Local Search Explained

Brittany Paxman: Hi I’m Brittany Paxman. I’m here with Cory Barbot, a Natural Search Specialist here at Apogee Search. Cory has been an integral part of the local search strategy team here at Apogee Search for a while and he’s going to share his expertise on local search with us today. So Cory, let’s start by discussing what local search is. Cory Barbot: Well, you can think of local search essentially as a search engine within a search engine. So local search provides users with the web, what they are looking for, as well as where in Google in particular, when someone goes in and add type in for instance, data recovery Austin and you’re going to see a map and you’re going to see what they call a 10 box and that bit of information, there it is local search, it’s part of their approach for universal search. Brittany Paxman: So what is universal search? Cory Barbot: Universal search was Google’s decision to not only incorporate the regular national search listings but also to incorporate research from the topical search engines so local search, both results images, videos. Nowadays is going to be going and search often times to see a video ranking within the top ten. Brittany Paxman: So going back to again, your local search. How did the search engines determine, what order to rank each business in terms of the results? Cory Barbot: It’s a bit different than natural search is. It also separates set of algorithms so they said so but it does follow much of the same sort of thinking if you will as a natural search engine so they are going to look at title tags, meta tags, on page descriptions, incoming links as well as citations. So not just links but scanning the internet and looking for your address for instance to just within what’s, not necessarily as a link but usually going out and trying to verify it. Brittany Paxman: Well, as you discussed putting the city name within the title tags and the meta tags, would that connect conflict with the goals of the natural search at all? Cory Barbot: Absolutely not. Incorporating your city, enter a keyword. They’re not attached that if you hit there. So again, if you’re going out and doing just simply local search, you’re going to do the same sorts of things that we would suggest you do for a natural search campaign which is incorporating keywords within a title tags, meta tags, on page, going on in mining and looking for links with your keywords and Google does it in text so again, it’s not everything’s. It can be detrimental to your natural search business. Brittany Paxman: So in natural search, we tend to see that a larger business tends to ride towards the top. If locals are just based on a similar algorithm, do small businesses have any sort of chance of ranking in local search? Cory Barbot: Absolutely. If you think about global search is inherently about small business. So anytime they are going to look at the sorts of queries that you typed into the search engine and it provides you with results that are based on your IP address for instance or again if you do, specifically include your city within a search then it’s going to pop up there and it’s going to give you results that are relevant to what you need. Not just going after the big companies that are out there but again, it can be often times it’s more related to queries. Brittany Paxman: So, this is to be a good strategy for business of all size, simply. So could you maybe give us a few tips in how people can start to maximize their local search results now? Cory Barbot: Absolutely. One of the biggest things that they could do is to incorporate their sitting within the title tags. It’s one of the big things that search engines look for and determining how they’re going to rank blog sites. Again including your address within your website itself so when each page your links go through and at the bottom perhaps go and put your address in there so that when the search engines come through and call, they don’t have to go in and search the internet to try and figure out that your business should be associated with this address and then perhaps one of the biggest things they can do is to get involved with Google Local Business Center. Brittany Paxman: So what is the Google Local Center? Cory Barbot: Google Local Business Center gives users the opportunity to head to Google over business center, fill out some information. This information’s going to be provided directly to Google so they are not going to have to worry about or they’re not, Google knows that my company is looking to query and this is my phone number, this is my hours into that. Make sure you provided that information directly to Google, taking in sort of hassle out of the meeting to go in and pick up this information from third parties. Brittany Paxman: Alright so that seems to be really important aspect of a local search. Are there any other tips that you like the viewers to know about? Cory Barbot: Again, same sorts of thing. Right now if you are involved in a natural search campaign, just to do the same sorts of strategies but again, incorporate your city name into all of the avenues where you can provide the search engines with information about your websites. So again, title tags, meta tags, on site and then Google Local Business Center. Brittany Paxman: Well, that’s something really simple and easy to follow tips. So for more information about local search, you can visit our website at Apogee-search.com and thanks for watching.