Local Search Keywords On Your Website: 5 Questions for A Local SEO Pro

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On behalf of local businesses in Chicago and elsewhere, I posed five questions about local search keywords on SCORE Chicago’s website to local SEO expert Miriam Ellis. Our nonprofit’s local SEO (search engine optimization) challenges are shared by many local businesses.

1. What is Google local search? When a web searcher types in a keyword and zip code into the Google search box, what does that trigger in Google?

Miriam Ellis: Google’s Organic/Universal Algorithm, 10 Pack Algorithm and Maps Algorithms are 3 distinct ways Google processes local queries. Since your chapter serves the Chicago area, I suggest that SCORE work to rank well in all three. Google shows the 10 pack for certain queries and not others. Using modifiers like a zip code, city name or other geographic indicator will typically bring up both Local organic results and the 10-pack.

However, Google has recently made a very big change in the local world in which they are now using IP-targeting [Internet protocal targeting, using addresses assigned to devises in a computer network] to deliver local results even when a search term doesn’t include a geographic modifier. So, for example, if you live in Chicago and you type in the word ‘pizza’, Google is likely to return some local results, simply based upon your IP. They are doing this for certain terms and in certain areas, but not for all terms or all areas. This is very significant as it instantly increased the opportunity for local businesses to be found via Google for searches that don’t contain geo-modifiers.

2. SCORE Chicago has multiple service locations in our metro area. If we just use the metro name –Chicago — those other locations don’t get visibility. How should we handle this?

Miriam Ellis: If you want to get search traffic from areas or towns outside the city of Chicago, SCORE Chicago should create a landing page for each area and then populate these pages with relevant data and links to related articles, pages and posts. In the long run, SCORE Chicago might develop an entire section of its website for each area. Beyond this, SCORE might one day want to own unique domain names for each area, if there is enough potential content to create strong websites for each of SCORE’s service areas.

3. If a page is optimized for a phrase with a geographic term, does that reduce its chances of ranking for broad, non-geographic search terms?

Miriam Ellis: This depends on how powerful your pages are. If SCORE Chicago builds a really strong page and gets lots of links pointing to it from outside sources with anchor text that reads both “business plans” and “chicago business plans”, there is certainly a chance for you to rank for both kinds of searches…if the page is strong enough. That being said, by optimizing a page for local phrases, you are sending a strong signal to Google that the page is most relevant to the geographic area. In my opinion, this is appropriate for SCORE Chicago.

4. If we have SCORE Chicago’s address and zip in the footer (which is constant copy at the bottom of all of our web pages), do we need to use the word Chicago in web page copy too? In anchor text ?

Miriam Ellis: You have 8 areas relating to each web page that can be optimized to give form and focus to the intent of a page: The title tag, meta description tag, meta keywords tag, header tags, main copy, alt tags, the overall code of the page (like the footer) and the anchor text of links coming into the page. [Wikipedia definitions of the meta elements she mentions.] If you want a page to rank well for [come up when someone searches for] a keyword + location phrase, you should use all of these areas to make it totally clear to Google and other search engines what the focus of that page is.

5. In keywords for website code (metatags, one of the meta elements defined about), do we need to add a city like Chicago or zip codes?

Miriam Ellis: There is some indication that other search engines may look at the meta keyword tag, but Google devalued it many years ago due to spam. We do still use this tag, but we only use it to list perhaps 2-3 keyword phrases per page. So, for example, your page’s meta keyword tag might read:

“chicago business plans, chicago small business assistance, free business plans” or “free business plans, small business assistance, chicago”

From what Miriam tells us, SCORE Chicago’s site has the potential to improve its local focus and organic clickthrough rates with some simple refinements. Thanks to her for this helpful advice.

While a few small business owners may wish to tackle local SEO alone, most who are serious about this marketing technique prefer to hire consultants. The purpose of this post is to help business owners understand some of the issues related to local search keywords.

Did we miss your question on local keywords? Please leave a comment.

Links on Local Keywords

Local Keyword Tools

Local Keyword Tool This free tool generates a list of a keyword plus city names and zip codes within a specified radius.

Does Wordtracker Provide Valuable Local Data? SEOmoz.org on the difference between Wordtracker and Google’s keyword tools.

Changes to Adword’s Keyword Tool:  Local Search versus Global Search MarketingPilgrim.com on Google’s free keyword tool now shows local search volume.

Lack of Search Traffic for Your Keywords?

A Simple SEO Guide for Small Web Business. Miriam Ellis, Solas Web Design

When Local Search Traffic is a Dead End SEO pro Matt McGee shows how to create and select local keywords when keyword tools lack data on search volume.

Other posts in my Local Online Marketing Series