I always like to illustrate my point with a few examples--provided to me by Meghan Kaplan and Kevin Heimlich at The Ad Firm, an Orange County, CA Internet marketing firm--when talking about anything local SEO related, because they have been doing local SEO for a really long time. Today, I wanted to cover why local SEO matters to hardware stores.
I did a search for "hardware stores orange county, ca" and these are the top listings that came up in Google search engine results:
1. Ganahl Lumber in Los Alamitos, CA
2. New York Hardware Co Knobs in Costa Mesa, CA
3. Dana Point Hardware in Dana Point, CA
What is interesting to me is that these three came up before "Ace Hardware," a big brand name! Just how are they doing it? Although I don't have an absolute answer, there are some things I now keep an eye out for due to Kevin's and Meghan's insight.
If I am looking at the source code for Number 1, for instance, I see a title tag and meta description that says "Lumber Yard, Hardware Store & Tools Orange County | Ganahl Lumber". For businesses that may be new to local SEO and/or coding, this meta in coding has "hardware store" and "Orange County" in it, telling Google's spiders--while crawling a site--just what that page is about.
Now, if I look at the source code for Ace Hardware, it is "Ace Hardware". Because they are a well-known brand, people may directly search "Ace Hardware," which may be the strategy behind that. However, if I don't know the name of a hardware store or even that I need to go to a hardware store to get what I need, I might not be the best target for them. Also, Google likes to better serve up what you are looking for, so if I am looking specifically in Orange County, CA, it might assume that a chain isn't what I am particularly interested in. Maybe I like supporting local Orange County, CA businesses (which, by the way, I actually do).
Looking at Number 2, I notice that the site is clean, simple and easy to navigate through, which is a plus in Google's book. Also, contact information is easily seen, which is another plus in Google's book. The Ad Firm team says from the source code, they were able to even tell what tools a person might be using for website SEO--something I would never expect to be so visible to those who know what they are looking for in the source code.
Finally, looking at the third listing, I see that it is a Google Plus page rather than their official website. If there is any doubt in an Orange County, CA hardware store owner's mind that their business needs to be on Google Plus, this just confirms its importance. Although additional optimization could be done to this page, I see that it has a little check mark next to where the logo would be, signifying that the page is locally verified. This means, it can now be connected with Google Maps. Aside from that, I notice what is really helping rank this page is the number of positive reviews given. This page currently has 10 reviews with average 4.9 out of 5 stars.
Ace Hardware has a Google Plus page too with 9 reviews an average 4.9 stars, so one might think it should kick the little guy out! This just brings us back to the argument of how important optimizing the actual website can impact your search ranking!
Okay, so I am not a guru and there probably is a lot more going into this than I realize. If you are an Orange County, CA hardware store marketing associate or business owner and are curious about learning more, give the team at The Ad Firm a call!
I did a search for "hardware stores orange county, ca" and these are the top listings that came up in Google search engine results:
1. Ganahl Lumber in Los Alamitos, CA
2. New York Hardware Co Knobs in Costa Mesa, CA
3. Dana Point Hardware in Dana Point, CA
What is interesting to me is that these three came up before "Ace Hardware," a big brand name! Just how are they doing it? Although I don't have an absolute answer, there are some things I now keep an eye out for due to Kevin's and Meghan's insight.
If I am looking at the source code for Number 1, for instance, I see a title tag and meta description that says "Lumber Yard, Hardware Store & Tools Orange County | Ganahl Lumber". For businesses that may be new to local SEO and/or coding, this meta in coding has "hardware store" and "Orange County" in it, telling Google's spiders--while crawling a site--just what that page is about.
Now, if I look at the source code for Ace Hardware, it is "Ace Hardware". Because they are a well-known brand, people may directly search "Ace Hardware," which may be the strategy behind that. However, if I don't know the name of a hardware store or even that I need to go to a hardware store to get what I need, I might not be the best target for them. Also, Google likes to better serve up what you are looking for, so if I am looking specifically in Orange County, CA, it might assume that a chain isn't what I am particularly interested in. Maybe I like supporting local Orange County, CA businesses (which, by the way, I actually do).
Looking at Number 2, I notice that the site is clean, simple and easy to navigate through, which is a plus in Google's book. Also, contact information is easily seen, which is another plus in Google's book. The Ad Firm team says from the source code, they were able to even tell what tools a person might be using for website SEO--something I would never expect to be so visible to those who know what they are looking for in the source code.
Finally, looking at the third listing, I see that it is a Google Plus page rather than their official website. If there is any doubt in an Orange County, CA hardware store owner's mind that their business needs to be on Google Plus, this just confirms its importance. Although additional optimization could be done to this page, I see that it has a little check mark next to where the logo would be, signifying that the page is locally verified. This means, it can now be connected with Google Maps. Aside from that, I notice what is really helping rank this page is the number of positive reviews given. This page currently has 10 reviews with average 4.9 out of 5 stars.
Ace Hardware has a Google Plus page too with 9 reviews an average 4.9 stars, so one might think it should kick the little guy out! This just brings us back to the argument of how important optimizing the actual website can impact your search ranking!
Okay, so I am not a guru and there probably is a lot more going into this than I realize. If you are an Orange County, CA hardware store marketing associate or business owner and are curious about learning more, give the team at The Ad Firm a call!