Google Improves the Ranking Results for Local Search

Google has recently introduced a significant algorithm boost to the quality of local search results within the main search listings. Codenamed “Venice”, this new update will help smaller, localised businesses to compete in the rankings against larger, national companies and will benefit them as the search results continue to become increasingly localised.

Local search results are becoming increasingly important, particularly with mobile searchers, and so ranking positions on both Google Places and Google’s main organic results are something that any business with a localised target market needs to consider. Having a localised online marketing strategy, whether it’s for just one business location or multiple locations, is a key factor for search engine marketing, and Google’s recent changes make this more important than ever.

Google’s recent “Venice” update uses the signals within the main search results to help trigger relevant local results for the searcher, which is also based on the user’s location so that results should be more relevant to that location, whether or not a location term has been used in the search query. The location targeting is based on the searcher’s IP address location, which is also displayed in the left hand margin on the search results (and can be changed by the searcher if not correct).

This update therefore provides more opportunities for local companies to appear in the search results when relevant to local searchers, and therefore the SEO elements for a website and a Google Places listing become increasingly important. This could benefit local businesses that have previously been disadvantaged by larger firms in terms of their SEO targeting, through some improved optimisation of their sites for localised search terms.

These changes can involve a number of factors, from using the local terms in HTML tags and page content, to including local focused content on the website, and making updates to a website’s pages/architecture and the type of code that is used to micro-format the address. Links to the website that use the local search term in the text link also remain an important factor to support these type of rankings, as does the optimisation of a Google Places listing (which we covered in March 2011).

Therefore, careful localised optimisation is the key for local business marketing through search, as this Google Venice update shows that this is becoming increasing important at levelling the playing field between national and local firms. Businesses need to start developing a plan to deal with it to make sure they stay properly optimised and so take advantage of the opportunities that the updated algorithm change has to offer.

If you would like more information about how we can help to optimise your website to take advantage of this opportunity, contact us now for more details.

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