Local Search - Topic 5: Competitive Factors for Local Search

Competitive Factors for Local Search

Today, I am going to talk about competitive factors. These are the factors that make your ranking in local search come up higher than that of your competition. 

Take, for example, two businesses. These two are in the same street and offer the same service. What makes one come up higher in the local search ranking than the other? There are a number of factors that need to be taken into account, here are the nine most important.

1. Consistency of NAP

Making sure that your name, address and phone number are consistent across the internet. The more times your NAP is listed on the internet the better. It increases the authority of your website.

2. Domain Authority of Website

The authority is built over time, it relates to the time that the domain has been registered as well as the domain authority of the websites that link to your site.

Your domain authority will also be increased for local search if you have a .com.au domain. These domains are only available to Australian businesses with an ABN or ACN, which in turn adds credibility. If there are two businesses, otherwise the same aside from one having a .com and the other a.com.au, the one with the .au will have a higher ranking.

3. Quality / Authority of Inbound links

These are the websites that link into your website. The relevance of the pages and the authority (or quality) of the other website has to be high.

4. Quality / Authority of Structured Citations

The search engine is not only looking at the consistency of your NAP on these citations, but it is also looking at the quality / authority of the domain that your business is listed on.

5. Correct GMB Category Associations

Make sure you use the correct GMB Category. You should use all that apply, more is better, but do not choose any that are irrelevant to your business as this will work against you.

6. Closest Physical Address

If you are closer to the person who is searching than your competitor, you will come up higher in the search ranking. Obviously this is not something you can control!

7. Reviews

Make sure you get reviews on your website, but not just on your website, get reviews on local directories, social media, GMB etc. If your business comes up on the right-hand-side of the search, an aggregate of the reviews / ratings will appear. People are more likely to click if the star rating is high, so get as many positive reviews as you can!

In the next video I will walk you through the actual steps required to optimise your local search.