Local Business SEO Demystified

First Signs On July 3, 2010 Linda Buquet of Catalyst eMarketing saw something new in the way Google displayed local search results in its SERPs. After seeing it, Buquet immediately sent Mike Blumenthal emails regarding her find which included this screenshot… Following are Buquet’s notes from her emails: Search term: Dentist Chicago (FYI I am using FF) Double checked and it’s not some weird caching error because other dentist/city searches come up the old way. http://www.google.com/search? hl=&q=Dentist+Chicago&sourceid=navclientff&rlz=1B3GGIC_en___US345&ie=UTF-8Following are Buquet’s notes from her emails: Search term: Dentist Chicago (FYI I am using FF) Double checked and it’s not some weird caching error because other dentist/city searches come up the old way. http://www.google.com/search? hl=&q=Dentist+Chicago&sourceid=navclientff&rlz=1B3GGIC_en___US345&ie=UTF-8 In case I’m only seeing it on my datacenter and you are seeing something different, I’m attaching screenshots. 1. The Places listings are BIGGER and look like the organic results except they have a map pin. 2. As you scroll down the MAP scrolls with you. So even when you are at bottom of page in the organic listings the map moves down and shows on right. 3. ONLY 7 (purely) organic listings show and in this instance most are directories or assn. Only 2 are Dentists. 4. To get on the top TWO screens you need to be in local. Most of the organic are 2 screens BELOW the fold. 5. Reviews are more prominent. 6. Link to Place Page is marked as such, instead of just “More Info” which means better branding and name recognition for Google Places. 7. It’s pulling meta description from the site – just like organic.

8. PLUS it adds some snippets from reviews on the Place page. So best of both worlds and BIGGER! Blumenthal added that the results also included links to review sites that Google is receiving from, as well as more information about some (but not all) of the businesses. He also noted that when Local shows at the top of the page, only 3 local results were showing above the fold making positions 4 through 7 much less valuable real estate than they currently are. To make Blumenthal’s last point clearer, below is the screenshot of how Google used to display local search/business results in the organic results.