[Build Backlinks Online] Announcing the 2013 Local Search Ranking Factors Results

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Announcing the 2013 Local Search
Ranking Factors Results'


Posted by David Mihm

I'm pleased to announce the full results of this year's Local Search Ranking
Factors survey were published earlier this morning. (The pie chart below is just
a teaser.)


Those of you who attended MozCon a couple weeks ago got a sneak preview of
these results, but I'm guessing that few of you had a chance to fully digest
them in the 14.2 seconds I spent on the slides in which I presented them. Let's
dive in!




If this is the first time you've heard of the Local Search Ranking Factors,
most of the background can be found on the results page itself. I'll highlight a
couple of changes for this year:


As I was putting the survey together this year, I thought to myself, "You know,
there's really no single 'local algorithm' at Google anymore" â if,
indeed, there ever was one. This year is our group's first effort to help
readers distinguish between the thematic signals that have more or less
prevalence depending on the result type Google is showing (localized organic,
pack/carousel, or maps).
Given that a large chunk of the audience for this survey over the years has
been agency owners and agency representatives â at least judging by the
emails I've received â I decided to try to cater to this audience a bit
more this year. Guessing that most of you have already read previous surveys and
understand the basics, I also asked the 35 experts to score the same factors
according to what they felt made the most difference in competitive markets. So
for those of you who already have the basics covered, pay attention to that
second column of results.

I added personalization as a thematic signal to ask about this year. Frankly, I
was surprised it wasn't considered a larger factor on mobile results. Of all the
factors on the list, I think this one will be the most interesting to revisit in
2014, as searchers and experts alike become more and more familiar with the new
Google Maps.


By and large, the primary factors seem to have stayed largely the same for the
past couple of years:


Proper category associations
A physical address in the city being searched
Consistent, high-quality citations from sources that are:
Authoritative
Trustworthy
Industry-relevant


Your NAP information featured clearly on your website
Your location as a keyword in title tags and headlines
A smattering of reviews on both Google and third-party sites
A handful of high-quality inbound links


Though I wanted to give the other 34 experts "the floor" on the survey page
itself, I do want to comment about a couple of responses I found particularly
interesting:


Despite Google's massively-hyped integration of its Google Plus and Google
Places platforms just over a year ago (a process that is far from complete, by
the way), social signals still seem to play a relatively small role in rankings
â just 6.3% overall. But the consensus seems to be that the place to begin
would be rel=author tag implementation. This was suggested as the #22 priority
in competitive markets, versus #34 as a foundational priority, and several
experts mentioned it in their comments.
Perhaps the most surprising factor was that reviews from authority reviewers
were rated the #3 competitive difference-maker. If you're in a competitive
market, I'd encourage you to pay special attention to Google's City Experts
program, and think about checking out this Twitter/Followerwonk strategy I
detailed in January.
As we move into a world where maps are becoming the local search paradigm, it's
remarkable to me just how little effect (less than 25%) the primary factors in
traditional SEO â on-page optimization and inbound links â are
judged to have on rankings.
Meanwhile, Google continues to emphasize these factors in its localized organic
results (judged by the experts to be right around 50%), which should give
businesses without a physical location some measure of consolation.
As far as negative factors go, call-tracking numbers and business name
keyword-stuffing continue to be some of the most egregious offenses you can make
in local search.


A couple of quick closing remarks:


Huge thanks to Derric Wise from UX/Design and Devin Ellis on our Inbound
Engineering team for putting this beautiful-looking page together.


And, if you want to know more about this year's survey, I would encourage you
to sign up for Local University Advanced at SMX East coming up in just a few
weeks. I'll be speaking much more about tactics you can use to win on these
factors in New York!


OK, that's enough out of me for this year's survey, anyway. As I do every
year, I'm eagerly anticipating the discussion of the results in the comments!

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