More insights on local search ranking factors...

Last week I talked about some of the factors that could influence a small business search ranking in your area. This would I would like to expand the research a bit further by highlighting some of the most important factors that could make a difference to your local search engine optimization campaign. I have listed the factors and given them a rating out of 5, which is my view of importance of the particular factor in local search results.

• Address of the local business listing—5
• Citations from big directories and listing providers—5
• Incoming links from big directories and listings—4
• Importance of claiming the listings on the web—5
• Amount of reviews that are present on the listing—3.5
• The phone numbers of the business—5 (yes, shocking)
• Reviews on Google which have profiles—2.5
• Categories and keywords in the business descriptions.

• Reviews on websites other than Yahoo and Google—3.5
• Photos and videos on the profiles—4
• Address, name of street, city on the listing—4
• Inclusion of detailed description about services and products—4.5

Apart from these positives, one of the most harmful things you can do to lower of chances of ranking is to have multiple listings with same address or phone number (that’s a killer). Let us know what you think about the rankings.