Local Search
Different from traditional SEO, local search is the practice of optimizing a website for local audiences. To find out more about local SEO, together with best practice recommendations for optimizing your local site, our SEO Office Hours recaps below compile insights and guidance from Google Search Central relating to local search best practices.
For more on international website optimization, check out our further resources:
The Ultimate Guide to International SEO
An SEO’s Guide to Hreflang Tags
The Challenges of Website Internationalization for Users & Search Engines
The Most Common Mistakes in International SEO
Google My Business Listings Don’t Influence Organic Search
The presence of a Google My Business listing doesn’t influence the ranking of that site in organic search. However, the local one box is populated by businesses with a Google My Business listing.
Answer Box Results Vary by Location
Answer box results vary depending on location and will pull through local search results where applicable.
Wikipedia and MyBusiness Entries Help Google Understand Brands
It can be tricky for Google to identify brand names from individual words. Making sure a brand is listed in places like Wikipedia page and Google MyBusiness can help Google understand that a search term is a brand name and not individual words.
Add Organization Markup & My Business for Best Chance to Be Shown in Knowledge Panel
John recommends adding organization markup and Google My Business listing to give Google a stronger reason to show your business in the Knowledge Panel.
Search Console Country Targeting Doesn’t Affect Language
If you target a specific country in search console then you will get a boost local rankings for that location, but it won’t impact searches for same language in a different location.
Google Doesn’t See Localised Content Added with JavaScript
If you serve localised content to users via JavaScript, it wouldn’t be considered cloaking, but the content won’t be picked up by Googlebot so you can’t draw any SEO benefit from it.
Search Console Analytics Only Includes a Single Impression per SERPs Page
In the new Search Analytics, if a domain appears multiple times in the same search results, it only counts as a single impression, including local results. The highest position from the results is taken and used for average calculations.