Analyzing Google Local Search Data

Lisa Barone of Small Business Trends reveals that there is a new study on local search ranking factors. She says:

“Local reviews and citations are critical to helping your SMB site rank in the search engines’ local algorithms. We’ve heard this countless times.

But is it just raw numbers that matter or does the quality of the review site domain play a part? Is there more that goes into it? These were the questions that Tom Critchlow of the London Internet marketing firm Distilled sought to answer with his newly released data on local search ranking factors. And in the spirit of giving and free information, Tom has made all of his research available for download via both XLS file and Google Document. Happy early holidays.”

Her advice is to download and mine this data and for small & medium businesses to recreate it for their own industry. For me, the problem with trying to figure out Google’s algorithms through data mining  or any other technique is that it is a never-ending exercise. Just as you think you might have a handle on a strategy to rank higher, Google throws you a curve ball and negates your strategy.

That being said, I recommend small businesses continue to be proactive in getting quality customer reviews. As a part of our service, we offer a great way to solicit rave reviews from your happy customers. Contact me to find out how.