The participants were asked to rate the importance of 69 criteria with respect to their influence on rankings in the Google, Bing and Yahoo Local “Universal” search algorithms.

Top positive ranking factors

1. General Importance of Claiming Place Page / Local
2. Business Address in City of Search
3. Associating Place Page with Proper Categories
4. Volume of Citations from Major Data Providers + IYP Portals
5. General Importance of Off-Page / Off-Listing Criteria

Things that work better than in 2009

1. Associating Photos with Your Place Page
2. General Importance of Claiming Place Page / Local Listing
3. Volume of MyMaps on which Your Business Is Included
4. Age of Place Page
5. Associating Local Area Code as Primary Place Page Phone Number

The results of this survey are truly invaluable and is well worth the time to read for any business that wants to do well in local search.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Top Local Search Ranking Factors For 2010

Cathy Rhulloda created this using the Google Search Stories video creator on YouTube.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Local Search Stories

Ummmmmm..ribs.

I heard a new phrase today. Google Social Algorithm. I’ve actually heard this phrase tossed for for awhile but it’s beginning to be uttered more frequently.

I heard a similar phrase the other day. Influence Engines

Both are described as leveraging social medias direct influence on search engine rankings.

Fine read from Brain Horn on Google Buzz..

How to Use Google Buzz to Market Your Local Business
Everyone in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM) worlds are talking about the new social media service Google Buzz.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Using Google Buzz To Market Your Business

How Google says they handle nofollowed links

Google states that their engine takes nofollow literally and does not pass anchor text.

We don’t follow them. This means that Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links. Essentially, using nofollow causes us to drop the target links from our overall graph of the web. However, the target pages may still appear in our index if other sites link to them without using nofollow, or if the URLs are submitted to Google in a Sitemap. (source)

Matt Cutts continues this stance in a post on page sculpting stating that nofollow link did pass anchortext, normally due to bugs in indexing that we then fixed”.

[*] Nofollow links definitely don’t pass PageRank. Over the years, I’ve seen a few corner cases where a nofollow link did pass anchortext, normally due to bugs in indexing that we then fixed. The essential thing you need to know is that nofollow links don’t help sites rank higher in Google’s search results. (source)

Dave Naylor , a UK SEO, also maintains the same position in a post about 5 things that stop anchor text being passed.

Yep not rocket science but when was the last time you actually checked it in an SEO lab environment ? well with 99% certainty I can say that this

rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk”>Dave Naylor</a>
will not pass the “Dave Naylor” link text to the target page

Well, I can say with 99.9% certainty from my own test data that nofollow appears to indeed pass anchor text.

As you can see from the Google results displayed above it appears that the anchor text is being passed through 2 robots.txt nofollow and 1 meta nofollow to Dave’s site. (sorry Dave – I needed an example).

My conclusion is the anchor text is passed through a nofollow link in both Google and Yahoo.

What do you think? Is the anchor text being passed or not?

Resources used for link analysis:

SEO Elite
Google
Yahoo

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Nofollow Does Pass Anchor Text

Schedule:
Race Day Sign Up: 8:30 – 9:45 am
5k (3.1 mile) Run: 10:00 am
1 mile Walk: 10:01 am
Coursed Closed: 11:30 am

Fees:

Pre-Race Day
Individuals: $10.00
Student with Parent: $15.00
Family: $20.00

Race Day:
Individuals: $12.00
Student with Parent: $17.00
Family: $22.00

Location:
Foothills Elementary School
13165 W Ohio Avenue
Lakewood, CO 80228

How to Sign Up
Mail or drop off the completed entry form by April 15th to the Foothills Elementary school.

Awards
All participants will receive a ribbon

Timing
There will be NO official timing for this event as this is a fun run

For more information you can surf on over to the Foothills Fun Run website. Funds raised from the fun run will be used to benefit the PTA and youth playground equipment.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Foothills Elementary Fun Run

Sometimes I dismiss what is common sense to me not realizing there are plenty of people out there that, admittedly, do not have one tech savvy bone in their body – or so they think.

Today I received a call from a good friend who is bringing her Feng Shui business online. She was frantic. Her site was gone and she had no way of fixing it. She felt helpless and had no idea what to do and feared months of work was gone.

Once I got the full story on what had transpired over the last several weeks I was able to help her get it resolved. The short of the story is she had been requesting changes to her site for several weeks and the hosting/web designer had assured her the changes would be made. Sad thing is the changes were not made. Then she woke up this morning and her site had vanished.

With this sudden disappearance of the site and the circumstances surrounding the event I had my suspicions. I took a quick look  at the url and sure enough her domain name was redirecting to her hosts home page. I figured no problem, it’s a new domain with no established incoming links I’ll just give her space on my servers and she can redirect the domain to my name servers. Problem solved.

Well, not so fast. You see she had her hosting company, a GoDaddy reseller, register the domain name for her, which they did. But – and a big but –  the provider registered the domain name in their name not hers. And to make things clear the domain name is a branding name for her company.

In the end we setup an account up at GoDaddy and got her hosting company to transfer the domain into her name. I walked her through the account setup in less than 5 minutes. Now she has 10 tech savvy bones.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Never, I repeat, NEVER let someone else register your domain name for you. I’ve heard stories of less-than-reputable web hosts that registered the domain under their own name, making them the owner of the domain rather than you, then charging outrageous fees for the use of the name later  . If someone else places themselves as the owner of your domain name there is little you can do, outside of a lawsuit, to get it back.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Why You Always Register Your Own Domain Name

Image by Ontario Wanderer via Flickr

Survival of SEO’s Fittest – How to Outrun Lions
It’s not always necessary to be the best or the fastest or the strongest in the jungle – you don’t have to be able to outrun the lion – you just need to be a little better than your…

Google SEO Tips
Getting answers directly from the source was a great relief for many advanced SEO’s, who now have a baseline (for now) to use as a barometer regarding the way Google crawls, indexes and interprets …

5 Ways to Use Social Media for Things You Are Already Doing
One of the biggest road blocks facing small businesses when addressing social media is the question of return on investment. With so little time devote to what’s crying out to be done, adding something else…

How To Make The Real-Time Web More Trustworthy
Everyone’s been talking about the “real-time web” for quite some time, but it’s easy to focus on speed while forgetting real-time is dependent on trust. When things move faster, trust matters more….

How To Promote Your Small Business Online When Your Website Sucks
Ok, so you’ve decided to start using the Internet to promote your business more actively and most people you talk to who know about the web tell you the same thing … you need to redesign your website. The problem for many…

Social Media and ROI
The article eludes to how complicated it is to calculate ROI from Social Media and the author is absolutely correct at this point it is next to impossible …

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

DSG Weekend Favs – March twenty 2010

• Use your City and State in the name of the site/blog title
• Use your City and State in article or posts titles
• List your phone number with area code on a contact or about us page
• Use your business name, address, city, state and full phone number in the footer of every page.

If you are geo targeting a business location using keywords in the proper locations on the site you will rank better as well. You can use the Google AdWords tool to research the exact searches for your city and state.

Here are a few things to keep in mind ;

• The city name usually gets more searches.
• City and full state name (ex. Denver Colorado) will get the second highest volume.
• City and state abbreviated (ex. Denver CO) will usually be used in search a lot less but is highly targeted and has less competition.

So let’s say you are a Ski Shop in Vail Colorado.

Since there is only one city named Vail in the US that is synonymous with skiing, the search term “vail ski shop” would turn out to be a good keyword phrase to use.

But let’s say you are a criminal lawyer in Hamilton, Mississippi. There are other cities named Hamilton in places like Ontario Canada, Montana and Ohio.

In a case like this  “hamilton mississippi criminal lawyer” would probably turn out to be the best keyword phrase  to use in the title of your site/blog articles.

In the case of your local business listing with the search engines including keywords in your business title will help also help you rank better. But remember: if you try to stuff TOO many keywords into your business title, the search engines will find out about it and penalize your business.

All of this is to say:

The potential to attract new customers via Local Search is enormous.

1 (source – David Mihm)
2 (source – Chris Lang – Gwave Mastery)

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

GEO Targeting For Local Search

Localize those PPC efforts

There are various ways of utilizing geographic modifiers for your paid search. It can include using your city, county, etc. as a keyword or targeting your geographic area in your campaign settings. One of Google’s newer features, local ad extensions, can play a huge roll in the success of these localized campaigns. If you’re not all that familiar with it, it’s definitely worth knowing about.

A local ad extension is additional information, typically your address, which Google can show along with your ads. It’s a simple option that you can turn on within your campaign settings. The extensions can show in Google and any of their properties, including Google Maps and search results. So while maintaining your settings, these ads will also have a physical address that pops up when a searcher is close to you geographically. This does not replace regional or other geographic targeting for AdWords, but it’s a great way to target your local business and get more visitors not only to your website, but to your location as well! Having additional information will draw people’s attention to your ad. There is no price difference for using ad extensions with your ads, so feel free to experiment.

We know it’s important to target your landing pages as well, and in the local space, it’s a good idea to include your address on the landing page. Make sure that your landing page is very localized considering that continuity of content is extremely important, particularly for local searches. It helps build trust and reiterates your location while expanding on your offer.

There are many options for success with local PPC. You could try including your city name with your keyword along with geographic targeting in your settings, and then try with and without ad extensions. Then, try the reverse! Experiment with different variables and discover what works best for your business. Achieving successful results doesn’t happen over night, and there’s no fast rule to follow. The best way to get it going is to try all the opportunities at your disposal – you never know what you might find!

Emily Thompson is the Online Marketing Coordinator for Kutenda Internet Marketing Software . Kutenda offers software and services for small businesses to succeed in online marketing and grow their business.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Google Local Ad Extensions: The Power of Localized PPC

I myself am a firm believer that truly local sites, my fellow neighbors and businesses, can rank better in the local search arena than the national and local directories if they focus on creating targeted content and getting targeted local links.

A great way to get valuable local targeted links which bring you link juice, plus drive traffic to your website, is to be a guest author on local sites. This is a very underutilized technique.

Guest authoring is a method for reaching a brand new audience and for increasing traffic and sales. In the event folks like what they read they may not only head to your site or blog, they will send your post to social media websites and link to it from various other sites as well. This all goes towards solidifying yourself on the web.

Finding Authoring Opportunities

Granted there are not that many active sites at the local level but they do exists. Finding them is a bit of a chore sometimes but the best way I’ve found to locate local sites is to use real-time data from Twitter or Google using city and state names as the search term ie; your keyword + Denver, Brighton CO, etc. This is a dead-giveaway on who’s active.

You can also use Google to look  for authoring opportunities. Use the search strings listed below to find niche related sites to guest author on.

{your keyword} “guest blogger” OR “guest post” OR “guest article” OR “guest column”
{your keyword} “become a contributor” OR “contribute to this site”
{your keyword} “write for us” OR “write for me”
{keyword} inurl:category/guest

I have set 2 simple conditions to determine whether I would take further action once I found opportunities;

• Active site – fresh content being created on a monthly basis at a minimum
• Zip codes, city’s, states or phone numbers on their site

Another way you can find a guest authoring opportunities is to simply keep your eyes open whenever you are browsing some of your favorite blogs. The #1 way to guest author on someone’s site is to simply ask! You might be surprised by the answer.

Things To Remember

Once you’ve found site that you can contribute to make sure to keep 2 things in mind:

• When writing bear in mind that the post should not be an ad for your own services or products
• Concentrate on a few great keywords in your posts including some long-tail keywords

Guest authoring is one of the best forms of free advertising available online today. Not to mention you are building up your brand and getting authoritative links pointing back to your website. And to top it all off – you are building relationships with your fellow bloggers.

Post from: Denver SEO - Local Search Expert

Guest Author On Local Sites