Google Local Business

Google’s local listings are often listed on the first page of results and can become a major source of for traffic.

It’s no secret that Google is starting to look at an ever-increasing number of off-page factors, most of which are hard to control from an SEO perspective, in order to rank pages. So when there are off-page elements that are completely within our control, they should be the among the first tasks in getting a site ready for page one prime-time.

Google Local Business Center is one of those factors, and is the driver behind Google Maps – if you have a organization where the physical location is important to your customers (eg. gyms, jewelry stores, retail, etc.) you should take full advantage of your Local Business Center listing. You may find you already have a skeleton listing, but adding rich content to your profile will help to bring visitors to your site – and place of business.

There are several areas of interest from an SEO point of view:

  • Map searches are a major source of traffic for sites – anywhere between 10-30% is not unusual. Ensuring a thorough listing gives you the best opportunity of funneling visitors to your site.
  • Rich information can be embedded, including business description, opening hours, coupons, business photos and aggregated reviews from other sites.
  • Mobile users are big consumers of these listings since the results are geared towards location-based relevance.
  • Keyword analysis shows how visitors found your listing, and quite often will reveal keyword phrases you may have overlooked on your website and landing pages.

In the book, we discuss the essential elements of a Google Local Business account, and how to interpret its analytics dashboard.