Archive for June, 2009

A quick post tonight for the small business out there interested in how they can rank well for local searches…

There has been alot of data out lately (and I have confirmed this in my personal tests) that seems to show a huge shift in ranking factors for local search queries.  My personal opinion is that this has been a gradual change over the last year.

What is the primary shift???  Citations

What is a citation in the context of Local SEO?  A citation is an occurrence of a business address on a website… typically an IYP site (Internet Yellow Page websites).  There is alot of evidence to show that these occurrences can improve ranking significantly in the local search results area on search engines like Google.  Here is some more evidence…

Here are a few places where you can submit your business address to help improve your local search engine ranking:

• InfoUSA (feeds multiple sources)
• Yelp.com
• Localeze.com
• UniversalBusinessListing.org (this service will submit to all of them for $30)
• If you find any local directories that list addresses of businesses, get on it!

Hope this helps.  Local SEO is really hot right now, and it’s never been easier to get really good ranking in local search.