This post is short and easy to follow, just like the tactic it recommends. Most everyone who optimizes for Google Local (aka Google Maps) is familar with David Mihm's excellent and oft-referenced Local Search Ranking Factors. In that document, and in many places where local results are analyzed, it's clear that getting your business/website into more listings, in a consistent fashion is a very good thing.
Yet, somehow, this obvious tactic has gone missing from many GG Local optimization recommendations. Either that or it's so obvious that no one feels the need to mention it. Whatever the case, it's available now :-)
Step 1: Do Lots of Searches Related to Your Business & Region
Let's say you're working on local SEO for a Thai restaurant in Seattle, WA. Searches you might perform include:
You're seeking results that show competing or closely related businesses, so get creative.
Step 2: Identify a Handful (or a Few Dozen) Businesses that Consistently Get Top Rankings
You could build a formal spreadsheet and perform tracking to identify these or start with gut feel and expand later on in the process. For less competitive listings, an informal approach may work just fine.
Step 3: Go to the Local Business Profile for Each of These
Don't click the name of the listing itself. Instead, follow the links to the "reviews" about each of your competitors' businesses. You'll get a page with information about the business, reviews and lists of data that Google has found about them.
Step 4: Click on the Links to "More About this Place"
The "more about this place" section of the business listing shows brief snippets, titles and URLs where Google has found relevant information pertaining to the business. This is your potential goldmine for discovering listing sources.
Step 5: Go to those Sites & Get Your Business Added/Updated
The domains that are listed are places where Google is pulling information about your business. This is where the Maps algorithm comes into play - it relies on not only the number of listings, but the quality of the sources and the consistency between them. You want every listing to perfectly match one another, right down the the suffix on the reservations phone number and the formatting of your suite number (e.g. 1221 E Pike Street vs. 1221 East Pike Street vs. 1221 E Pike Street Suite 200 vs. 1221 East Pike Street #200 are all DIFFERENT - don't make that mistake).
As an example, I visited a link from Thaiku's listing in the example above to Intuit's Local Business Directory (I didn't even know they had one until now) and could then add/edit SEOmoz's listing:
In addition to the potential local ranking boost, a majority of these sources offer the potential to earn links! Even if you don't care much about the local results themselves, this is a pretty terrific way to get some good quality, trusted sites linking to you.
Step 6: Repeat Step 4 & 5 for the "Reviews" and "User Content" Sections
If you're hungry for even more sources, you can look at where listings come from on other competitors and/or go back to the business listing's page in Google Maps/Local and choose from the "reviews" and "user content" sections for even more potential spots. Much like manual link building back in the late '90's, perseverance and careful attention to detail will take you far.
There are automated services out there to help with this process, but I haven't yet seen one I feel completely comfortable about. The biggest issue is the dramatic value of and need for consistency in the listings. When automated systems submit, they can mix in a suite number in the wrong place, cut off a phone number because the form doesn't accept hyphens or confirm a URL that doesn't match what you've submitted elsewhere. For now, I recommend playing it safe and spending the hours (even if that's a dozen or two) to get those 50-250 listings correct. Google will reward you with local rankings and high quality traffic.
p.s. Next week I'm down in Portland for SEMpdx's Searchfest and hope to spend time with some true local search experts and perhaps share some more cutting edge tactics :-)
Rand,
Good point. One more thing I would advise adding to this tactic is seeing if any of the sites buy their data from the major aggregators. For example today I was doing some Local SEO work for a client and noticed they had listings on ziphip.com which buys it's data from local.com. They also had a listing on de.lirio.us which buys their data from iBegin. Just submitting your biz data to these couple of sites can get you a ton of links and citations in one step.
@belasco Wow, great tip, thanks!
Below is the list of MUST-DO free registrations that I compiled for myself and my friends to help with Google Local listings. Many sources give you a good link as well.
https://jobs.seasonalstaff.org/where-to-register
The number of reviews also tend to positively influence GL rankings.
If you are able to incorporate geographical location and the most important keyword in the name of the website and the company - even better. For example, naming a handyman company in Jersey City as "Jersey City Handyman" not only helps with the rankings but gives you a good boost in natural traffic.
Some of the listings ideas were borrowed from SEOMOZ.
Good list! I put my clients on many of these already, but I will be sure to look into the rest.
While listing sites may not be super-valuable for organic listings, every little bit counts.
great list - thank you for sharing!
Great post. I have been messing around with Google maps myself a for a while now and used a few of the same techniques... a few good points you made that I hadn`t thought of. I didn`t realize that, for example, Google was so picky about the address variations... makes sense now.
One little tip I have;
Superpages.... they are free! And when you create Superpage listings with the same info as your maps, Google picks up on them as well and lists them at the bottom of the free Google map page, below the reviews... Also, superpages gives you a lot of additioanl options that Google maps don`t provide, so great for "real" users and not just the spiders.
I have a few more, but I can`t give all my tips for free ;-)
What a dead simple tip for local listing. Thanks Rand!
Great Blog!
I've been a long time reader but I felt the need to contribute to this post. I found a new company that everyone could definitely add to their list of companies to register their business with.
The company is called CityCliq
It looks like they offer a basic free listing but there is an option to upgrade to an $8.95/month account with unlimited pictures, coupon creators, and a bunch of other cool stuff. Check them out, I already added my business on there. Thanks again for the helpful info, my plate just got a lot bigger haha.
~Chris
I could not find basic free listing there. Are you in any way associated with CityCliq?
Here is the link to the free part, I found the link on the plans page:
https://www.citycliq.com/businesses/new?plan_code=free
I'm a musician who dabbles in SEO, my friend told me about CityCliq and I figured I'd share with everyone.
I know this post is two years old, so I should have anticipated this, but the method Rand has introduced, while clever, no longer seems to work. When clicking "more" on a business location in maps, you're now taken to the respective Local + profile rather than a longer queue with potentially relevant directories.
Sorry if it's totally obvious to point this out now. Like I said, it is two years later.
This tool allows you to speed up the whole process and will create the list for you and pull the citations from the top players automatically and email them to you.
Pretty cool ... https://www.whitespark.ca/tools/local-citation-finder/
Courtesy of https://www.seokiwi.com
Great tip Rand thanks! I'm trying it right now :)
I keep thinking I'm an intermediate SEO. You know, not the penthouse, guest speaker level, but certainly many floors above a noob.
Then I read these very simple posts about stuff I should have known and been doing and I realize that it's back to the basement for me.
Thanks for, as Jiang said above"a dead simple tip" Rand. You 'da man.
Really Good Job, !!!!
Too bad that for a site for hotels and for hotels it is really difficult to do this because at tripadvisors when hotels you can only post once and there is too much competence. For the instance of a hotel webpage with several hotels you can´t do this, because the won´t allow you to list your list of hotels because you are competing with them !!. If you have any suggest for this cases please tell me, because i´m looking to do this and it is giving me a really headache.!!!
Thanks,
Spot-on with this article! And - painstaking as it is - I agree 100% with taking the time to _manually_ list w/ the potential resources. It's a time investment which will reap dividends going forward.
One big bonus (so far) about utilizing these resources? Almost all are still FREE - at least at the basic listing level!
For eComm sites, you can also check which shopping sites' product reviews & listings tend to be picked up "top down" by Google, and then prioritize getting products listed in those in that manner as well.
I agree, manual is the way to go. Like with link building, you know what you're getting if you do it yourself.
Once you have exhausted all you business listing places, find some free press release sites with google news authority. You may not get a link, but you can get a 'business address citation' ;)
Great tip on the ecommerce perspective... and nice bike! Ducati? I used to ride a yellow 996 myself.
748S :-) Finicky beast, but oh-so-fun!
Rand, Yup. That is the best way to dig through citations. I actually have been using a pretty cool tool on occassion ALM (avanced link manager). They have an add on where you type in the search such as "denver dentist" and it looks at the top 10 map listings and pulls a csv file of the citations. Now that has been pretty dang nice. I still go through and manually look, but it is a great way to save a lot of time.
I also echo what you mentioned about automated submissions. I manually claim and enter in as much data as possible and have seen much more success than trying to wait for things to filter down correctly.
It's nice to see a casual local searcher write about ranking tactics, I think somtimes we get so deep into things that we forget to keep it simple and straight forward, there is a lot of deeper truth in your points about the places page than it seems, esspecailly around the step 6 area. But that's for another day.
Thanks for the tip; it looks like that tool greatly simplifies the process and makes it easy to build up a database. I'll definitely take a look at it!
ps when you are at searchfest find @marybowling. She'll show you a thing or two about local :)
Since this thread started there have been several changes. Of course, Google Maps is now Google Places. One important one change is the ability to not display your address, which some online only businesses may consider. I tried this option because my company is online only. As soon as I completed the change, my local listing disappeared! Duh! I guess without the address Google won't know who you're local to? Once I reverted back to listing the physical address, my local listing immediately returned to the top position. So, I guess I'm not quite sure why Google gives this option?
I just recently segmented my Google Maps search traffic from other organic traffic in Google Analytics...otherwise you have to look at the charts separately in your Google Places business center.
We had three active listings back in April. Sometime between then and now, all three listings have been rejected and are not showing in Google Places. There doesn't seem to be any way to find out why the listings were rejected or how to fix them. Also, there is no help available through Google -- no email, no phone support, nothing....
Can anybody help?
Talking about Local Search, we have a cool online tool to check your Google Local rankings as they appear on a normal Google search results page (ass opposed to viewing Google Local results in "Places" or in "Maps". The tool is FREE to use and is located here: https://www.seomaps.com.au/tools/map-ranks/ Happy Google Local Listings rank checking! :-)
Thanks for post and great timing considering Google's recent developments in local search, I'm sure this is a stupid question but would you take into account these recent developments and add those to the equation. My reasoning being that even if they do bring the same or similar results, it's important to follow throw with multiple methods of local search.
Very nice tip. To bad Google doesn't give the best organic links for its organic listings
Great post - makes perfect sense when it's broken down like that. Especially the little details like formatting of numbers and addresses, thanks!
Great stuff here! I like short step by step posts like this!
In fact, the "More About this Place" links are being used exactly the same way I'm using Linkscape/OSE data against my competitors!
Since we're a small company from a remote area of Quebec, I've noticed that almost none of my competitors have reviews (0-1) or "More About Their Company" stuff. Here's a tip for ppl in the same situation; Base your search for adding/updating your site (Step 5) on your industry leader, at province/state level for example. It still can be a mine of information!
Never thought of that before rand! I'm gonna do it now :)
Really Good Job, !!!!
Too bad that for a site for hotels and for hotels it is really difficult to do this because at tripadvisors when hotels you can only post once and there is too much competence. For the instance of a hotel webpage with several hotels you can´t do this, because the won´t allow you to list your list of hotels because you are competing with them !!. If you have any suggest for this cases please tell me, because i´m looking to do this and it is giving me a really headache.!!!
Thanks,
Exciting little post here. I've been using a similar tactic for a while now and it works great. I hope you plan on posting a review or tips of what you overhear at SEMpdx's Searchfest!
I might be missing something, but when I go through this process on Google now I don't find the "More" link.
Google constantly changes / optimizes their pages. The same happened here. The UI is not the same it was over a year ago when this post was written.
You can still get to that list though. I can see it when I click on the name of the result and then scroll down. There is a link that sais "more reviews" - at least for me.
That was such a good idea. Actually , i'm using the post as my reference in my local campaign.
Thank you for the post and the prescribed practice is bound to work as it makes sense. John SEO and Afranklin thank you for sharing the tools they are invaluable.
With the updates one should ensure that you get a listing or review on those sites which are there in the following sections * What are people saying - which has reviews from other websites * Reviews by Google users * More about the place
Of course one has to ensure that genuine reviews are provided otherwise you will get blacklisted and your business listing would not show up which can be frustrating.
Great post! I didn't realize Google is so picky about consistency -- so I'm now going back and reviewing dozens of listings. A little painstaking, but I'm sure it will be well worth the effort.
Hmm, I think this example of what to do is good to a point only. Places has changed a tiny bit, but you can get a good feel just the same.
Also, this uses restuarants as an example. Competition seems to generate this kind of "paper trail" in this kind of local industry.
Not so much with say, plumbers. Not that plumbers don't get reviews, they do, but few people really feel the need to vocalize and rave about a leaky facet, chocolate cake on the other hand...
So, to deal with that, I just Google the competition's Phone Number. Get a feel for how deep they go with Citations in general. Often this is what makes those 3 5 and 7 pack differences. You litterally can be beat out of by a non claimed Places page with no content just because they go 10 pages deep in Google and you only go 6.
As i have always known from time back that local search is just going to get better and more important for local SEO consultants and local searches too.
Its funny I just read this one - as it was posted on my birthday. I am sure I slept in, skipped out on work, and played NCAA football all afternoon which is probably why I missed it.
I figured this process out a while ago, and it has been one of the better link building tactics I like to use, especially for local and regional SEO. Rand continues to stay one step ahead of me :) Thanks (although belated) for the wonderful insights.
Nice, it's easy to do and can be really useful !
Thanks !
I didn't know any local SEO tools existed to make our life easier. I'll check it out. Aaron
This is a great tactic for filtering through the sites to see which ones Google actually recognizes...Great tactic to add to my SEO tool box!!
Hi, Thanks for sharing valuable tips for SEO !
Regards,
Shilpa D.
Another way that you can accomplish this is through training your Virtual Assistant staff to do this. This drives down your cost and time involved in the project.
I'd love to see how all this works now that the google maps layout is totally different. Anyone have ideas?
Local Citation has become very crucial for local listing in which you require NAP (Name, Address, and Phone) which show your brand. Each and every small business professional should list their business locally first, it will grow your business leads on some local keywords.
Some top listing like Google Business, Bing, Yahoo with Yelp, you can list on your local business directories with some yellow pages website.
Thanks +RandFishkin for good article and tactics.
It was really nice when google was displaying the "More >>" link. I can no longer find it however. Did they stopped using it some time ago?
Luckily you can still rely on manual competitor searches in google and bing.
It longer shows the citations for the websites on the Google Business, where can I find that information now? I need to build some citations for my local google page.
Thanks for the article
Very informative post!! Thank you for posting!!
This article is 6 Years old, can someone tell if this is still possible? cause the maps have changed drastically
How can you do this now that maps has changed so much? Is there a similar method?
I couldn't see Step 4 but only saw 3-4 links regarding to reviews, I am in Edinburgh (Google.co.uk).
I have used these tactics before. One thing I am curious about though is if one format for phone numbers is better than another format. So you can format like this (206) 888-8888 or like this 206.888.8888 or like this 206-888-8888. Do you think one is better than another or is there one format that is most accepted?
Neat! Makes a lot of sence to take part in some competitor analysis i suppose.
Thanks Randfish :)
If the dateline is correct, I'd like to wish this post a happy second birthday, particularly because the ideas are still valid despite multiple Panda evolutions. It is simply a variation on the classic "suss out your competitors best links and try to copy and surpass them. Good info from the Randfish even though he hadn't hit pubrty back then! ;-)
Great info. There's a ton of tips and tricks that can help your google listing. For one, many people think it's helpful to have a local number rather than a 1-800 number. If you don't have one, you can contact an internet phone service provider.
I got this article from you speak at distilled, pretty good. Local is the way to go obviously.
This is a great tactic for filtering through the sites to see which ones Google actually recognizes...Great tactic to add to my SEO tool box!!
Thanks for this great tip. In my city, looks like only a couple of onto-it companies have got reviews and their links look below average. I'm thinking perhaps I'll help some clients set up their Google +1 accounts in return for giving us some testimonials we can use for genuine reviews.
I'm about two years late finding this article but found it very useful for a project I'm working on. Thank you!
Hi im am not able to find "More About this Place, is it removed and replaced by something else.
please any one can suggest to find above and links in local.
I love the advantage following these simple tactics can give to a local or a small business. Often small businesses don't think they can compete in Search rankings. Local search can give the an advantage.
great points! i'm starting to work with more local search optimization for clients and will definitely deploy these techniques.
Is there any indication that the potential listing sites (Like UrbanSpoon shown after clicking More (52) ) are listed in a helpful order?
I mean how would you determine which are the most impactful sites to register with after having generated a list by doing a dozen different keyword searches?
Many of the listing sites are national in scope while others are regional or local.
Thanks for this post, Rand. You may feel it's so simple and most people already know about it, but there are people out there like me who are just getting started in this huge world of SEO and appreciate explanations of the simple things like local search. I plan on utilizing these suggestions as soon as possible!
:)
Simple and Sweet. Thanks Rand. This is great.
It is recommendations like this that highlight the value of good SEOs. Those that are in it for the quick buck are only interested in providing services that can be easily implemented, but may not actually have impact on their customers' websites.
Those that are in it for the long haul know that, while painful, it is tactics like this that are worth the long hoursis you can have significant impact on rankings.
I have a local search & review site and this is the kind of thing I am always trying to convey to small businesses. They can be listed for free on my site and get the benefit of traffic & and inbound link. To me that is worth 5 min of your time as a small business owner. Unfortunately, they are probably not the ones reading SEOmoz.
We're less than a year old but rapidly gaining in the search rankings. If you are a dog related / dog friendly business or working with one please submit your listing on Fido Factor. www.fidofactor.com
What a great post. We just assumed there was no real reason for the random nature of some of these Maps listings. Companies with no reviews and unclaimed topping supurb listings with 30 reviews. This will be a huge help.
I didn't realize the consistantcy of the listing had to be exact across the board....now I gotta go check to make sure they are ;~) Great info & post Rand...ty
Tony
Excellent....one more tool to add to the link gap analysis toolbelt.
Oh, and 7:30 in the morning and now I want Thai food...thanks for that.
Is it time for lunch yet?!
Great great great Rand.
Your tip&trick post is totally right.
Infact I'm actually doing almost the same for a client (a cheap hotel in the Tuscany Riviera) that due to time pressure (the season starts in less than one month) has the urge to be in the first page of the Google Serps for localized keywords.
That's why I choose to opt directly for local business optimization so to bring my client at first in page 1 in the 10box local business results.
And using the tecnique you suggested I can confirm that results are coming out well quite fast.
And now, having almost assured the presence of my client in the 1st page with Local, I can work more quietly on organic results.
Ciao
Good post. This trick is old, but yet so effective and surprisingly not well known!
Nice and simple tip.
Here in Denmark, Google Maps listings hasen't been open for submission much more than 2 years.
Most listings are pulled from the danish 'yellow pages' type of company. So competition is still very low, you can pretty much rank 1-3 just by claiming your listing and having your keyword in the title.
Do you think the sites google value as citation worthy are predefined, or algorithmically chosen?
Presumably it's algorithmically chosen. The Google development team is about having fair SERPs and this would surely include the local listings. If it was a first-come-first-serve basis, then there would be a massive opportunity for spammers.
Hi Traxor,
Yeah the ranking is obviously algorythmic, what I meant was, if the sites Google consideres as citations for the sites, if they are predefined or just if any site mentioning your name and adress will be considered a citation.
I've made the experience, that the individual customizing of the shown keywords is very important. If you use the wrong keywords, your local customers will never find your site in a local search. You should try out, what keywords your competitors use.
Greetings from germany
Wolfgang Kundler
Is there any reason to do local optimization if you have a geographically irrelevant business like business software? I don't think it would hurt but is my time best spent developing content etc.? Could Google confuse my business for a local business rather than a global one?
I have never seen a local listing hurt global rankings. As a matter of fact, you will probably find some inbound links while you are optimizing for local which will help your global rankings.
for brand searches, in my experience, you still get page 1 coverage even if searched from other ends of the country...
had this with a brand with half a million global searches a month so good for page 1 domination
Gotta try this.
Thanks for the detailed post on Google local listings. I need to check out my listings now.
Great tips. Especially the part about running searches in different industries. In my experience, the single best way to dominate local.
This has been my little linkbuilding secret for some time... Ah, the fleeting nature of well kept SEO secrets.
Great article, new tips learned and will put into use. Tks!
Awesome! I just implemented my first local business listings. Thank you all for the advice and tips along the way. How long does it take to see results after link building is established? I have heard 3-6 weeks?
Awesome! I just implemented my first local business listings. Thank you all for the advice and tips along the way. How long does it take to see results after link building is established? I have heard 3-6 weeks?
I Love It!
I think most SEO architects would have come to this or are doing it naturally but you lay it out so simply and clearly.
Awesome blog! Simple, yet sucessful!
Rand, Thank you for the brief informative post on local listings. This is a tactic I had not heard of before but, will be doing this today!!!
Best,
Some very useful insider's tips on local SEO indeed - thanks for sharing, Rand!
Thanks a lot for the blog, Google Local seems to be dominating my customers thoughts and space. This has given them more link 'Juice' potential and should also make a big difference on their Google organic positioning. Thanks again
Chris HornerTOP PAGE
My day just got longer, but more fruitful :)
Tooo...much...value...in...this...post....must....lie....down
Sometimes these simple things are the best and the ones we're most likely to overlook. My "to do" list just got a little longer - thanks for a great (and for me, very timely) post!
Great reminder on an old trick!
Pretty nifty stuff, always enjoy learning how to improve local rankings as it is a nice added bonus to be able to help our small restaurants we do web-stuff for rank for their cuisine in their towns.
Rand, I used Universal Business Listing. Do you suggest I do all of those manually? getlisted.org seems to like them.
Rand, this is fantastic. Nothing else to be said. Fantastic.
I must say that this tactic works very well, I used it several times already with great results.