Research shows approximately 70% of households search for a local product or service on a daily basis. The question to ask: Is your business being found?
Over the past few months, most notably in recent times, there has been a growing body of literature released by Google about fine tuning their algorithm to prioritise local geographical search listings. Google now recognises that users across the globe are searching for information not only by the latest global news (for example, on topics such as the threatening pandemic of the Swine Flu), but also that users use search engines to find local information and businesses (whether it be a Thai restaurant in the fast-paced business hub of Sydney, Australia or a dentist in Minden Germany). Google describes this in their blog post entitled “Google becomes more local“, however, in this post we’re going to take it a step further and give you some great tips on how you might achieve top local search listings.
Before we go any further let’s take a quick step back. You may have already noticed local search taking place on your browser. For example, if you’re a Google search user and you’re connected to the Internet in Germany, if you type into your browser’s address bar www.google.com, you won’t go to www.google.com; instead you’ll be redirected to www.google.de. As long as Google has established a local search in your geographical region, this occurs.
Wherever you are in the world, Google will automatically detect your IP (Internet Protocol) address and redirect you to its local portal. This is a smart way of achieving one of Google’s overarching goals to provide more relevant results by keeping the domestic user within its cultural boundaries. On a personal note, through my own experience it can quickly become frustrating. For example, during the times I was in Germany I wanted to use Google.com’s search portal (in English) but couldn’t because of the IP address I was being connected through: Google.de kept showing up (and my German’s not spectacular).
Beyond my frustrations in Germany (I love Germany by the way), Google’s local search provides local businesses a level playing field against internationals trying to penetrate local markets. This means that it is typically easier for you to rank your web business for high local search engine rankings than it is to rank for global search rankings. Remember that as long as your business—whatever it is you’re selling and whether your business to business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C)—fills your markets needs and does it well, people in your local area are willing to do business with you. Essentially, people want to deal with local businesses. You just have to ensure your business is out there to be found.
Tips for using local search to replace
international businesses
The best way to localise your site
- Get a ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain–for example: .co.nz) and/or have your website hosted in the country of your target market. There’s a bit more to it than where your domain and hosting accounts are registered of course. In fact there are a number of indicators you can use to inform the search engines of what your local target region is, including:
- Domain choice
- Location of host
- Other indicators include:
- Language – SEO experts across the globe all seem to agree language plays a significant role in local search engine rankings. This is largely due to character encoding. For example, if the site is written in German, then it would be safe for the search engines to assume the site is targeting Germany.
- Regionalised footer. For example, ensure the word “New Zealand” is on most of the pages throughout your site. A site-wide footer would work well for this purpose.
- Ensure local addresses and other contact details are on most of the pages of your website.
- Ensure inbound links incorporate the word “New Zealand” into the anchor text (i.e., New Zealand [(+) keyword(s)] e.g. football store New Zealand).
- Obtain links from local sites in the same region, authority sites if possible. This can include local website directories. For example, yellow pages, local websites, local blogs, etc.
Some of you with ccTLD hosting registered outside of your local area or country’s target market (for example, you have a [.com] site that is hosted in the US, but the local market you are targeting is in New Zealand) may be wondering if you should have a [.co.nz] site hosted on servers (physically) located in New Zealand). Not necessarily and here’s why. You can tell search engines what your intended target market is by implementing Google local search engine optimisation (SEO).
Tips to help you increase your local search engine listing(s)
Using our previous example: if your website is a [.com] hosted in the US and your local market is New Zealand, you will need to…
- Include the local word (i.e., “New Zealand”) or more specific area of local search you would like to target (for example, “Wellington”) in your META tags. This includes your META title, description, and keywords.
- Drop your link and web details to Google’s Local Business Centre. This allows people to find you on Google maps (highly recommended). Creating a listing is free.
- Another way of improving your local SEO efforts is to inform Google of where your intended target market is through Google’s Webmaster Console and specifying the target country.
- Other great tips include:
- Create individual pages for each and every location. Each page representing a unique information profile about the particular store (sub-site) and location.
- Include photos of the location. Try to name the image file something like [company name – local area] and be sure to include ALT tags in the same or similar format.
- If your site incorporates a feed, try to submit your feed to other local search sites.
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