Tag Archives: local seo techniques

This is collection of posts from the Local Splash Blog that cover specific local SEO techniques.

How to Optimize Your Photos for Google Places

Last Updated On March 14th, 2024Local Maps SEO, Local SEO, , ,

It’s no secret that adding photos to your Google Place page can help with your ranking; however, there are techniques for optimizing photos that will help make your Google Places page rank even higher.
Local Splash has found that by adding the business name, phone number, city, state and a few keywords to the photos, our clients rank much higher than those with normal photos that haven’t been altered. Our company has performed numerous tests with coding the photos before we upload to our clients Google Places pages and the results have been astoundingly positive. So how do you optimize your photos for Google Places? Follow these steps and watch your ranking climb.

1. Save the photo to your desktop under your business name and a keyword (example: John Doe’s Auto Insurance Agency Newport Beach CA).

2. Open the properties of the image. To do this, right click on the image, then choose “Properties.” See screenshot below.

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3. Select the “Summary” tab at the top of the “Properties” box. Here you will be able to add keywords to the image that will be picked up by search engines. See screenshot for an example.

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4. After you enter the data, press “OK” to apply and save the content.

5. Add the photos to your Google Places page by signing into your Google Business account, editing your businesses and adding photos (see photo for example). After adding the photos to your Google Places page, it will take some time to see your ranking increase. Remember, increasing your page rank is no overnight process; it takes time and requires patience.

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How will this help your search engine ranking?

The more information you provide to the search engines, the more opportunities you’re giving the search engine to learn about your business. Providing more information makes it easier for the search engines to understand your business and what you do. It is by understanding your business that search engines gain confidence in your company, and confidence equates to higher rankings.

5 Advantages of Video SEO for Your Local Business

Last Updated On August 13th, 2014Local SEO, , , , , ,

YoutubeVideo search engine optimization (SEO) is becoming increasingly popular and if you have a business and haven’t taken advantage of this tool, there’s no time like the present. Did you know that 2 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day? The popular network has the power to give your business massive exposure and if your video happens to go viral, your company could become the next overnight sensation. Video SEO can help increase the visibility of your video, making it more likely to be seen by your target audience. Not sure if making a video for your business is worth it? Read these top advantages and you’ll be yelling “action!” in no time.

1. There are not as many videos on the Web as text content. For this reason, your video is 53 times more likely to show up in the Google search results than your text content, according to Forrester Research. Optimizing your video with keywords will ensure your video shows up in the search results to be seen by your target audience.

2. Making a video can help you stand out among your competitors. If a potential client is choosing between two companies, both with the same services and pricing, which is he more likely to do business with, the company that created the entertaining video he loved or the one that didn’t?

3. If your video is memorable and entertaining, potential customers are likely to share the video with friends. Suddenly, you have a whole new world of fans who are likely to become customers. Making sure this video is SEO-friendly helps get it found in the first place.

4. You already have a great platform for sharing your video, YouTube. Billions of videos are viewed on the network daily and the site makes it easy to add keywords to your title and description as well as in the keywords tag.

5. Videos help increase brand awareness. Sharing a funny video on YouTube that lets people know what your company does, without force feeding them blatant advertising, will give people who were unfamiliar with your business a great first impression. People who previously didn’t know your company existed may suddenly find themselves standing in line at your local business location or calling you to inquire about your services.

The bottom line is, if you haven’t tried making a video for your business and optimizing it for search engines, you are missing out on some great opportunities to attract new customers, connect with your target audience and show people that your business can be fun and entertaining while still keeping the level of professionalism that is expected by your current customers.

Local Businesses Retake Google Hybrid Search Results

Last Updated On March 14th, 2024Organic SEO,

Earlier this month we began observing a major shift in the Google Everything local search results (i.e. Hybrid local results). The hybrid local results started appearing last November for most local search queries. During that time, we observed that Google had a brand filter in place, which caused businesses with multiple locations to be limited to a single listing on Google.

However, earlier this week, the pendulum swung back in favor of local businesses. We arrived at this conclusion by observing the following occurrences:

1) Multiple results from the same businesses entity.

2) Rankings are no longer in direct correlation to organic webpage placement.

So what are the new results?  A quick sampling and survey suggests that the hybrid results are the same results as contained in the first page of Google Maps.  However, the actual ranking of the first page of results is different.  The strong bias that the organic-like ranking algorithm had is no longer taking precedence and the traditional Maps search results are shining through once again. This essentially opens the door back up for local businesses and helps them achieve prime organic search results.

At the same time, we are seeing many more 7-pack results and less hybrid results. The differences are illustrated here.

For lack of a better nomenclature, we’ll dub this the Google Local Panda update (or LP) since it follows the recent Google Panda search algorithm update, however it is likely not associated with that update in any way.

Has anyone else observed this update?