SEO australia

Local search engine optimization (local SEO) is similar to (national) SEO in that it is also a process affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results (known as its SERP, search engine results page) often referred to as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results.^[1] In general, the higher ranked on the search results page and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users; these visitors can then be converted into customers.^[2] Local SEO, however, differs in that it is focused on optimizing a business's online presence so that its web pages will be displayed by search engines when users enter local searches for its products or services.^[3] Ranking for local search involves a similar process to general SEO but includes some specific elements to rank a business for local search.

For example, local SEO is all about 'optimizing' your online presence to attract more business from relevant local searches. The majority of these searches take place on Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, Baidu and other search engines but for better optimization in your local area you should also use sites like Yelp, Angie's List, LinkedIn, Local business directories, social media channels and others.^[4]

The origin of local SEO can be traced back^[5] to 2003-2005 when search engines tried to provide people with results in their vicinity as well as additional information such as opening times of a store, listings in maps, etc.

Local SEO has evolved over the years to provide a targeted online marketing approach that allows local businesses to appear based on a range of local search signals, providing a distinct difference from broader organic SEO which prioritises relevance of search over a distance of searcher.

Local searches trigger search engines to display two types of results on the Search engine results page: local organic results and the 'Local Pack'.^[3] The local organic results include web pages related to the search query with local relevance. These often include directories such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, Facebook, etc.^[3] The Local Pack displays businesses that have signed up with Google and taken ownership of their 'Google My Business' (GMB) listing.

The information displayed in the GMB listing and hence in the Local Pack can come from different sources:^[6]

• The owner of the business. This information can include opening/closing times, description of products or services, etc.
• Information is taken from the business's website
• User-provided information such as reviews or uploaded photos
• Information from other sources such as social profiles etc.
• Structured Data taken from Wikidata and Wikipedia. Data from these sources is part of the information that appears in Google's Knowledge Panel in the search results.

Depending on the searches, Google can show relevant local results in Google Maps or Search. This is true on both mobile and desktop devices.^[7]

Google has added a new Q&A features to Google Maps allowing users to submit questions to owners and allowing these to respond.^[8] This Q&A feature is tied to the associated Google My Business account.

Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool that allows businesses to create and manage their Google Business listing. These listings must represent a physical location that a customer can visit. A Google Business listing appears when customers search for businesses either on Google Maps or in Google SERPs. The accuracy of these listings is a local ranking factor.

Major search engines have algorithms that determine which local businesses rank in local search. Primary factors that impact a local business's chance of appearing in local search include proper categorization in business directories, a business's name, address, and phone number (NAP) being crawlable on the website, and citations (mentions of the local business on other relevant websites like a chamber of commerce website).^[9]

In 2016, a study using statistical analysis assessed how and why businesses ranked in the Local Packs and identified positive correlations between local rankings and 100+ ranking factors.^[10] Although the study cannot replicate Google's algorithm, it did deliver several interesting findings:

• Backlinks showed the most important correlation (and also Google's Toolbar PageRank, suggesting that older links are an advantage because the Toolbar has not been updated in a long time).
• Sites with more content (hence more keywords) tended to fare better (as expected).
• Reviews on GMB also were found to strongly correlate with high rankings.
• Other GMB factors, like the presence of photos and having a verified GMB page with opening hours, showed a positive correlation (with ranking) albeit not as important as reviews.
• The quality of citations such as a low number of duplicates, consistency and also a fair number of citations, mattered for a business to show in Local Packs. However, within the pack, citations did not influence their ranking: "citations appear to be foundational but not a competitive advantage."
• The authors were instead surprised that geotargeting elements (city & state) in the title of the GMB landing page did not have any impact on GMB rankings. Hence the authors suggest using such elements only if it makes sense for usability reasons.
• The presence of a keyword in the business name was found to be one of the most important factors (explaining the high incidence of spam in the Local Pack).
• Schema structured data is a ranking factor. The addition of the 'LocalBusiness' markup will enable you to display relevant information about your business to Google. This includes opening hours, address, founder, parent company information and much more.^[11]
• The number of reviews and overall star rating correlates with higher rankings in the Google map pack results.

Prominence, relevance, and distance are the three main criteria Google claims to use in its algorithms to show results that best match a user's query.^[12]

• Prominence reflects how well-known is a place in the offline world. An important museum or store, for example, will be given more prominence. Google also uses information obtained on the web to assess prominence such as review counts, links, articles.
• Relevance refers to Google's algorithms attempt to surface the listings that best match the user's query.
• Distance refers to Google's attempt to return those listings that are the closest the location terms used in a user's query. If no location term is used then "Google will calculate distance based on what's known about their location".

According to a group of local SEO experts who took part in a survey, links and reviews are more important than ever to rank locally.^[13]

As a result of both Google as well as Apple offering "near me" as an option to users, some authors^[14] report on how Google Trends shows very significant increases in "near me" queries. The same authors also report that the factors correlating the most with Local Pack ranking for "near me" queries include the presence of the "searched city and state in backlinks' anchor text" as well as the use of the " 'near me' in internal link anchor text"

An important update to Google's local algorithm, rolled out on the 1st of September 2016.^[15] Summary of the update on local search results:

• Businesses based outside city physical limits showed a significant increase in ranking in the Google Local Pack
• A more restrictive filter is in place. Before the update, Google filtered listings linking to the same website and using the same phone number. After the update, listings get filtered if they have the same address and same categories though they belong to different businesses. So, if several dentists share the same address, Google will only show one of them.

As previously explained (see above), the Possum update led similar listings, within the same building, or even located on the same street, to get filtered. As a result, only one listing "with greater organic ranking and stronger relevance to the keyword" would be shown.^[16] After the Hawk update on 22 August 2017, this filtering seems to apply only to listings located within the same building or close by (e.g. 50 feet), but not to listings located further away (e.g.325 feet away).^[16]

As previously explained (see above), reviews are deemed to be an important ranking factor. Joy Hawkins, a Google Top Contributor and local SEO expert, highlights the problems due to fake reviews:^[17]

• Lack of an appropriate process for business owners to report fake reviews on competitors' sites. GMB support will not consider requests about businesses other than if they come from the business owners themselves. So if a competitor nearby has been collecting fake reviews, the only way to bring this to the attention of GMB is via the Google My Business Forum.
• Unlike Yelp, Google does not show a label warning users of abnormal review behavior for those businesses that buy reviews or that receive unnatural numbers of negative reviews because of media attention.
• Current Google algorithms do not identify unnatural review patterns. Abnormal review patterns often do not need human gauging and should be easily identified by algorithms. As a result, both fake listings and rogue reviewer profiles should be suspended.

• Local search (optimization)

• Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide
• Google Local Businesses Guide

Web syndication is making content available from one website to other sites. Most commonly, websites are made available to provide either summaries or full renditions of a website's recently added content. The term may also describe other kinds of content licensing for reuse.

For the subscribing sites, syndication is an effective way of adding greater depth and immediacy of information to their pages, making them more attractive to users. For the provider site, syndication increases exposure. This generates new traffic for the provider site—making syndication an easy and relatively cheap, or even free, form of advertisement.

Content syndication has become an effective strategy for link building, as search engine optimization has become an increasingly important topic among website owners and online marketers. Links embedded within the syndicated content are typically optimized around anchor terms that will point an optimized^{[clarification needed]} link back to the website that the content author is trying to promote. These links tell the algorithms of the search engines that the website being linked to is an authority for the keyword that is being used as the anchor text. However the rollout of Google Panda's algorithm may not reflect this authority in its SERP rankings based on quality scores generated by the sites linking to the authority.

The prevalence of web syndication is also of note to online marketers, since web surfers are becoming increasingly wary of providing personal information for marketing materials (such as signing up for a newsletter) and expect the ability to subscribe to a feed instead. Although the format could be anything transported over HTTP, such as HTML or JavaScript, it is more commonly XML. Web syndication formats include RSS, Atom,^[1] and JSON Feed.

Syndication first arose in earlier media such as print, radio, and television, allowing content creators to reach a wider audience. In the case of radio, the United States Federal government proposed a syndicate in 1924 so that the country's executives could quickly and efficiently reach the entire population.^[2] In the case of television, it is often said that "Syndication is where the real money is."^[3] Additionally, syndication accounts for the bulk of TV programming.^[4]

One predecessor of web syndication is the Meta Content Framework (MCF), developed in 1996 by Ramanathan V. Guha and others in Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group.^[5]

Today, millions of online publishers, including newspapers, commercial websites, and blogs, distribute their news headlines, product offers, and blog postings in the news feed.

Conventional syndication businesses such as Reuters and Associated Press thrive on the internet by offering their content to media partners on a subscription basis,^[6] using business models established in earlier media forms.

Commercial web syndication can be categorized in three ways:

• by business models
• by types of content
• by methods for selecting distribution partners

Commercial web syndication involves partnerships between content producers and distribution outlets. There are different structures of partnership agreements. One such structure is licensing content, in which distribution partners pay a fee to the content creators for the right to publish the content. Another structure is ad-supported content, in which publishers share revenues derived from advertising on syndicated content with that content's producer. A third structure is free, or barter syndication, in which no currency changes hands between publishers and content producers. This requires the content producers to generate revenue from another source, such as embedded advertising or subscriptions. Alternatively, they could distribute content without remuneration. Typically, those who create and distribute content free are promotional entities, vanity publishers, or government entities.

Types of content syndicated include RSS or Atom Feeds and full content. With RSS feeds, headlines, summaries, and sometimes a modified version of the original full content is displayed on users' feed readers. With full content, the entire content—which might be text, audio, video, applications/widgets, or user-generated content—appears unaltered on the publisher's site.

There are two methods for selecting distribution partners. The content creator can hand-pick syndication partners based on specific criteria, such as the size or quality of their audiences. Alternatively, the content creator can allow publisher sites or users to opt into carrying the content through an automated system. Some of these automated "content marketplace" systems involve careful screening of potential publishers by the content creator to ensure that the material does not end up in an inappropriate environment.

Just as syndication is a source of profit for TV producers and radio producers, it also functions to maximize profit for Internet content producers. As the Internet has increased in size^[7] it has become increasingly difficult for content producers to aggregate a sufficiently large audience to support the creation of high-quality content. Syndication enables content creators to amortize the cost of producing content by licensing it across multiple publishers or by maximizing the distribution of advertising-supported content. A potential drawback for content creators, however, is that they can lose control over the presentation of their content when they syndicate it to other parties.

Distribution partners benefit by receiving content either at a discounted price, or free. One potential drawback for publishers, however, is that because the content is duplicated at other publisher sites, they cannot have an "exclusive" on the content.

For users, the fact that syndication enables the production and maintenance of content allows them to find and consume content on the Internet. One potential drawback for them is that they may run into duplicate content, which could be an annoyance.