Last week our very own Dave Cosper, VP of EZlocal, put together one of the most comprehensive slideshows on the topic of local search optimization to date. His entire presentation is superb and deserves a complete viewing, but today I’d like to focus on just one of his points (from slide 35):
Online local consumers are fragmented across multiple search engines and internet yellow pages sites – robust, broad content distribution is key to maximize reach.
So what does fragmentation mean? At the most basic level, fragmentation means that consumers seek out different resources when shopping locally. Some people go by word of mouth, others use printed yellow pages and yet others may follow printed reviews or ads in their local paper. However, the only “fragment” we are concerned about in this article...
By Jorge Cordova · April 26 2010
local search, google, yahoo, bing
My full article is posted on SearchEngineGuide. Here are the cliff notes:
Google's local search algorithm, in Layman's terms, looks something like this:
Ranking = Location + Information + Corroboration + Input + X
Understanding the variables in this equation are a critical part of getting found online. Businesses have just two meaningful representations in the local search space: a website and a business listing. The latter of the two is worth discussing in detail.
Let's take a look at the anatomy of a local search results page and see where local business listings fit in. For this example I did a Google search for "cleaners boston ma"...
By Dave Cosper · April 07 2010
bing, google, lbc, local search
