1. The Complicated World of Local Search
Dan Leibson
@danleibson
SEO Manager
Relevant Ads 1
2. Reasons You Should Belong to SEMPO
• Expand Your Knowledge
• Engage With Industry
Leaders
• Maximize Your Career Growth
• Grow Your Business
• Save Money
5. A Framework for Thinking About the
Local Search Ecosystem
Words and sentences must, by necessity, come only
one at a time in linear, logical order. Systems happen
all at once. They are connected not just in one
direction, but in many directions simultaneously. To
discuss them properly, it is necessary somehow to use
a language that shares some of the same properties
as the phenomena under discussion.
• Donella H. Meadows – Thinking in Systems
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6. Overview
• The local search ecosystem is fragmented
• You must work hard to optimize multiple channels to
fully leverage the value of local
• Staying on top of trends and implementing
processes that help you through a rapid
development cycle is key
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7. The Local Search Ecosystem is
Complicated
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Source: getlisted.org
15. Panda Had a Major Impact on Local
Search
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Source: http://www.localseoguide.com/what-happened-to-citysearchs-business/
16. Unique Opportunity
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Growth is low, relevance is
high. Regardless of
professional or industry
growth, Google is aggressively
moving towards localization.
19. Local Search Ranking Factors: 2013
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Place Page Signals (incl. proximity)
Citation Signals
On-Page Signals
Link Signals
Review Signals
Social Signals
Behavioral / Mobile Signals
Personalization
19.6
16.0
18.8
14.4
10.3
6.3
6.1
8.3
Source: David Mihm – MozCon 2013
20. Semantic and Entity Based Local
Strategy
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BRAND
WEBSITE LOCATION
Store Locator, KML,
Site Architecture
Google Places
For Business
Google Plus
Authorship, Publisher
Source: David Mihm – MozCon 2013
23. Use Structured Data to Get Ahead
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Open graph 36.9%
schema.org 9.9%
G+ publisher 7.1%
G+ author 2.2%
Markup
Type
Percent of
URLs
Source: Matt Brown
40. Read Up on It
• http://blog.programmableweb.com/2013/07/10/factu
al-helps-app-developers-personalize-the-mobile-
experience/
• http://www.internetretailer.com/2013/07/09/factual-
launches-location-data-driven-products-mobile-apps
• http://www.factual.com/products
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41. Get Reviews on These!
• Google Places
• Yahoo Local
• Bing Local
• Yelp.com
• Superpages.com
• Yellowpages.com
• Yellowbook.com
• Urbanspoon.com
• Foursquare.com
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45. Use it in an outreach email
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Be careful to watch your review velocity!
http://localvox.com/how-to-avoid-the-yelp-review-
filter-and-get-more-positive-reviews/
53. Data Normalization
• Step 1 – Get SEO Tools for Excel
• Step 2 – Access you Google Analytics Account
• Step 3 – Get the number of business name + city
searches for each month of 2012 (or as much from
before carousel as you can)
• Step 4 – Average them out
• Step 5 – Determine rate of growth
• Step 6 – Add rate of growth number to monthly
average (remember to keep a running total)
• Step 7 - Subtract # in Step 6 from the Report
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66. How Do You Keep Up With This?
• Use an RSS reader to develop a reading list
• Follow people on Twitter
• Read The Lean Startup
• Watch This Video: http://moz.com/blog/agile-
marketing-whiteboard-friday
• EXPERIMENT/RESEARCH!!!!!!
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67. Takeaways
• Brick and mortar stores are entities, treat them as
such
• Don’t ignore non-traditional mediums for local
discovery
• Focus on users/customers and search engines will
follow
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