How does Google determine local ranking?
Google determines local ranking based on an unpublished score that factors in a business’s location, distance from the searcher, and prominence. Out of these, prominence is the one factor we can control. The others are out of our control.
How to improve Google local ranking
You can’t do anything about your location or distance from the searcher, so prominence plays a crucial role in determining whether Google chooses to show your business for a local query. Prominence can be split into social proof and virtual proof.
‘Social proof’ includes reviews and positive ratings. ‘Virtual proof’ includes backlinks, citations and mentions of your business online. By increasing these in tandem, it is possible for us to improve a Google Local ranking quite significantly.
How much does local SEO cost?
The cost of a professional local SEO strategy is dependent on the extent of the competition competing to show for a keyword. It’s important to note that although Google determines its own rankings, those who take the time to build good prominence consistently rank above those who don’t. Naturally, this takes time and costs money.
How does local SEO work?
A local SEO strategy can be split into four stages:
Research: This involves keyword research to anticipate how people search for your services, and market research to determine who does well.
On-page: This involves optimising your website to make it relevant for specific keywords. It may also include speeding up your site and making it mobile friendly.
Content: To make your website even more relevant, new content will be added to your website, and new content will be created for the link building stage.
Reviews: These should be requested from real customers. Google Reviews is directly linked to Google My Business, so we recommend reviews here.
Links: This involves building high-quality links to your website, building directory listings, and building citations that mention your business.
What is a local SEO campaign?
A local SEO campaign is the name given to a local SEO strategy that has been rolled out and is in progress. It is ‘ongoing’.
What are local SEO citations?
Local SEO citations are a mention of the name, address, and phone number of a business from a reputable source, such as the Yell directory or a social media page. The point of citations is to increase the amount of times a business’s information is mentioned online in reputable places to increase prominence. Citations can have a backlink to a website, or not; the point is to get the name and address out there.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score that can be used to assess the so-called ‘power to rank’ of a domain name. It was developed by Moz to predict a website’s ability to rank in search. In local SEO, having a good (high) domain authority is something we strive for because a higher DA website is simply more likely to rank.
What is Page Authority?
Page Authority (PA), also developed by Moz, is the same as domain authority, except it applies to individual website pages, and not the website as a whole. The two are not necessarily always linked, and so, a web page could have a high PA, but its DA may be low. In local SEO, we use PA to predict the ranking strength of a single page.
What is Trust Flow?
How does Google determine local ranking?
Google determines local ranking based on an unpublished score that factors in a business’s location, distance from the searcher, and prominence. Out of these, prominence is the one factor we can control. The others are out of our control.
How to improve Google local ranking
You can’t do anything about your location or distance from the searcher, so prominence plays a crucial role in determining whether Google chooses to show your business for a local query. Prominence can be split into social proof and virtual proof.
‘Social proof’ includes reviews and positive ratings. ‘Virtual proof’ includes backlinks, citations and mentions of your business online. By increasing these in tandem, it is possible for us to improve a Google Local ranking quite significantly.
How much does local SEO cost?
The cost of a professional local SEO strategy is dependent on the extent of the competition competing to show for a keyword. It’s important to note that although Google determines its own rankings, those who take the time to build good prominence consistently rank above those who don’t. Naturally, this takes time and costs money.
How does local SEO work?
A local SEO strategy can be split into four stages:
Research: This involves keyword research to anticipate how people search for your services, and market research to determine who does well.
On-page: This involves optimising your website to make it relevant for specific keywords. It may also include speeding up your site and making it mobile friendly.
Content: To make your website even more relevant, new content will be added to your website, and new content will be created for the link building stage.
Reviews: These should be requested from real customers. Google Reviews is directly linked to Google My Business, so we recommend reviews here.
Links: This involves building high-quality links to your website, building directory listings, and building citations that mention your business.
What is a local SEO campaign?
A local SEO campaign is the name given to a local SEO strategy that has been rolled out and is in progress. It is ‘ongoing’.
What are local SEO citations?
Local SEO citations are a mention of the name, address, and phone number of a business from a reputable source, such as the Yell directory or a social media page. The point of citations is to increase the amount of times a business’s information is mentioned online in reputable places to increase prominence. Citations can have a backlink to a website, or not; the point is to get the name and address out there.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score that can be used to assess the so-called ‘power to rank’ of a domain name. It was developed by Moz to predict a website’s ability to rank in search. In local SEO, having a good (high) domain authority is something we strive for because a higher DA website is simply more likely to rank.
What is Page Authority?
Page Authority (PA), also developed by Moz, is the same as domain authority, except it applies to individual website pages, and not the website as a whole. The two are not necessarily always linked, and so, a web page could have a high PA, but its DA may be low. In local SEO, we use PA to predict the ranking strength of a single page.
What is Trust Flow?
Trust Flow is an SEO metric developed by Majestic that is used by SEO professionals to assess how trustworthy a website is based on its backlinks. Quality is the underlying principle behind whether a website has a high Trust Flow or not. To attain a high Trust Flow, a site must have relevant links from high-quality sources. A higher Trust Flow would mean a website has a higher proportion of qualitative backlinks.
I have been walking the talk with SEO for 18 years and have money-generating web businesses of my own. My background is real-world business and marketing. Search engine optimisation is not black art. If you want your website to do better, contact me.