Local Search Engine Rankings & Results

The fact or the reality of local search engine rankings & results is that they never remain still. Rankings move. What’s more, Google will serve unique local search results when it can tell where a consumer is searching from. Add to this that an individual’s personal search activity, including their past choices, may also personalize the search results that they see. It all means that a lot of people see a lot of different search engine rankings & results.

When a business is locally targeted, a Google search engine results page (that the business is included in) may be crowded with advertisements, above a local map pack of listings, and finally the traditional organic search results. Competition is also there and just like your business – they are working on their visibility in these results too.

So if the idea of a #1 or a top #5 rank position motivates your business … and it should!, try and think of an SEO effort more as raising ‘average visibility’ to an overall searching marketplace. Those #1 rankings will move and your company and/or your competition will rank differently at different times of the day for different searchers. If it seems discouraging, it really should NOT because the amount of searching for every single subject is so enormous that there are likely more qualified consumers than any one business could ever want or handle. These realities of search apply to all – and STILL, the well-optimized business will raise its’ odds dramatically for being highly visible to its’ target marketplace.

How Do Prospective Customers Search?

A marketer must also identify how customers think and, thereby, search for the products & services they want. Target customer ‘search language’ often differs from the terminology a business uses internally. A local dental practice needs to use the customer’s language because, for instance, the word ‘Prosthodontist‘ is likely NOT to be their ‘search language’. The ‘Prosthodontist’ may need to target keywords like dental implants, crowns, bridges, and dentures.

So matching the language of the ‘target market’ in website pages, in social postings, and in listing descriptions is fundamental to how a business must present itself. At least, it is if the business wishes to achieve its ranking & search visibility goals. Start with who and where that target customer is. Then identify what their local needs are, including the product/service keywords they use to find them.

Search Engine Optimization For A Marketplace

Location is where a business operates from, but its target market is where its prospective customers are coming from. For a locally targeted business, success is going to include looking at its own location and its market the way the Google algorithm does. Unless it is clear that a business is nationally targeted, Google logically compares or ranks a business (keywords on website pages, via links, and in listings, citations, social accounts, etc.) part based upon a radius around its location. The amount of competition is very much a part of that calculation, the more densely competitive the tighter that radius may become. So for the locally targeted business, mapping that from a base location outward is critical to marketing and SEO success.

And for what it’s worth, a local business has a better chance with prospects physically near to their location. Google’s perception of intent is based upon how far a distance the average prospect will accept when choosing a particular business (e.g. dentist, builder, or paving contractor)? The further away a prospect is from the local business, the less likely they are to choose it from or (even) discover it in search results. And, by the way, reaching more distant prospects will inevitably require more related content … and more cost.

Local SEO

Local SEO is a means for getting your brand high in local search engine results, leveraging highly optimized website pages, listings, citations, and various other locally useful references. The goal is traffic, direct calls, and leads from qualified searching consumers. Kinetic Knowledge is a leader for affordable local small business SEO and internet marketing services.

The ‘Technical SEO’ Chatter

There is growing chatter out there about “technical SEO”. Some would say that it is the big winner for a business when it comes to being visible in search engine results.  Technical SEO can include and/or mean a lot of different things, depending on who you are speaking with, but mostly it is centered on good website markup or codebase.

Any competitive SEO signal (believed to be as many as 200) a search engine looks for can matter competitively, but in some cases “technical SEO‘ is used as a ‘scare tactic’. There are those digital marketing companies choosing “fear” as their sales & marketing strategy, for instance maybe, when trying to sell new website projects or SEO Service.

The web’s various standards are always evolving! Search Engines do evaluate website health based on the average person’s ability to access its pages, but keep in mind that content is still king! Also, keep in mind that the level of competition varies for every type of business in every target area. If a ‘walking tour business’ in Biloxi MS has little to no competition then the search engines will have no other option but to default to the pages it can find on ‘Walking Tours in Biloxi MS’ … regardless of whether or not there has been an investment in ‘technical SEO’.

What is Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to a website’s markup or codebase. It can include things like lighter code or pages better suited for mobile device support; it can be a more easily crawled XML sitemap, better page title & title tags, metadata, 301 redirects, website speed, page loads, and more.

There are lots of ‘audit websites’ out there set up to evaluate a website’s ‘technical SEO’ performance. A question one should always ask is, “who’s standard is this evaluation based upon?” The answer might expose those literally set up to support the very ‘scare tactics’ mentioned above; an audit result being tuned more to create fear than to evaluate the overall health of the business website versus its actual competition.

Also, know that most small to medium-sized business competition is neither investing in nor do they know anything about, ‘technical SEO’. What’s more, every potential consumer connects to the web with different local connections, device types, device settings, and various other potential interference. It is never an ‘apples to apples’ experience for the public. It is never as simple as ‘enter your website URL’ and know where you will rest versus the specific competition.

Still, any SEO signal a search engine looks for – matters. A business should want to know that its website is functioning well & competitively! Given the sheer volume of traffic that ‘Google Search’ sees, search engine optimization must be a priority for every business wanting to be found!

What Can Hurt Competitive SEO?

Ultimately, a business should operate with care or hire the necessary support. What a business should look for is a modern website theme with markup to address all of those items mentioned above. Before adding the newest & greatest plugin application, have someone evaluate it for any potential negatives. Free anything, logically, is probably not the best choice. Don’t add too many apps’, be conservative with home page video roll. Compress images and PDFs when adding them; name and tag all files appropriately. Consider what modern browsers want, etc., etc.

The idea is to make load times better; to make all visual or interactive website components work well with as many devices and connections as is possible. The idea is also to make search engine crawling and consumption easier.

Better Website Solutions For Business

Not all website solutions are created equal! Not all website solutions evolve to meet new challenges, like for instance ‘technical SEO’. All considered it may be time for a website update?!

WordPress is considered one of the best content management systems for SEO, but install an SEO-friendly theme and plugins supporting the best results possible. WordPress not only evolves at the speed of the web but there are always themes and plugin applications that show up to meet the evolving challenge. And yes, there are new WordPress themes that not only support the lovely design of a unique brand but a great user experience! Responsive design, clean code, and quick load speeds!