location and getting citation to different URL - Claim /enhance listing separately for each business. Try to differentiate business by adding suite number or changing location on the map
Accurate Information about your business on third-party sites
Encourage customers to review or blog about your business. Google uses reviews and feedback to improve search results
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Google Place Optimization
What should we do with Google Local? Use exact business name as it is on maps & real world
Include Website URL
Use all 5 Categories to describe hotel without GeoModifiers
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Google Place Optimization
Include photos and user created videos of the Hotel
Additional Information about the property (include Facebook profile, Twitter etc.)
Make profile 100% complete
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Example of 100% Enhancement
1. Site URL
2. Categories
3. Hotel Details
4. Site powering reviews
5. Reviews
6. Photos and Video
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2.
6.
5.
4.
3.
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Google Place Optimization 3
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What we shouldn’t do with Google Local
1. Use agency email address to claim / enhance listings
2. Alter the Business name
3. Adding Keywords to Business Name and Categories
4. Use Geo-modifiers in categories
5. Use 800 phone number for the hotel
6. Duplicate Listing
Things to avoid 3
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Best Practices – Google Places Referance 3
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Opportunities on Paid - Google Tags
Add Google Tags – Google Places allows site owners to highlight the info that they want customers to see such as coupons, website url or photos.
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Post Events – Post the latest and happening event information on Google Places Account and use Google URL shortener to track results. Posted an event deal on Google Places using Google Places Post Event option using url shortner. In 3 days, there was 11 visits to the deals page which was posted only on Google Places
Google Local Optimization
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
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Opportunities on Paid – Google Local Optimization
Google Boost Ads - With Google Boost Ads, we can advertise on Google and Google Maps and attract more visitors to the website or the place page.
Attract more local customers to your website or Place page.
Pay only when people click on your ad.
Create ads directly from your place account within minutes.
No ongoing management is needed after sign up. Boost runs the ads for you.
Measure the effectiveness of your ads in your Places dashboard.
Cost per click is lower than Google paid search.
Nationally Rolled Out, Results to show on Adroid and I Phone
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Test Results
Clients Impressions Clicks CTR Ave.CPC Start TotalCost
HeathmanKirkland 1,357 135 9.5% 0.13 Jan.4 18.21
TheWhiteHallHotel 4,785 448 9.4% 0.15 Nov.1 67.16
TheOrchardHotel 3,283 279 8.5% 0.10 Jan.4 28.85
TheOrchardGardenHotel 1,909 54 2.9% 0.43 Jan.5 23.35
NickHotel 28658 201 0.70% 0.37 Nov.29 73.8
1. More chances to dominate search results
2. CPC is cheaper than Paid Search Promotion
3. CTR is really high compared to Paid search promotion.
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Local PPC Campaigns: Location Extensions
What? Hotel address and phone number automatically appears if user is within a 10 mile radius of property.
Why? Increase overall conversions and click-through-rates by increasing your local presence.
How? Link your PPC campaign to your Local Business Center account (Google Places).
Budget? Location extensions can be activated with no additional costs.
Results: 23% increase in CTR on ads when location extension listings were shown.
Hotel address and phone
number
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Hyperlocal – On Mobile/ Social
What is Hyperlocal? • Promoting Businesses in their very own local online community
• Hyperlocal content is typically intended for residents of a particular community: region, city, town, village, or neighborhood
Why Hyperlocal? • Helps build relevance in organic SERP
results and local search results
• Captures considerable long-tail local search traffic
• Connects with residents of a particular area with highly targeted and locally relevant content
• Rewards customer loyalty
• Generates new customers
• Engages users in conversations.
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Hyperlocal – On Mobile/ Social
Which Channels?
• Social Media provides an ideal platform to build a Hyperlocal presence and reward users for connecting /engaging with you
Facebook Places (mobile) 200+ million users
Foursquare 4+ million users
Gowalla 500,000+ users
SCVNGR 500,000+ users
How?
• Create account, claim and verify the hotel location
• Set up special deals to encourage user participation
• Enable guests to check-in on site
• Post a check-in message and monitor user analytics
Results
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Reviews
Encourage users to write reviews about the property.
Google Improves search results by collecting user reviews about the listing which are available on the web.
Encourage users to write reviews or blog about the business. Connect all the reviews sites, hotpot site from your site
Leverage your site, google hotpot and reviews site specific to your vertical and gather reviews from users.
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Reviews – Problems, Solutions
Fragmentation in Reviews Site – Solved by HotPot
HotPot has high likely hood to be more successful than Facebook Places, Foursqure and other reviews sites & results can be more accurate
Hotpot results are based on yours, your friends reviews and also based on traditional place algorithmic signals i.e. review volume, link authority, sentiment analysis etc.
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Google Hotpot Now on Google.com Search
1. Hotpot recommendations are now available on your regular search results on Google.com.
2. User needs to have any google account to rate on HotPot. 3. Your search results will be personalized based on your usage history. 4. Google shows explanations on why you/your friend like that place
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Example
5. Based on My Likes
7. Based on My Friends Likes
7. Real Time Results
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Local PPC Campaigns: Mobile
What? • Mobile Local PPC, QR Codes, Events, Deals/Offers
on Hyperlocal Sites • Paid search ads shown on mobile devices. Ads will
display a click-to-call phone number so guests can call the business directly and/or land users on mobile optimized website.
Results (15 days of data): 698 clicks 42 direct calls to hotel 10.68% CTR $.33 cost per click
Why? • 1/3 of all mobile searches are local in nature and is
about where I am. • Internet use on mobile phones is on the rise. Less
competition & lower cost per click than PC search. Can reach people on the go, anytime, anywhere.
How? Mobile campaigns are typically created for local markets. Keyword phrases are focused on geo-location + hotel and brand name.
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Mobile / Reviews -Trends & Opportunities 6
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Things to Remember - Conclusion
Leverage all the factors impacting your local search Make sure your site is optimized for local search Enhance your Google place account Consistent and accurate information on IYPs,
Relevant Sites, Directories Take advantage of Mobile, Social and Hyper Social
Platform Watch for Google HotPot and Place account ©Milesto
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Thank You Questions?
Benu Aggarwal [email protected] www.milestoneinternet.com
http://twitter.com/milestonemktg http://www.facebook.com/Milestoneinc
http://bit.ly/LocalSocial
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