This week, Gauge Digital Media’s Whiteboard Wednesday video is on Local Search Ranking Factors. Visibility on Google is becoming very difficult for local businesses. Thanks to Moz’s Local SEO Ranking Report, there is a formula for business’ overall ranking factors. Here at Gauge, we use these top factors that are important to rank your business high on Google.
Local SEO Ranking Factors – Transcript:
Welcome back to Whiteboard Wednesday with Gauge Digital Media. I’m Becca, and today I will be talking about Local SEO Ranking Factors.
Local SEO is getting more difficult for many businesses. Ever since Google moved from seven to three listings in the local pack, it has created a highly competitive environment for local businesses. For businesses, this means if you wish to rank in that three pack, you should invest in local SEO services.
Thanks to Moz’s Local SEO Ranking Report, there is a formula for business’ overall ranking factors. Here at Gauge, we use these top factors that are important to rank your business high on Google.
The top overall ranking factors include, on-page signals, link signals, my business signals, external location signals, behavioral signals, personalization, review signals, and social signals.
On-page signals account for 20.3 percent of a business’ overall ranking. Key on-page local SEO elements include title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, page content, images, maps and your businesses Name, Address and Phone number listed on every page.
20 percent of a business’ overall ranking is from link signals. Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. Link signals are one of the key ways in which we build authority.
Next, your Google My Business page represents 14.7 percent of your business’ overall ranking. Optimizing your Google My Business page can be difficult, but it’s critical to have the basics right:
- Verify or create your page
- Use the correct name, address, phone number
- Assign your business to the correct category
- Upload relevant photos
- Create a description of your business
- Get reviews on your Google My Business
External location signals account for 13.6 percent of your business’ overall ranking. Google wants to connect and validate the address information on your website, your Google My Business page, and your information from the web.
There are two key elements to consider here Name, Address Phone number Consistency and Citations. Your business’ NAP is your location, which needs to be consistent across all websites.
The next key element would be Citations, which are listings that include your business’ Name, Address, Phone and sometimes your website url. There are thousands of citation websites across the web. It is important to keep your information consistent so Google can trust it.
There are a few additional factors that represent small fractions of your business’ overall ranking, that I’m not going to go in detail about today. These are review signals, social signals, behavioral signals and personalization. Overall, Local SEO is getting more competitive. In order for your business to become visible and stay visible in the local results, you have to optimize your business using these top-ranking factors.
If you’d like to find out how Gauge Digital Media’s SEO services can help your business, check out our website at gaugedigitalmedia.com
