Out of State Local Search

[Oren.]

I've noticed when traveling that a local search (be it city, region, or state) yields different results depending on my physical location.  This is very anecdotal, but with an incognito search in my clients city I'll get one result, in a different city about 30 miles away I'll get a slightly different result, in a different state but still only about 30 miles away I'll get another slightly different result, and many states away the result is different still.

This isn't very scientific data, but I think something is going on.  Have people experienced this?  Is anyone aware of research or has an understanding of what can bias a local search in different directions depending on the distance from the area represented by that local search?  These don't seem to be fluctuations in ranking, the results are widely different, but mostly constant in their respective locations.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Oren,

Thanks for the great explanation. So, let me try to sum up the options I see.

Option 1: Legal firm with physical offices in Delaware and California

In this case, the firm can have a Google+ Local page for each physical office, linking to a website landing page for each physical office. Be sure, of course, that each physical office has a unique local phone number. In this scenario, the client has good hope of showing up in the local results for the cities in California and Delaware in which they are are physically located.

Option 2: Legal firm in with an office California that will send attorneys to Delaware to serve clients

In this case, the legal firm can have a Google+ Local page for their California, but not one for Delaware if they don't have a physical office in the latter state. They can, however, build content on their website to reflect the work they do in Delaware cities. In this scenario, the firm has a good chance of showing up in the local results for their California city, but not their Delaware ones. Instead, they must aim for organic visibility for their work in Delaware, and if we're dealing with the legal practice, this can be tough because there are likely to be a ton of lawyer in almost any major city. So, it's possible but very difficult to achieve good organic visibility with this content.

Hopefully, I've covered the two scenarios that might apply to your client. It pretty much all comes down to the cities in which one is physically located dictating in which cities one ranks locally.

[Oren.]

Sure no problem.  Many professional service businesses (doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, etc.) are only licensed to practice in a specific state.  These businesses have a physical location in this state, and deal with matters that occur in that state both in their offices and by traveling to clients, even to clients not in their local area.  Although they are only licensed in a specific state, they can do business with anyone from any state, as long as the matter pertains to the state of their license (ex. If you run a business with offices in California, but you're incorporated in Delaware, you'll need the services of a Delaware business attorney, perhaps an accountant, etc. even if you aren't physically in the state, and said Delaware Attorney might meet with you in your office in California).  Going on with this example, said Delaware attorneys and accountants would want to show up well on SERPs and Local Search for out of state searchers in California and other states, since those out of state searchers need a localized service, in a different state.

From what I can tell, this is one of those niche things that Google doesn't seem to do much about.  What, if anything, would be different about applying best practice for local search to locations that are not nearby.

And as always Miriam, thank you for your prompt and well thought out responses!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Oren,

Might need to see a bit more info here. Are you talking about a local business that:

1. has physical locations in these other cities/states that clients come to? (like a restaurant franchise)

2. or has staff that travel from a physical address in these city/states to clients? (like a wedding photographer)

-or-

Are you talking about a virtual business that isn't making face-to-face contact with clients but offers statewide or nationwide services/products?

Please, provide as much detail as you can about the specifics of the business model to ensure you receive the best possible answer from the community.

[Oren.]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask but it's a followup question:

As a result of slight differences in localized results, if a business wanted to market towards out of local region customers (other city, state, county, what have you) would best practices be different?  Would local landing pages be the way to go?  Or should the same best practices apply.

[GaryVictory]

Yes. We had a call form a client last week with the same question. Our response - each local business search is completely dependant on the users location settings. While we know this is completely true, it never filters results which are closest to you. Shouldn't this be how it's supposed to work? Maybe not!

One of our clients is a hardwood flooring company next to Tower Bridge in London. If am in the city and search for "Hardwood Flooring in London", they do not always appear. However, travel another 20miles out of town, and they'll pop as a local business. Just has me a little confused sometimes.

[MiriamEllis]

Not at all, Oren! You're very welcome.

[Oren.]

Thank you for the response.  Good to know I'm not losing my mind.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Oren,

You are correct in the phenomenon that you have noticed. For quite some time now, Google has been localizing results to the searcher's geographic location. Thus, when you search from Boston for dentists in Chicago, you will likely be shown somewhat different results than will the dentist searching for himself from his location in Chicago. On mobile, this is often even more evident. If you search for a coffee shop while driving through the north end of town, you will be shown the cafes nearest to you. This will change to a new set of cafes when you reach the south end of town.

While I have never seen a serious study conducted of the exact degree of variance in the results, the important thing to understand is that every user is seeing different results, personalized to their geography. Gone are the days when a business could definitively rank #1 for a term, due to this type of personalization.