When news broke last week that the Google Search API documentation had been leaked, our team quickly crawled them, looking for anything related to local SEO.
My initial impression was that most of the “local” stuff ranged from pretty basic (“Google uses business addresses!”) to mostly irrelevant map-geeky stuff (“This content describes the material representations used to define the appearance of geometric surfaces in city data formats, using attributes such as color, surface smoothness, reflectivity, and transparency.”).
What I wanted to know was how this information could help my clients rank better in the local SERPs.
Spoiler alert: I'm not sure yet, but I have some thoughts and questions.
First, let's look at some common observations about “could be anything” data that frequently appears on the web.
- Chrome browser behavior.
- “Toxic” backlinks.
- Google may limit the number of different types of sites that appear in a particular search result.
- “Mentions” of your site on other sites (also known as “citations”).
- The topic authority.
- Clicking on a URL in a search result affects rankings.
- Author.
- You may need to refresh your page 20 times before Google considers it a true refresh.
There could be thousands of other factors, so let’s get to it: What can help improve your local SEO?
Below are some incomplete thoughts for you to ponder.
1. Video, video, video!
This isn't really a “local SEO” tip, but it's the most practical one I've found so far. At least I think it is. The documentation for the video says:
- Video Focus Site: A bit that determines if a site's content is mostly video but is not hosted on a known video hosting domain. A site is considered video-centric if more than 50% of its URLs are video watch pages.
People seem to love video. In fact, we're seeing more and more videos appear in search results in almost every vertical we work in.
For example, according to Semrush, here’s what video looks like in the SERPs for non-branded keywords for RotoRooter.com:
Therefore, if you want to be considered for video slots in the SERPs, we recommend that you categorize them as follows: Video Focus Site.
Now, the “local” part: most local SMB sites are small. I think you could quickly turn a 5 page site into a video classified site by adding 5 short selfie videos on each page.
Google seems to be strict about what it classifies as a video page.
For example, if you're a veterinarian, you could make a selfie video on how to brush a cat's teeth, how often to check up on a dog, etc. You'll need to host it yourself or find an off-brand video hosting domain. Let me know if you know of any.
Incidentally, the document lists “location information” as an attribute for meta information extracted from video files, so it doesn't hurt to check whether the video meta information contains location information.
2. Are local bot clicks “CRAP”?
If you’ve been in local SEO for a while, you’ll be aware of the various services that use bots to simulate location-based searches and aim to boost your local pack rankings by clicking on results and boosting your “prominence” signal.
A lot has been said about Rand Fishkin’s evidence from years ago that clicks matter for non-local SERPs, but I don’t think I’ve actually seen anyone publicly talk about it in relation to the local pack.
that's why QualityNavboostCrapsCrapsClickSignals.tWhat caught my eye was , which is defined as “the CRAPS signal for that area.”
I believe CRAP stands for “Click and Result Prediction System.” This suggests that certain locations may have a certain score for how a click on a result will affect their ranking. If so, how do I know what that score is?
The first thing that comes to mind is to run a ton of local bot clicks on your competitors for a variety of related queries (vets near me, animal hospitals, dog vaccinations in Pleasanton, etc.) and see how many clicks it takes to move you in the rankings.
Test it regularly to see how it changes over time and from day to day, and when you find something that seems to work, implement it on your site.
Please note that this is probably 100% against Google's terms of service, so I'm not encouraging you to do this, I'm just being aware of the situation.
3. Local and topic authority
Local SEO usually boils down to a combination of proximity (are you located near the area being searched?), popularity (are you “good” enough to show up for this query?), and relevance (is it relevant to the query?).
This API documentation for NSR (presumably “Normalized Site Rank”) references the following:
- Title Match Score This is a “signal that scores sites and indicates how well their titles match user queries.”
- Regional Score This is a “component of the LocalAuthority signal.”
In theory, if your site’s overall title is relevant to the user’s query (also known as “relevance”), and your localityScore (also known as “proximity”) is salient enough, you’ll have a good chance of getting a good local ranking.
Typically, there's not much you can do about proximity other than creating a place page and getting reviews that mention the place.
For this thought exercise, let's assume that the locationScore is fixed, which means that tinkering with title tags across your site might yield results. What do I mean by “tinkering”?
Let's say “SEO Company Pleasanton” ranks third in the local pack. If you crawl the first two business sites, you'll find that roughly 10% of each site's title tags target some version of this query.
So what happens if I update my site's titles so that 20% of my titles hit the titlematchScore? Will this improve my local rankings? Will it only affect organic results and not the local pack? Seems like a pretty easy thing to test. I think I know what I'll do tomorrow.
Get the daily newsletter search marketers trust.
4. What is the difference between LSA and Google Ads?
Fishkin recently
- “If Chrome click stream data is used for ranking, does that mean paid clicks can improve organic rankings?”
For now, let’s assume that this is how it actually works. If so, this raises another question: which ad units are most effective at increasing rankings?
For local search, there are standard PPC ads, but there are also Google Local Services Ads (LSA) that appear at the top of the local pack and other local “surfaces.”
Testing different ad units for rankings and organic clicks seems like a pretty easy thing to do.
In fact, it might cost you some money, so even better, track your competitors who are spending a lot on this and see how that changes their rankings, or doesn't.
5. Manipulate local search results
Mike King said of the Twiddlers:
- “Twiddler can provide category constraints, meaning you can encourage diversity by specifically limiting the type of results. For example, an author could decide to only allow three blog posts on a particular SERP, making it clear when rankings are hopeless based on page format.”
SEOs have long looked at query intent by examining the types of results in SERPs, so the Twiddlers story may fit the “nothing new” argument.
However, this gave me an epiphany about our approach: A common result of a local intent check is that there are several local businesses and business directories (Yelp, Angi, Forbes, etc.) in the organic SERPs.
Instead of worrying about how hard it will be to compete with sites like Yelp, I now think, “There are only three directories in these search results. How can my local business be one of them?”
This is not a criticism of Yelp or sites like it, but what does that site essentially offer beyond business listings and the content that goes with them?
If I were a local accountant, it wouldn't be hard to create a page on my domain, or a new page about great accountants in my city, and somehow I'm ranked #1 (I don't know how that happened, but I'll go with it 😜).
This has been a B2B staple for years, and there’s no reason why local businesses can’t do the same.
Attributes you want to know more about
This IndexingDocjoinerDataVersion document lists some pretty interesting attribute names. I don't know what they are, but it looks like some of these could play a big role in local SERPs.
- local (Perhaps how to categorize local business directory sites?)
- Local Search Authority Site Annotation (As in “This site is the authority on this topic”?)
- qualityGeoBrainlocGoldmineBrainlocAnnotation (I'm pretty sure GeoBrain is Google's list of popular locations. Goldmine seems like an advertiser's list?)
- IndexingDuplicatesLocalizationLocalization Clusters (Deduplicate results based on searched region?)
- Image Repository Geolocation (We haven’t seen geotagged images have any impact on local rankings for a long time, but it makes sense for Google to store these to show images for certain types of queries.)
- Knowledge Mining Facts Localized Facts (If a fact has a local source/application, do you want to see the local version instead of the “national” version?)
- Tofu (This algorithm, defined as “URL-level tofu prediction,” might be the key to the entire Google algorithm. Probably not, but I just had to mention it.)
I really try not to conclude with “nothing practical, but testing is fun” – at the end of the day, I guess I'm no different to any other aspiring SEO guru.
Oh, and speaking of “mentions,” I forgot to mention that citations in local business “tier 3” directories can help your rankings. But that tricky bit involves a listing management company.
I hope I've given you some ideas to try out, have fun!
Contributors are invited to create content for Search Engine Land and are selected based on their expertise and contributions to the search community. Contributors work under the supervision of editorial staff, and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. Opinions expressed by contributors are their own.