Top Ranking for Google Places

al123

Expert
20
Hey Everyone,

Just curious, what can I do to get my agency on top of the list for Google places when searching locally for insurance. I heard that the description makes a big difference, since it has the keywords. Any advice or tips will be greatly appreciated,
 
I'm an SEO n00b, so take this with a grain of salt. I think citations are a big factor for local search. You basically set up your business profile on as many directory type websites as you can. Make sure your info is consistent. Google is your friend, search how to build citations for google places and you will get a lot of info. There are probably a lot of other things you can do to improve your local search rank, but citations is one of them. Maybe some of the SEO experts on this forum can chime in...
 
I started to write out all of the factors that we use within our local business listing building plan, Then lo and behold, an article popped up today on my Feedly stream from moz.com that details it perfectly.

Top 20 Local Search Ranking Factors: An Illustrated Guide - Moz

I will stress #3, #5, #9, #12, #13, #16 and #18 as being very important. On #3 and #5 you need make sure that your site supports schema.org microdata. This allows the search engines the ability to properly read your site.

Once you have it setup and cited correctly, reviews become the most important factor in your strategy. Make sure you use email marketing to ask you new customers and existing clients for reviews. Rotate the request through many review sites so you spread the reviews around.

Let me know if you have questions or would like help on building your local listings as we offer a service that is tailored to the needs of getting insurance agencies listed in local search.
 
How do you know if your websites support schema microdata?

Thanks.

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Use Google's rich snippet testing tool.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

And

https://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helper/

Bing has similar tools.

For WordPress users you can use a plugin...much better to use something with it built in. Hint hint.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-schemaorg-rich-snippets/
 
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Hi all, I'm new here.

Just stumbled on this post and since I specialize in Google Local thought I'd stop by to drop a couple tips.

The illustrated guide Laird linked to in post #3 is excellent. Miriam is one of my moderators and does excellent coverage of local.

Inside Miriam's post (Laird's link) is a link to the Local Search Ranking Factors at Moz, which is the bible for local seo. I'm one of the contributors to that study which comes out yearly. It's really complicated, so if you just want a general overview Miriam's illustrated guide is best.

But the main thing I wanted to point out is that although there are over 300 factors that go into the local algo now, the most important part is your on-site SEO. I mean you need to know how to optimize the Place page, need to be sure no violations on the Place page or duplicate listings, or you won't rank. And yes citations are important too.

But it's really the organic algo that controls who ranks on top of the local pack, so on-site SEO is important. Not JUST SEO, but local specific SEO - which has some added elements.

But I know one of the big, big issues many of you face is that often you can't change the site if you work for one of the big Insurance companies, so are limited in the SEO that you can even do and some companies won't let you have your own web site, so that's a limitation I'm not sure how to get around.

But if you are independent or a broker, really doing good strong on-site LOCAL seo can boost your ranking more than anything else.

My 2 cents...

Linda Buquet
 
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