Local SEO: More than meets the eye

Local SEO is way more than Google!

Google released Pigeon update in June’14. With this update, we all jumped on to generating more business from Google Local Listings. And to a point we all agree it’s an amazing way to ensure that the most relevant results populate for a search term. While the rush is to be in the top 3 (the recent google update now shows only 3 in SERP), I personally think Local Business Optimisation is more than just being in top 3.

Yes, being in top 3 opens up a greater chance for conversions and is a demonstration of a great Local SEO strategy. However, do we all agree that maximum business conversion for any Local Business is by Google SERP?

Let’s have a look at a simple google SERP, for a geological specific keyword “Hotels in manchester”

Let’s dissect the SERP page a little bit. There are essentially 6 parts of any SERP:

1. Organic Results

2. Advertisements

3. Images

4. Videos

5. News

6. Local Listings

However, while you are searching on your mobile, App results will show up as well, and if you are searching for a product, you will get results from Google Shopping as well.

We all agree that a person searching “hotels in London” on google is looking for a local business (Hotel in this case) around the geographic location of London. Now, let’s inspect these results from top.

The results in the little yellow tint you see are Ads. They are controlled by Google Adwords and are triggered on the basis of keywords set by Search Marketeer.

Let’s look at the websites running ads here:

• booking.com

• hotels.com

• airbnb.com

Are these websites the right place to generate citation upon? I think we all shall agree the answer is yes!

Will these websites be able to generate you more business online? I think the answer to this is also YES!

Now let’s have a look at the Local Listing Pack.

 

These results are for local businesses and have a direct call to action where the possibility to convert increases manifold.

Now let’s have look at the Major part of SERP, the Organic results. Let’s list down the websites we see.

1. TripAdvisor.com

2. expedia.com

3. hotels.com

4. lastminute.com

5. booking.com

6. kayak.com

7. hoteldirect.co.uk

Now the similar questions,

Are these websites a right place to generate citation upon? I think we all shall agree the answer is yes!

Will these websites be able to generate you more business online? I think the answer to this is also YES!

Any hotel in London should be listed on these websites, because, if there is a search for hotel in London, the person will choose the hotel he intends to stay in from either the local listings, or would navigate to the websites mentioned and look for a hotel there.

Apart from listing-based website, there are blogs and forums all around the internet where people are discussing about problems or businesses. These web properties are very important. If there is a blog about Top 10 Hotels in London, and if your business is not even mentioned on the page or in the comment, any reader landing on that blog has no clue that your business exists.

If there is a discussion on a forum about the best hotel in London, and you are not part of it, you are definitely losing a lot of potential customers.

These web properties are all around the web, and they are of critical importance to your business. In a way, these citations create your presence, and stay there for a long time. Even though they are unstructured, Google does read and track them!

What Should You do?

 Now that we have established the fact, that not only local listing-based websites are important but also web properties like blogs and forums also play a major role, we can clearly see that there are people who may not rely on Google Search for finding businesses online. Some of these blogs might get direct traffic and some – may get referred from social and content sharing networks.

Now, let’s ask ourselves a couple of questions:

What contributes to Local SEO?

How is Local SEO more than just google?

Local SEO is about ensuring that a business is listed in all the possible places where an intended customer may look for businesses of similar nature.
And it does not limit itself to Listing-based websites, but to any possible web directory where there is content which may or may not be indexed at Google!

This expands our understanding of Local SEO beyond Google, and now I hope you would agree that, it’s not just Google that can generate you more leads/business, it’s the internet that will generate you more leads/business.

No matter what Local SEO strategy you apply, your intention should be clear – Be Everywhere!