Learn everything you need to know about optimizing your business listing and increasing your “findability” on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

1. Local Search
Optimizing Your
Business Listing
and Increasing
Your “Findability”
By Dave Cosper
Vice President of EZlocal, Inc.

2. What is Local Search?

3. Local Search is online consumers
looking to find qualified local
businesses, by entering “top of
mind” search term(s) + a
geographic modifier.
Example: [tire repair san diego]

4. What is Local SEO?

5. Local SEO is search engine
optimization that makes your
business listing more relevant
to local search queries.
Note: Involves both content and
reputation management across
multiple sites.

6. Typical Local Search…
Let’s look for a cleaning service in Boston, MA
“cleaners” = keyword (product, service, category)
“boston ma” = geographic modifier (the location)

7. … and here’s what a page-one Google search result looks
like for “cleaners” in “boston, ma”:

8. Let’s do the same thing on Yahoo!

9. … and here’s what a page-one Yahoo search result looks
like for “cleaners” in “boston, ma”:

10. Why should you care
about Local Search?

11. Because almost all
search has local intent.
Consumers are turning to Local
Search by the millions to find local
businesses – it’s the fastest
growing industry on the Web!

12. Over
2.6 billion local
searches conducted
each month.
Local Search
accounts for over
30% of all search
traffic.

13. 97% of all Internet users in the U.S.
gather shopping information online.
51% explicitly characterize
their behavior as
shop online, buy offline.

14. But only 11% of business listings have
been claimed. It’s winner takes all –
and the early bird gets the worm.

15. You know you need it,
so let’s go over how
Local SEO works.

16. Businesses today have just two
representations in Local Search.
Website Business listing(s)
(www.yourname.com) (Internet maps, yellow pages)

17. Websites show up in universal results.

18. The average small business spends $550 per month on
pay-per-click search engine advertising for their website.

19. Business listings appear in the Maps.

20. A website link is part of your business listing
– essentially the two work together to help
your business listing rank.

21. Business listing optimization is 100% organic.
Getting top placement requires a Local SEO
strategy, implementation and management.

22. Business listing optimization or
Local SEO starts with the N.A.P.
(Name, Address, Phone number).
Search engines rely on “trusted sources” for
their basic and enhanced business data:
• Their own local business centers (LBC’s)
─ Google, Yahoo and Bing have their own LBC’s
• Business information aggregators
─ Trusted national data providers like Amacai
(“Localeze”), InfoUSA, Acxiom, and iBegin

23. The anatomy of a business listing. Basic vs. Enhanced.

24. Search engines also get data via feeds from
“relevant” IYP (Internet Yellow Page) sites.
They aggregate this data and add it to their
own database – these are called “citations”.

25. Local SEO involves many factors
in determining where your
business listing ranks.

26. Local SEO also involves a
series a important steps.
Every step is important. Your ranking
will ultimately depend on the sum total
of every weighted factor.

27. Primary Local Search
ranking factors:
Location
Information
Corroboration
Consumer Input

28. Location
Distance from “Centroid” (the geographic center of
the area searched) - the closer your business is, the
higher you rank. [Note: This factor has been reduced
in weight recently]

29. Information
Listings containing more robust information and
links rank higher in search results (e.g., a website
link, keyword-rich content, tags, media, etc).
Target keyword phrases prospective
customers may use to find you.

30. Corroboration
How many other local search engines or directories
have your enhanced listing published?
Each time the information contained in your listing
can be tied to a matching NAP (Name, Address,
Phone number) on other “relevant“
sites, your listing is awarded a
“citation” -- the more citations you
have, the higher you rank. This
corroboration between relevant
sites builds “trust”, and the trust
factor is critical to ranking.

31. The future of local search = relevance.
Think citations more than links.
As a “trusted source of data”, sites like EZlocal
can guarantee your business citations from the
major search engines.

32. Take advantage of both manual
submissions and data providers who
both actively and passively feed
information to major search engines
and IYP sites.
Utilizing both
will increase your
online exposure and
“certificate of trust”.

33. Corroboration flow illustrated…

34. Consumer Input
How many consumer reviews/ratings or other
sources of user input does your business have on
"relevant" sites?
To maximize citations and achieve the highest
possible ranking you need to get as much positive
feedback as possible. This involves encouraging
your happy customers to go online and give you
positive reviews on multiple relevant sites.

35. The Take-Aways
• Local Search is mainstream
• Corroboration and depth of content are critical to
supporting a business’ image, increasing visibility and
"findability" and generating qualified, “ready-to-buy”
local customers
• Online local consumers are fragmented across multiple
search engines and internet yellow page sites -- robust,
broad content distribution is key to maximize reach
• EZlocal.com has created an easy and affordable single-
source of online local search engine distribution,
optimization and content management