Many people are aware of SEO – search engine optimization – but don’t realize that a variation of this is local SEO.
Local SEO refers to optimizing a site or pages on your site to show for organic queries in the search engines where the intent of the searcher is to find local information.
Examples of local search queries include searches with geo qualifiers like the city or town name, or with a zip code, but do not necessarily have to have the geo qualifier either.
An example of a query without a geo-qualifier is, “personal injury attorney near me.” While there is no geo qualifier, the intent of this query is to find local information – these types of queries are becoming more and more prevalent with the increase in smartphones.
Search engines can show these organic SEO results in a variety of ways.
Local Pack – Local Business Listing
The screen shot below is of a Google search engine results page (SERP) for the query “personal injury attorney San Diego.” This query has local intent with its geo qualifier San Diego.
The area in the red box below the map shows what many consider the local search results and includes a push pin of the business on the local map along with the address and phone number of the local business listing. Some people refer to this area of the Google search results as a “local pack”, “3-pack”, local listings, and some industry insiders refer to it as a “snack pack.”
It’s important also to recognize that not all queries with geo-qualifers return a local pack in Google search results. The decision to show local listings with a map is solely up to Google.
Factors That Contribute To Local Pack Rankings
Google’s local pack listings are in large part determined by geo signals.
The first signal is the actual address of your business. If your company is not even in the area that Google considers, in this case, San Diego, then it will be difficult to have even your business show in these local listings. Nobody really knows how Google defines a particular geo area – Google has its own rules and algorithm it uses in determining what it considers a geo area, and if your business falls outside of that then you very likely will never appear there.
Other factors that contribute to that are you’re other NAP listings sometimes referred to as citations. I wrote another post on local SEO tips that go into more detail, but in summary, NAP stands for name, address, and phone. NAP listings (i.e. citations) are other sites such as Yelp, or the local chamber of commerce, that have a listing for your business that includes its NAP.
Then there are other factors such as on-page SEO, your site’s domain authority, and more.
Traditional SEO Listings
Local SEO can also include ranking pages in Google’s search results that are outside of the local listings discussed above.
The same query above also had traditional SEO results and pages that were ranking for that query.
The area in the red box below the map shows what many consider the local search results and includes a push pin of the business on the local map along with the address and phone number of the local business listing. Some people refer to this area of the Google search results as a “local pack”, “3-pack”, local listings, and some industry insiders refer to it as a “snack pack.”
It’s important also to recognize that not all queries with geo-qualifers return a local pack in Google search results. The decision to show local listings with a map is solely up to Google.
Factors That Contribute To Local Pack Rankings
Google’s local pack listings are in large part determined by geo signals.
The first signal is the actual address of your business. If your company is not even in the area that Google considers, in this case, San Diego, then it will be difficult to have even your business show in these local listings. Nobody really knows how Google defines a particular geo area – Google has its own rules and algorithm it uses in determining what it considers a geo area, and if your business falls outside of that then you very likely will never appear there.
Other factors that contribute to that are your other NAP listings sometimes referred to as citations. I wrote another post on local seo tips that go into more detail, but in summary, NAP stands for name, address and phone. NAP listings (i.e. citations) are other sites such as Yelp, or the local chamber of commerce, that have a listing for your business that includes its NAP.
Then there are other factors such as on-page SEO, your site’s domain authority, and more.
Traditional SEO Listings
Local SEO can also include ranking pages in Google’s search results that are outside of the local listings discussed above.
The same query above also had traditional SEO results and pages that were ranking for that query.
Source: 39celsius
