Local Search Title-Line Revisited

A few days ago I blogged that the title-line in local search can be manipulated for marketing purposes.

After blogging about that a couple of my colleagues expressed concern that it wasn’t a good idea and one of them pointed me to the following discussion between Google Map Guide Joel and a person asking a question related to the title-line of local search:

This is an interesting case of spam - I'm glad you both posted here.

I've linked the quality guidelines below. Those listings that don't follow these guidelines are subject to removal. I wanted to highlight two points:
1. "Represent your business exactly as it appears in real life. The name on Google Maps should match the business name, as should the address, phone number and website."

Interestingly, the title LV Photo Party Las Vegas Photo Booth Rental, in my view, is committing what we call title spam or keyword stuffing. The business name doesn't match the name provided on the website.

Quoting from the guidelines again:

2. "Google Maps is intended to be a source of information for users and business owners alike."

The ShutterBox Photo Booth listings appear to have their business appropriately named. It is strange, however, that the address information isn't on the website. The addresses on listings should be useful to customers. If I were a customer, I'd expect to be able to drive up and get service from ShutterBox Photo Booth in both the locations in Las Vegas as well as the locations in Chicago.

Each of you have an opportunity to clean up the listings as necessary. I'll check back on these listings in a few days. Please make sure they follow our lisitng guidelines.

Thanks,
Joel

I no longer recommend local search title-line marketing.

Geographical Search Patterns: "Flowers" verses "Florist"

I have a number of real-florist clients that I do SEO work for related to geographical ranking in their area. The one thing I’ve noticed in that regard is that search patterns differ greatly between tying city names to either “flowers” or “florist;” and whether or not the State abbreviation is included in the search.

For example, according to Google’s Traffic Estimator for searches related to the San Francisco area we have:

“San Francisco flowers”: 618 to 693 searches per day (about 19,500 searches a month)

“San Francisco, ca flowers": less than 1 search a day on average.

“San Francisco florist”: 14 to 17 searches per day (about 450 searches a month)

“San Francisco, ca florist”: 1 to 2 searches per day (about 30 searches a month)

The difference in search volume is vast. Ranking 1^st for “San Francisco florist” is not even in the same category as ranking for “San Francisco flowers.” If a florist is ranking for the former and not the latter then that florist really has no idea of the missed search volume.  

Some of the major order-gatherers have keyed into these search patterns and have planned their SEO strategies accordingly. 

Marketing in the Title-Tag Area

Title-tags are often used just for the purpose of helping search engines correctly identify and possibly populate search results (though there are other factors involved in ranking). But did you know that the Title-tag can also be used to help draw customers by the use of marketing price points?

What do I mean? Well, much in the same way that major floral entities use PPC Ads to market price points & discounts, you too can use your title area in an effort to competitively compete with the big boys

For instance, you’ve probably seen ads from companies like Fromyouflowers.com where price points of $24.99 are often advertised.  But real-florists, who deliver directly in the geographical zones that many of the major players advertise in, can offer their specials at much lower rates in the same visual area that big boys play in. Indeed, real-florists can. Look at the organic results below and notice how that compares with Fromyouflowers.com:

[I've blown the image up to the right here -->]

Keep in mind that if you choose to follow a similar methodology with your title-tag area, you’ll want to refrain from putting the price point first in your title-tag area (the middle area is a good) and you’ll want to make sure that the title-tag character count (including spaces) stays around 68 or less.

If you don’t sell roses for that cheap, then use “Flowers from $19.99” or something to that effect. The idea is to get your starting price point onto Google's search page.