DIY Canadian SEO – Google LOCAL Maps!

If you’ve ever wondered what the criteria might be, to see if you need to take advantage and use the Google LOCAL Maps SEO to gain  new clients or customers, then here’s a rationale that you can follow to see what’s involved.

To rank well in the Google MAPS area, or the LOCAL search engine comprises a set of tasks that must be accomplished in order to both be listed, and then ranked. But before you bother, here’s what you should know to see if this is the best way to gain that new traffic….but let me ask first, do you want new business? And if so, then this simple DIY blog post will help, eh!

Are you a LOCAL business, would be the first question?
That is, think for a moment as to where your own clients/customers come from. Do they live within say 50 miles of your offices? Or do they work within that 30-50 mile radius? Do you sell products or services that are consumed by those same clients/customers within that 30-50 mile limiation? If the answer to any of these is “yes,” then you run a LOCALLY oriented business.

Think of lawyers, plumbers, electricians and dentists. Think of plastic surgeons, autobody shops, funeral homes and all other businesses that find their clients/customers all come from the region surrounding their office locations. While the 30-50 mile radius is my own threshold, in some instances it’s much smaller say in cities with over 1 million inhabitants; and in some smaller regions that radius will grow to be 100 miles too. No matter what the radius of your marketplace, know that there is such a region around you and a simple check for addresses of say the past 12 months worth of clients/customers will show you the area upon which you draw new business.

Am I close enough to my city core to rank well?
Time was, when Google used the core of the city, it’s “centroid” as it became known to measure the distance from your offices to that centroid, to determine how well you would “rank” in the LOCAL search results pages. At least that’s what our numbers (and other SEO practitioners too) have shown in the past 12 months or so…a reduced reliance on that distance measurement. However for two smaller clients, in smaller cities (of less than 25,000) it still appears to be holding true, that the closer your office address is to that city centroid, the better you will rank. So, “location sensitivity” still appears to be a factor in the Google LOCAL algorithm, eh!

Do we even need a website to be found?
As odd as this question looks, it’s perfectly acceptable to Google, to rank businesses in their LOCAL Maps algo that do not even have a website, and there are thousands of such entried tucked away in their index. Think about it for a second as say a Pizza shop owner. You dont’ need a website, because all of your customers either call in for delivery or walkin for takeout. Websites market a companys products (or services) by offering up information to a website visitor and let’s face it, you can’t tell how good that double pepperoni and anchovie pie is going to be by a picture of same. So no website, but that does NOT mean that Google doesn’t know about you, hasn’t indexed your business in it’s Maps index and that you wont come up if someone types in “Dundas pizza” — because you will.

Go ahead, give it a try…do you see the #2 listing for Master Dundas 2 For 1 Pizza? I do, and yes, they do NOT have  a website.  They don’t need one and they still come up on the LOCAL search page! How’s that for an SEO ROI!!!

In summary, then…lastly, think about this as a valid Canadian DIY SEO strategy…

Clients and customers can come from anywhere to buy your products and services. If you go to the Google LOCAL Maps website there is a pretty easy methodology and DIY process to follow (which they’ve outlined nicely for you) to follow to get your business listed and verified. Many of you readers I know will have already accomplished this and yes, you’re gaining new LOCAL clients/customers from that signup. But some of you I know will not bother and that’s the real shame. You don’t need to be close to your city centre and you dont’ need to even have a website to gain traction from the LOCAL Maps rankings….so please let me ask one more time, you DO want new business now, don’t you? And dont forget we have our own CanuckSEO Whitepaper available to learn even more about using Google LOCAL Maps to market your business to local clients and customers too, eh!

Google