Search engine optimization (SEO) is understood by most marketers. But even in tech hubs, optimizing for local search is an esoteric skill, and finding effective Local SEO in Philadelphia and non tech hub cities requires a painfully difficult off-line search. Knowing whether the person providing the local services has sufficient experience requires you know the fundamentals.
Paying to optimize for Local SEO if you if own a brick and mortar business may well be the best marketing spend available. Period. Getting your business to rank high on Google Plus Local, Yelp, and other local search engines requires a special skill set that most Internet Marketers are reluctant to refine. Further, local optimization is not a service digital media pros want to offer. It does not have recurring work associated with it, and requires a great deal of explaining to get business owners on board. With a lot of opportunity to sell online marketing, the best known methods— pay per click for example— are often what win out.
This map from Google shows top listed results are all in or close to Center City: Being close to the “centroid” of the city is critical to ranking locally.
Local search signals, for Google Plus Local in particular, rely on hitting a threshold of review number, and the ratio of positive to negative is important. Also important is consistency on directory and local resource sites. This includes national sites like Best of the Web and FourSquare. It also includes mentions, even without links to the businesses website on important local websites.
Eric Van Buskirk is one of the few that sees the value of building a client base of local businesses. He’s spent the time to learn about local citations and best practices for optimizing online business reviews.
Here are top Philadelphia website citation sources for restaurants ranking in the top five on the Google Local Plus results page. If the device used for the search is tracked by zip code or latitude/longitude, they might return more “hyper local” results. These citations are from the businesses ranking for a user logged into Google with the location entered as the more general area “Philadelphia, PA.”
- Philly 2Night
- Philadelphia Restaurants
- Philadelphia Pass
- delawareestuary.org
- articles.philly.com
- Philadelphia Living
- philadelphia.gaycities.com
- Shop In Philly
- philadelphiarestaurant.us
- Philly Visitors
- thecityofphiladelphia.com
- Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce
- thephelpsschool.org
- whcbc.org
- delawareriverwaterfrontcorp.com
- philadelphia.menupages.com
- goodlifereport.com
- thephelpsschool.org
- whcbc.org
- delawareriverwaterfrontcorp.com
- Philadelphia Menu Pages
- University of Pennsylvania Alumni
- Philly Beer Week
- Philly Living
- ikarma.com
- forrest-theatre.com
- phillyvisitor.com
- thecityofphiladelphia.com
- midtownlunch.com
- philadelphiausa.travel
- Philly Fun Guide
- ibegin.com
- philadelphiaweekly.com
- phillymag.com
- centercityphila.org
- aglp.org
- etix.com
- visitphilly.com
- todaysdietitian.com
- tripadvisor.de
