If you are new to SEO we suggest starting with a quick crash course in SEO. If you are really not interested in learning SEO we suggest things to know before you hire an SEO expert.

If you follow the local business listings or how to get listed higher on the local search algorithm you probably know that there are few things that you can do in order to rank higher in the search listings besides the map. For example

Matt McGee has a great article on 10 likely elements of Google’s local search algorithm. This article provides in depth analysis on what a small business owner can do in order to rank higher for certain keywords. A very important point, I think is not only to be listed with a lot of local directories like True local , yellow pages,  white pages but also to have a fair bit of activity on your local listing.

For example a review can boost your rankings in local listing.A business website is also as important in order to be boosted in the listing.

If you have read the article from Matt and if you are still interested in doing more about your rankings you can read Davidmihm‘s article on local business listings.

That covers a lot of ground but in addition there are other important things that we have noticed that may affect your business listings and how they rank in Google.

1) Listing within the same organization.

If you are a franchisee within the same organization, then this may be of interest to you.For example when I search “rent a bomb” in google australia it came up with the listings on the left hand side. Now let’s analyse these listings.

Location :  Listing A is 6.8 KM , B is 7.6 KM and C is 40KM. Not much you can do with the location bit.

Review : Obviously this seems to be playing a role with this listing and Matt provided a good explanation of this. This seemed to be critically important with some other searches like Officeworks melbourne or Nandos melbourne.

Reviews from 3rd party vs Google : This seemed to also be a good observation. yahoo local In Australia has collaborated with True local to provide local listings. So reviews in True local ported to Google listings seemed to help boost the rankings much more than reviews from other directories.

For example even though this link has more reviews then its predecessor it ranks lower because none of the review are from True local.A confirmation of reviews to be as important is given by this duplicate listing on Google. The first one has one review and the second one has no review. Although being the same listing they rank in the respective order of reviews.Fairly obvious ?

* Google places higher importance on tier1 local directories. Get listed with them and get reviewed to boost rankings within same organization.

/* If you have found something that can be added here please feel free to leave a comment */