What is the relationship/difference between categories and keywords in terms of google local seo?

[CustomCreatives]

I know that they are very similar as search signals, but I would like to understand the exact relationship.  My company is in the process of adding local seo services to our seo offerings, and we are trying to hammer out a process for determining optimal categories for businesses based on keywords we are already using for optimizing their sites.  Any insights or suggestions on how best to do this would be much appreciated.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Rahul,

I am assuming that you are talking about Google Place Page categories. Hopefully, I'm correct and my response will be pertinent.

A first step is to look at the top ranking competitors of your clients to see what Place Page categories they have chosen.

I consider it critical to choose at least 3 of Google's pre-set categories, and I use Mike Blumenthal's awesome local categories tool to see what my choices are:

http://blumenthals.com/index.php?Google_LBC_Categories

If it's necessary to choose custom categories, make sure they describe what the business is rather than what it does. So, 'plumber' vs. 'plumbing'.

Never include location information in the categories (no city names, no zip codes).

In addition to looking at competitors' Place Pages and using keyword research tools to turn up potential categories for your client, never skip the step of asking the client which categories HE thinks are most important. Very often, you will find yourself working with a client such as an attorney who may fit 8 or 9 different potential categories. He needs to help you narrow this down to his 5 most important categories (typically, the ones in which he does the most work).

Keywords you are using to optimize your clients' websites differ in that they can describe what the client does (plumbing) instead of just what he is (plumber) and they will certainly incorporate geo data (cities, counties, neighborhoods, zip codes, etc.). You have a wider latitude to work with on the website, whereas in Places, you must fit yourself neatly into a 5 phrase box without violating the guidelines.

Additional notes:

I found this article to be pretty good:

http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/03/05/13-best-practices-for-picking-google-places-business-categories/

Don't miss the comments on that post, too.

There is strong evidence that picking categories well is one of the most important steps in creating a Google Place Page. Hopefully, my feedback and the information in the article I've linked to will get you off on the right foot with this. Good luck!

Miriam

[Mark_Jay_Apsey_Jr.]

Categories are higher up the "relevance heirarchy" than keywords because local seo is in its infancy. So for example if you have a plumber that works on heating systems, sprinklers and air conditioning systems, the plumber would be the category and could provide instant local seo value as a plumber and for all of the other the associated keywords that I showed. Whereas if you put all your focus on air conditioning, it is too far down the heirarchy to provide any plumbing value for a keyword search, and obviously wouldn't be relevant to heating and sprinklers....

To determine the optimal keywords you need to do the kleyword research and work with your clients. But with local seo, make sure you start at the top of the heirarchy.

Hope this make sense....