Every so often, Google makes an update to its algorithm which has the potential to shake up the entire search landscape. The latest update flew into our search engines in December 2014 and goes by the name of Pigeon.
The expansion of Google’s Pigeon algorithm to the UK has significantly changed the way that we rank for organic terms, making it much easier for small businesses to get involved in local search. To put it simply, the pigeon update aims to provide people with more accurate and relevant information.
A local business will be ranked for your keywords when the search comes from a location that is close to you. For instance, if someone is searching for “hair salon in Bolton” and your business is a hair salon in Bolton, then you are more relevant to the searcher, compared to a hair salon in Leeds, for example.
How will this affect your business?
If successfully optimised, the pigeon update allows local businesses to appear in more searches and therefore generates greater traffic to their websites, which should hopefully result in an increased number of sales.
This is fantastic news for smaller businesses who now have the opportunity to rank higher than larger organisations. So in some cases “hair salon in Bolton” has a better chance of receiving traffic than “Toni & Guy hair”, which users may be automatically drawn to because of the brand name.
What should I do to rank for local search?
To make sure that the Pigeon update doesn’t fly over your website, you need to ensure that you have fulfilled the right criteria to appear in the search results.
It goes without saying that the key thing is to make sure that you have mentioned the location of your business across the pages of your website. You can either create an individual landing page for location, or you could optimise your existing home page. Google may be very intelligent, but it isn’t a mind reader, so you will still need to let it know where you are based. Using a local area code as your main number will help to localise yourself too.
You must also create a Google Places for business page and maximise optimisation by adding contact details, location and opening times and assign it to a number of categories, for example hairdressers, takeaways and decorators. Be careful to have all of the same details across Google Places and your own site.
The secret weapon to local search is your positive customer reviews. These are more crucial than any other business directory and will appear alongside the search engine results with a brand image. Encourage your customers to write (positive) reviews and build these up slowly to maintain authenticity and watch your business climb higher and higher up the local rankings.
By Hannah Gilroy, Bring Digital.
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