This Montreal SEO's schedule has been fuller than Homer Simpson after a free all-you-can-eat buffet of late, and I've got some great news. First of all, Facebook Camp Montreal (like the Toronto event, but better), is being organized by Sylvain Carle and company. Second, a Youmoz blogger may have discovered an additional local SEO ranking factor. And third, there are some cool local SEO posts I've seen around that I want to share!
First things first: Facebook Camp Montreal is being organized on this wiki. Yours truly has put his name down to speak on the opportunities for advertising on the Facebook platform. I'm fascinated by Facebook's marketing opportunities and hope to give an interesting presentation! If you think you've got something interesting to say, why don't you put your name down too?
Second, a Youmozzer nicknamed Jaz thinks he's discovered a new Local SEO ranking factor: targeting the State-wide keyword to improve your ranking on the city-wide keyword. He's seen some results, but they're as yet inconclusive.
Similarly, I recently rewrote the copy and some of the code on the Hotel de Paris's homepage, which included using a provincial abbreviation in the title. I'm waiting to see what the results are with regards to city search. In the meantime, I've brought up rankings for other keywords we previously weren't on the first page for, which is always nice!
Third, there are some cool posts around the local SEO scene I should share. To begin with, I'd like to thank Mike Belasco, aka Mike the Internet Guy (and a savvy localmarketer himself) for helping me find some of these sources. One of them is Matt McGee's blog, who among other solid local SEO blogging, writes about a problem with local search: geography doesn't mesh well with current SEO models. Also, in something of a followup to his discovery of Google Maps spam, Mike Blumenthal reports on some changes in how Google handles bulk local business listing uploads.
Local SEO is an increasingly-important service as more and more searchers turn to Yahoo, Google Truelocal and other search engines to get information on local businesses. But this type of SEO requires more than just link-building, it requires knowledge of your locale. Like Montreal, for example, where French-speaking searchers are just as likely to look up référencement local as they are local SEO. A great way to
To optimize your site for local searchers, you need to know what sites they visit and who are the information hubs in your area. For example, my colleague Michel Leblanc runs a popular Montreal SEO blog, and he also talks about other internet marketing issues.
Similar sites in the Montreal scene are Montreal TechWatch and Techno Montreal. I heard about both of them - you guessed it - at a local event, Yulbiz! Yulbiz was started by Michel Leblanc and Philippe Martin.
This month's Yulbiz was a very fun event and I got to meet a whole bunch of new people, and see some old acquaintances again. Amongst other people, I met or saw:
The reason I mention these people whom I met at Yulbiz is twofold. First, it's to make the point that networking offline is just as important a part of your promotional strategy as online networking. Second, it's to say thanks for chatting, help their SEO a bit and hopefully develop a further relationship online! Local SEO isn't just about mastering Google Maps ... like regular search engine optimization, local seo is about networking (PDF). And knowing the people in your area offline is as important to your search marketing effort as it is to know them online.
Google Maps' ranking factors and algorithm are being researched very thoroughly by local search expert Mike Blumenthal. Mike's got several posts about the algorithm's factors, including some noteworthy comparisons to Google's OneBox results.
For those of you who like more old-school type SEO, Mike Blumenthal has a great post concerning directories that Google cares about in regards to its Maps algorithm. The directory factor still carries weight apparently, though as in the general search algorithm, that weight has greatly decreased since its heyday.
Another very insightful post of his considers the difference between Google OneBox results and Google Maps results. It appears that the OneBox results are focused towards more established venues with enough reviews to have a star rating (the more stars the better, obviously).
The cutoff to have a star rating, from looking at Mike's data, seems to be roughly 10-15 reviews; any less and no stars will appear. This is likely to avoid skewing the data based on only a handful of reviews.
In any event, I encourage you all to subscribe to Mike's "Understanding Google Maps and Yahoo Local" RSS feed if you're interested in local search. His blog is a great resource both on optimizing for local search as well as for local search news.
SEO Montreal is a Montreal-based local Search Engine Optimization consulting company. Nous sommes une agence spécialisée dans le référencement. It is part of the SEO ROI family.
