How Local SEO is helpful to bring More Customers?

Local SEO has become important ever since small businesses came online and printed indexes got replaced by web directories. People left printed directories and opted for online search to find everything from a doctor to restaurant locally. US alone get 7 billion unique local searches every month today & the count is on rise every day. It makes the fact obvious why small businesses are gearing up for local SEO.

What makes few businesses do better than competitors in local search results depends on many factors. In this post, you will read about those factors & learn how a local business can earn more sales in present-day.
Local SEO before 2014
In 2010 Local Business Center became Google places & users got improved local search results that included reviews, photos along with places. After that excessive directory submission, creating landing pages, use of Google places & ignorance towards social media became usual trend in local SEO. The local directories existed then but showed only profiles and no listings. Other important local SEO events & strategies involved:
Google’s Local 7 Pack

Google launched G+ in June 28, 2011 & in a year it replaced Google Places with Google+ Local. Due to this, SEO companies & marketers shifted their focus to G+ profiles. Google too seemed like preferring showing G+ results and the top results in local search contained Google 7 pack. It showed 7 results (shown as A, B, C, D, E, F, G) from local Google listings that offered the business name, address , phone number and map.
Centroid Bias

Centroid Bias is the display of local results on the basis of nearness to the geographic location of a query. It had great impact on old maps from ranking point of view. However Google has relaxed this policy now as more locations are seen against a query now.

“Results for “restaurants in Manchester”


What makes Local SEO different in 2014

The Pigeon Update

Pigeon is the supposed name (given by Search Engine Land) of a local search algorithm update released by Google in July 2014. The update has affected only English search queries of US (as reported up till now) but more impacts are anticipated globally.

Pigeon brings Good News for Small Businesses

Now small business websites too have chances of appearing above the big brands in local search. Like, initially if a user searched for Pizza in South Hampton, brands like Dominos were certain to appear on the top but now the algo will prefer local businesses in search results. Other changes include:

  • Credible directories & sites like Yelp, Yellowpages.com, TripAdvisor, OpenTable get improved local search engine rankings. Earlier, you would see Google+ results even if the search query had specific directory’s name in it e.g. ‘Boston Pizza+ Yelp’.
  • This boost of rankings can be correlated with Yelp’s latest complaint against Google’s biasedness towards Google+ local listings. Yelp had made a complaint to Google for not showing other directories in top of search results even though the user asked for a particular directory. This has changed post Pigeon update, so tech experts relate it with Yelp’s stern firm act but view it as a treat for local directories as well as small business owners.
  • Google 7 pack’s domination is over and you may see hyper-local 3 pack in organic search results instead. Local businesses are free of Google’s long-standing control & can expect better rankings.
    Duplicate results in Google SERP witness huge drop & thereby increase the quality of results. Same website/business may not appear many times in search results now

View full article here:- http://fatbit-tech.weebly.com/fatbit-orbit/local-seo-in-2014-15-how-small-businesses-can-get-more-customers-online