What is personalisation when it comes to local search?

[coolhandluc]

Hi Everyone.

This may be a silly question but I was reviewing the 2014 Local Search Ranking Factors article produce by MOZ:
https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors
I am unsure about the reference to "personalisation"  which seems to account for 8.4% of the overall weight. Everything else is pretty clear as there is a quick description and examples for each topic but not for personalisation. Does anyone know what it includes?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Neil,

Yes, it a way, it can make explaining rank to clients harder because there are no set-in-stone rankings anymore, but in another sense, it frees us all from over-focusing on specific rank and focusing more on the most important metric - conversions.

[coolhandluc]

Thanks miriam. Very useful indeed. This clearly makes things tricky when one wants to optimize for a local business

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Neil!

Not a silly question at all. In the past couple of years, what has become a dominant force in local results is typically referred to as the user-as-centroid. What this means is that results vary based on the physical location of the searcher at the moment he makes his search. The affects both desktop and mobile local results, and is especially sensitive on mobile, wherein a searcher at one end of town looking for a pizza is going to see different results than if he drives across town and searches again.

So, the user-as-centroid phenomenon is playing a major role in results being personalized to the searcher, and beyond this, things like past search behavior contribute as well to my results being different than the results my clients see when they do the same searches.

[coolhandluc]

Thanks guys. Makes sense. Very useful indeed

[seovp]

Hi,

Personalisation, generally refers to the personalisation of the search results. So somebody searching for a restaurant in London will receive different results to someone searching in Birmingham.

On top of this, if you are logged into a browser or on your phone, results will continue to differ depending on what you have clicked on before or previously searched for. So for local listings, personalisation tends to be quite an important factor.

Thanks

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

This includes factors like:
Country
Locality
Personal Search History
Social Connections
etc.

There's also a great post called SEO in the Personalization Age by Gianluca Fiorelli of Moz that I highly recommend you look into, as well as Rand's Personalization and SEO & Elements of Personalization & How to Perform Better in Personalized Search Whiteboard Fridays. You'll find a ton of great tips and resources through these.

Hope this all helps! Good luck!