Local Search Ranking Factors 2009
David Mihm’s 2nd annual survey of my esteemed colleagues in the local seo world is now up. It’s a fantastic report and probably will do as much for the economy as the Stimulus and perhaps even more than TARP. For those of you with ADD, here’s a summary of the top 20 factors on a scale of 5 to -5 where 5 means the factor has the strongest effect and -5 not so good:
- Claiming Your Local Business Listing: 4.42
- Citations From Major Data Providers + IYP Portals: 4.10
- Associating Local Business With Proper Categories: 4.00
- Product/Service Keyword in Local Business Listing Title: 3.56
- General Importance of Off-Page/Off-Listing Criteria: 3.50
- Positive Ratings Associated With Your Local Business Listing: 3.34
- Volume of Customer Reviews Associated With Your Local Business Listing: 3.34
- General Importance of Customer Reviews: 3.27
- General Importance of On-Page Criteria: 2.98
- Including Full Address on Website Contact Page: 2.86
- Proximity of Address to City Centroid: 2.85
- Quality of Inbound Links to Website: 2.82
- Hyperlocal/Traditional Web Crawl Citations: 2.80
- Product/Service Keywords in Local Business Listing Description: 2.77
- Location Keywords in Inbound Links to Website: 2.71
- Customer Reviews Left Directly at the Search Engine: 2.65
- Location Keyword in Local Business Listing Title: 2.50
- Product/Service Keywords in Inbound Links to Website: 2.45
- Including City + State In Most/All Website Title Tags: 2.42
- Customer Reviews Left on Third-Party Websites: 2.30
And the award for worst offending factor goes to…Multiple Local Business Listings With The Same Address: -2.02
Check it all out here
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