Advanced Access Blog

If you like to study the Google results for certain keywords in your community you may have noticed that there have been some changes to the landscape.  Many results pages that include the keyword of a local community or city now have a large map at the top of the results and three local businesses listed.  This has dramatically pushed down the organic listings for many local keywords that real estate agents target which makes it imperative that your business be listed in Google Maps.

What is Local Search?

Local search is when you are searching for a general term on a search engine and your physical location is targeted in the results that show up for you. A good example would be searching for “Movies” (without the quotes) in Google.  If you haven’t searched for that keyword before, you may be presented with something like this:

The ‘Find Movie Showtimes’ with the Google film reel image is in Google’s OneBox Results position.  Google attempts to have their OneBox results include specialized information that is most relevant to your search term.  As you can see from the image above, Google was not sure of the exact city or zip code that I live in.  Once I added my zip code and saved it for future use, any new searches for movies, movie times, or movie theaters now show three movies playing at my local theater.

What Does This Mean for Real Estate?

Location, Location, Location!  While it may be the most overplayed catch phrase in real estate, it’s pretty darn true.  When searching for real estate online, one of the most popular search phrases for consumers is ‘your city real estate’.  As mentioned above, Google is now placing quite a bit of importance in their OneBox results.  Before this change, three local business results would show up in a similar fashion to the screen shot of Yorba Linda movie show times above. With the new layout, as you can see below, it pushes down the organic search engine results a few more inches and placing quite a bit of importance on Google Maps and Local results. 

In the above image, three different sections are marked.  Number one indicates where sponsored ads are being run via Google AdWords.  Many times Google will show two advertisements at the top of the page and the rest of the advertisements are shown to the far right.  The number two position is Google OneBox results.  Scroll up to compare how it used to look for community or city searches and you will be surprised to note that it has almost tripled in size. The third section is where regular organic Google results start to show up.

With these new local results taking up a valuable chunk of screen real estate, you need to make sure you are listed in Google Maps’ Local Business Center and other local search sites.

Are you Using Local Search to your Advantage?

Local search has been around for quite some time and have been slowly gaining in significance. Danny Sullivan, creator of SearchEngineLand and former editor of SearchEngineWatch, has talked about local search for many years.  His early series about local search and his theories on invisible tabs (both articles published in 2003) are a great read today in 2007.  Along with local search, personalized results are also coming your way, especially if you are logged into your Google account when you are performing searches and having your search history saved. The landscaping of search engine results pages (SERPs) will continue to change in the future and as technology evolves, you need to keep up with the trends.

Approximately 109 million people (63% percent of U.S. Internet users) performed a local search online last July, a 43% increase over July 2005, according to comScore research.  Another conclusion from the study found that consumers who performed a local search were more ready to take action and initiate contact. With this quick growing trend, real estate agents need to be proactive and listing themselves in different local search sites.

How to Sign Up with Google

Google has integrated their Local Business Center with their Mapping solution and to show up there and possibly within their OneBox search at the top of the SERPs, you need to be signed up through the Google Maps Local Business Center.

It’s very easy to sign up. Simply sign in using your Google account and if you don’t have a Google account, it’s easy to sign up for one as well.

Describe Your Business Accurately!

Fill out the fields with correct information but if you are able to include your keywords in your listing, where it is sensible, do so!  Also make sure that you are requesting to be listed in the relevant categories to your website such as your ‘city’ real estate section, real estate agents, or residential real estate categories.

The Catch…

After you submit your information, you need to watch your snail mail carefully as they will be sending you a postcard with a pin number to verify your listing.  It’s very easy for you to throw out a postcard thinking it is spam.

How to Rank in Google Maps & Local OneBox Searches

Ranking your website in Google’s organic listings can be confusing and difficult for most of us but at least there are many guides and helpful hints to show you the way.   Ranking in Google Maps however is more treacherous to navigate through because the service is so new and changing.  Not to worry, we have been researching ways for you to jump your way to the top via some experts in the SEO community. Bill Slawski of SEO by the Sea is an amazing reviewer of Google patents and can be counted on to find the gems that we need to succeed.  Slawski detailed Google’s Local Search patent application with complete thoroughness that will make your eyes cross! Read it if you have a quiet hour to spare. We also enjoyed Mike Blumenthal’s rendition which is a much shorter read and summarizes many of Bill’s thoughts as well as goes through some best practices on how to rank. Other articles were also very helpful in researching this data.

Verify & Multiply

Verifying your listing with Google is the best way to show them you are an active and viable business in your community.  Google doesn’t just stop there though, they also look to other data sources around the Internet to verify that what you say is actually true.  There are specific sources that they acquire data from that are more trusted than others so it is important that you garner listings in various local directories that match up with your business address listed in Google Maps. 

Other Important Local Directories:

CitySearch
InsiderPages
Live Search Local
Local.com
SuperPages�
TrueLocal
Yahoo Local
Yelp

Aside from these directories mentioned above, you should have your physical address information listed in other online sources, such as the chamber of commerce, community business websites, local charities and others that are linking to you or that you advertise in. 

It may be difficult to keep track of your physical address at these sites, especially for real estate agents, as this may vary at times because of office changes or working from home.  You may also run in to the problem of your office is already listed in Google Maps and you won’t be able to submit it.  Justin from Christian Real Estate Network provides a possible solution in applying for a mail box from the UPS Store.  When you move, you always notify your family and friends of your new address, so make sure you keep in the habit with your website partners or advertising sources.  With these new trends it is becoming an extremely important aspect of your online marketing to have that information available, so continue to keep track of where your address is listed if you need to change it.

Testimonials and Reviews

Many of these online directories encourage consumers to review the listings.  While it is still not clear how these reviews are factored into the results in Google Maps, it could definitely be a decision in where your listing is placed.  Ask your clients, friends, and family to submit a review about your services so you become more trusted.

Let’s Wrap Up

What we’ve learned is that using common sense and regular marketing should help you rise in the Google OneBox results. Verify your address and listing with Google to let them know you are a viable business, make sure your business address is associated with your website in multiple places, advertise your address on other sources around the Internet, and be sure that you have some favorable reviews and testimonials to support your listing.

Please comment and let us know if you are showing up in Google’s OneBox results, or even in the regular results via Google Maps, and if you have noticed any traffic in your web statistics.  Future ways to take advantage of local targeting via advertising and other ways to rank on local sites coming soon.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Search Engine Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.