Higher Rankings in Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search

You want to help customers find you in Google Maps (or Google Local) & Yahoo Local Search. This is a great idea, because millions of people search Google Maps & Yahoo Local every day. Getting listed on both Yahoo Local Search & Google Maps is free, however, you may appear 3 pages back which is of very little benefit to you. There are multiple techniques that can be used when trying to acheive higher rankings in Google local or Yahoo Local Search, but nothing beats good old fashioned Local Search Engine Optimization.

Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search are a lot like their search engine counter parts with a few major differences. When Google Maps appears in the organic search results it is generally because you were searching with a geographic term such as ‘Personal Injury Attorneys Los Angeles, CA’, so Personal Injury Attorneys that have an address in LA and are listed on Google Maps will tend to appear higher… makes sense, right? Google cross references your business name, address, as well as your web site to determine relevancy to the search terms.

Here are a few things we do for our clients to help them appear better in local search such as Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search:

• Make sure every address & phone number your business has is listed in Google’s Local Business Center
• Making sure your web site is optimized for the key search terms that you are targeting
• Backlinks from other websites with key search term and geo keywords
• Making sure your website is ‘Search Engine Friendly’
• Run paid search campaigns on Google Maps – Your business shows up on the map when keywords we target are being searched.
• Securing Listings in all of the Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) providers such as Superpages and YellowPages.com.
• Updating all of the profiles to include your hours of operation (if appropriate), reviews, videos, categories, even photos of your storefront and/or products.

We hope this helps with your quest for higher local search rankings. Should you want to get back to your business and let some one else take the reigns, we would be glad to help you supercharge your campaigns!