by Mary Killelea August 24, 2009
Whether you are concentrating your seo on Local Search or not it is a very important segment of SEO that every business owner with or without a website should pay attention to if you want customers to find you.
Here is a link to David Mimh’s recent survey of several experts that gauged the factors most helpful for ranking well in the Google and Yahoo Local algorithms, as well as techniques to be avoided. He has done a great job summarizing the survey and it’s a must read for anyone interested in gaining ranking in the local playing field. http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml#results
When reading his article there were a few terms that I felt needed to be better explained for those not in the local search market trenches.
survey glossary:
HCard Microformat – hCard is a simple, open, distributed format for representing people, companies, organizations, and places, using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426) properties and values in semantic HTML or XHTML. hCard is one of several open microformat standards suitable for embedding in HTML, XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML. Want to get started with writing an hCard? Use the hCard creator to write up some contact information and publish it, or follow the hCard authoring tips to add hCard markup to your current contact page.
KML File - You can create KML files with the Google Earth user interface, or you can use an XML or simple text editor to enter “raw” KML from scratch. KML files and their related images (if any) can be compressed using the ZIP format into KMZ archives. To share your KML and KMZ files, you can e-mail them, host them locally for sharing within a private internet, or host them publicly on a web server. Just as web browsers display HTML files, Earth browsers such as Google Earth display KML files. Once you’ve properly configured your server and shared the URL (address) of your KML files, anyone who’s installed Google Earth can view the KML files hosted on your public web server.
If you’re new to KML, begin by browsing the KML Tutorial, which presents short samples of KML code that you can view in Google Earth and Google Maps. The KML Reference provides detailed syntax for all KML elements, with explanations and diagrams of how to specify them. The Developer’s Guide contains in-depth conceptual material and examples.
Citations: a short note recognizing a source of information or of a quoted passage; “the student’s essay failed to list several important citations”; “the acknowledgments are usually printed at the front of a book”; “the article includes mention of similar clinical cases” Or in the case of online Citations are mentions from other online sources.
UGC - user generated content
LBC - local business center
IYP - internet yellow pages
LBL - local business listings
Great resources to have handy:
Most Important Data Providers + IYP Sites
- infoUSA
- Superpages
- Localeze
- YellowPages
- Yelp
- InsiderPages
- Niche Industry Sites (BBB, Vertical Directories)
- Acxiom
- Yahoo
- Citysearch
Other sites receiving significant votes: Niche Civic/Municipal Sites (Chamber of Commerce, Local Directories), Merchant Circle, UniversalBusinessListing, Yellowbot.
Most Important Review Engines
- Yelp
- InsiderPages
- Yahoo
- CitySearch
- Superpages
- Niche Industry Sites (BBB, Vertical Directories)
- TripAdvisor
- Judysbook
- Kudzu
Other sites receiving significant votes: Yellowpages, Merchant Circle, AngiesList.
Also if you don’t know about it check out your site’s local listing on www.getlisted.org
high ranking in local search, local searches, portland internet marketing, portland sem, Portland SEO