What is personalisation when it comes to local search?
-
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? -
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.
-
Thanks miriam. Very useful indeed. This clearly makes things tricky when one wants to optimize for a local business
-
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.
-
Thanks guys. Makes sense. Very useful indeed
-
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
-
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!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
VERY specific Google search result not showing
Hello, I'm doing this google search "Peruvian Lilies Delivery To Athens, Alabama globalrose", in the hopes of this page appearing. It does not! Does anyone know why this page (or most pages in out local.globalrose.com subdomain) aren't appearing on Google search results?
Local Listings | | globalrose.com0 -
How to handle no ad pages or no search result pages for a classifieds website?
We have a classified website.
Local Listings | | SirishaNueve
We have started doing SEO for classifieds search pages so I have submitted some pages to Google using sitemap.xml ex: www.domain.com/search/austin.
If there are any Ads in the Austin location then Google is considering it as soft 404 errors in GWT.
I am submitting them to Google yet there are no Ads because at some point users may add Ads and by that time my URL need to be in Google. My question is how to handle the page which doesn't have any Ads?
Please let me know and guide me if I am wrong.0 -
Local Search Verified Location Ideas
Hi, I have a client who has offices that are physically located in one town, but offers its services to a much wider area, like a hundred mile radius. You can see where this is going. In local organic search, they need to establish a verified business location in other towns. My understanding is that virtual offices, even though you can receive mail there and can have offices there, are not an acceptable solution to this problem. Maybe I'm wrong about that though. Any ideas, short of opening up permanent full-time offices in other cities for getting around this? With all due respect, if your answer is only an opinion on the importance of playing by the rules and background on the rationale behind Google's Guidelines, etc, please don't bother posting. I'm looking for actual possible alternatives. Thanks!
Local Listings | | 945010 -
Moz local...worth $84 a year?
I am currently showing up in local results for my business but when i run a Moz local test, it shows that i only have a current score of 29% and by using Moz Local it says i could get to a score of 86%. Will enrolling in Moz local help my pages to rank higher in the search engines for different queries, or does it just help my site show up in the local results at the top of the serps? I only have one business in one city so it might not be worth it for me. My business is a service though and i travel to many different cities. Any input on this would be greatly appreciated. thanks mozzers! Ron
Local Listings | | Ron100 -
Google Local: When moving locations, is a new website/content needed?
I've effectively moved companies before, but I've heard that ranking locally in a competitive market after an address move it is necessary to redesign the entire website/content/domain as Google associates the old website/content/domain with the old location. Is this true? Does anyone have any direct experience with this? NOTE- I have updated citations across the internet and have regular social signals going to the new location, and this has been the case for almost 6 months now.
Local Listings | | mgordon0 -
Google Plus Local - Business address, regions covered/served
Hi If you have a client whose business address is not the same as the regions they serve/cover then how do you set this up correctly in G+? So listing (& preferably website too via the G+ places connection & onpage local address schema) do help local search query listings in the target areas ? Also schema too if possible (i.e. how do you add areas/regions covered if outside of actual business address area) ? Is the only way round this to set up serviced/virtual office addresses in your target market regions ? Surely there's a way to have a business listed in areas outside of its actual address. Its a physical business but is not bricks & mortar beyond the admin office. All Best Dan
Local Listings | | Dan-Lawrence1 -
Time based search positions, are they a thing?
I've been working on a particularly competitive keyword which I have been obsessively checking twice a day for a couple of weeks. I have noticed something odd which I'd like to check if anyone in the community has picked up too. If I check the SERP position in the morning, before 8am, my rankings are gaining, but not as quickly as I'd like. If I check the positions in the afternoon, before 5pm, I notice a gain of two - three SERP positions. The site I'm working on is listed as a local business and it's opening hours have been added. Is Google serving SERP positions based on opening hours? That's my best guess, but I'd appreciate any other possible explanations. Thanks in advance
Local Listings | | KJDMedia0