I have many clients who get most of their leads from their Google local listing, even though their organic ranking is on page one as well. As a general rule, it seems that leads are more likely to click to on a local listing versus a paid listing or organic listing if they are looking to do business within the area.
My own experience also causes me to click on these listings as a preference because I KNOW they are local and that I won't have to wade through as many organic results.
Here are some tips for bringing your local listing up higher in the local search results.
Claim your listing - If you have been in business for awhile or have switched locations more than once, you may have more than one listing floating around out there and not even know it.Multiple address associated with the same business names as well as different phone numbers can be detrimental to your local listing. By signing into your Google account and claiming the listing (which WILL require verification either by phone or mail) you can combine multiple listings, fix incorrect information and most importantly add all of the lovely stuff that makes your listing stand out.
Categories - Once you have claimed your local listing, it's important to make sure it comes up for keywords that make sense. Selecting appropriate categories or MAKING YOUR OWN is a huge part of SEO for a local listing. You will HAVE to select one category that is provided by Google. The rest you can associate with search terms that are specifically relevant to your users. For example, you're a realtor, but you specialize in condos and townhomes. Make your specific categories "condos for sale" or "townhomes for sale".
Keywords in business description - Your description for your business should contain your keywords as well as great marketing text. Don't load this section with keyword non-sense, use them in a way that makes sense, but definitely use them.
Dataproviders and IYP sites - Having matching and correct business information on the following data IYP sites is crucial.
- infoUSA
- Superpages
- Localeze
- YellowPages
- Yelp
- InsiderPages
- Niche Industry Sites (BBB, Vertical Directories)
- Acxiom
- Yahoo
- Citysearch
Other sites receiving significant votes: Niche Civic/Municipal Sites (Chamber of Commerce, Local Directories), Merchant Circle, UniversalBusinessListing, Yellowbot.
Full address on your contact page of your website & .kml file hosted on your website - http://www.geositemapgenerator.com/ a KML file, hosted at the web site, can be considered to be a somewhat authenticated/trusted source of information about the location and status of a business.Thanks for reading!
Kelly Stevens - President, Petit Robot Media and Marketing
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