Recently, we shared how Google’s big search algorithm changes would begin to strongly favor “mobile friendly” Websites – and conversely, punish the non-mobile friendly sites. If you missed that, check out “Why Google is about to bury your Website”.
But for many businesses with a local focus, getting their Websites mobile-friendly isn’t enough. Google has a whole extra set of rules for how it ranks local businesses in its search results. And since Google gets an estimated 80% of all the traffic for local search, this is another area that local businesses can’t afford to overlook.
Businesses that sell nation- or world-wide may be able to safely ignore the rest of this. But for the local pizza shop, dentist, sports bar, accountant, lawyer, chiropractor, salon, car dealer – or really anyone whose customers and clients come mostly from the metro area where the business is located – it’s critical that Google gives those businesses good visibility.
So how does Google decide who is “local friendly”? Somewhat surprisingly, they depend largely on other directory listing services and websites. Across how many local directory services does a Website appear? Is the information that appears in each of those directories consistent? Google wants its searches to return relevant and accurate information. That’s why people use it, right? It’s relevant and accurate. So, Google has decided that the more places a site shows up and the better its information matches across those places, the more relevant and accurate the information is – and it rewards the Website with a better position in search results.
There are about 50 or so “important” local directory services (like FourSquare, Angie’s List, YellowPages.com, and Yelp). The vast majority of local businesses aren’t listed in even half of those, and/ or have significant differences in name, address and telephone (NAP, for short) among their various listings. Most haven’t claimed their listings on the “Big 3” (Google Local, Yahoo Local or Bing Places).
If the information for a Website’s listing isn’t present in many places, or worse, isn’t consistent across those places, Google doesn’t know what’s accurate. And as we said, since Google is all about relevance and accuracy, your Website may get punished.
If you’re concerned about your Website’s presence in local listings, Contact us today. We offer a number of options to claim your listings on the Big 3, get sites listed where they’re not, and clean up inconsistent listings – all of which will encourage Google to show your Website a little more love, and rank it accordingly.
