Local Business

July 24, 2015 by Greg Falken Leave a Comment

All About Local Business

What does “local business” mean to you? I think that the defining characteristic of a local business is that they expect to have personal relationships with their customers. It isn’t about the size of the business or even if they operate outside of the area where they are located. I consider our county’s largest private employer, Black Oak Casino, to be a local business, whereas I wouldn’t say the same for UV Skinz, which is a manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of UV resistant … [Read more...] about All About Local Business

January 22, 2015 by Greg Falken Leave a Comment

What Makes a Business Local?

Guest post by Becky McCrayWhat is local, anyway? When you think of a local business, you probably picture the traditional brick and mortar retail business. Customers are looking for these local businesses online right now. For local businesses like these, the focus online is on the people, businesses, and features that are right around them. … [Read more...] about What Makes a Business Local?

Meet the Knowledge Graph
If you own a website, you’ve probably given a lot of thought to how (and where) your site appears in Google search results. You’ve probably also noticed that the most attention grabbing part of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is the large block that includes images on the right side of the page. This is the Google Knowledge Graph and it operates quite differently from the listings in the body of the page.The Knowledge Graph is constructed not from Google’s index of web pages but from its own store of data, which it organizes into “entities” and the “relationships” between them. In a hypothetical search for Barack Obama, entities could include “Barak Obama”, “President”, “White House”, “Oval Office” and “USA”. These entities connect to each other through relationships such as “Work In”, “Located In”, “Lives In” and “Designation”. This is similar to the way our minds work (unless you’re this guy) when we remember things by associating them with other things with which we have a similar relationship.
The types of knowledge in the Knowledge Graph
Not all searches display a knowledge graph. Google applies the Knowledge Graph to five main search types:
Influencers
Movies, shows and books
Organizations
Local businesses
Query answers
When Google has existing information about one of these types, it displays a Knowledge Graph that can include images, links, statistics and other descriptive text, none of which comes directly from their web page index.If you fall into one of the categories above and want your information to appear in the Knowledge Graph, there are steps that you can take to pre-load Google with your information. These suggestions are from the post How to Increase Your Content Visibility in Google Knowledge Graph on the Convince and Convert website:1. Build your presence in WikipediaKnowledge Graph looks for authoritative sources of information and draws heavily from Wikipedia. Be aware that Wikipedia is much stricter than a local business directory about the kind of information that it accepts and you will have a bit of a learning curve. A Wikipedia page is more likely to be used by Knowledge Graph when:
It’s linked from third party sources like newspapers or magazines
It has multiple contributors
It references other reliable sources
It is referenced by other Wikipedia pages
2. Organize your website content by schemaSchema markup (a.k.a. Structured Data) is a set of predefined codes that describes specific types of content on a website. Schemas exist for products, places, organizations, individuals, reviews, events and recipes. You can get more information about using schemas at Schema.org.3. Optimize social media profilesKnowledge Graph can display information obtained from your business’ social media profiles. Keeping them updated serves as evidence that your business is a legitimate online entity. Not surprisingly, your Google+ profile has the most impact on the Knowledge Graph. And while Google dropped support for the “rel=author” code in 2014, they also say not to remove this code from web pages, implying that it may still be in use or be used in the future.4. Get more mentions
Getting more mentions on the web helps you increase your brand awareness and credibility, which ultimately gets you more traffic. The more you get mentions, the more chances your business has to be recognized by Google Knowledge Graph. Sharing great content with consistency and regular tweeting are just some of the ways you can get more mentions on the business.
5. Optimize your Google Local Business listingThis is the big one for local businesses. Because Local Business is one of the primary Knowledge Graph types, your business is likely to appear if Google has the information provided through Google Local Business.
Make sure that your Google Local business page has a 100% score, with all the information filled in completely. This means in addition to filling in the required text fields, you should fill in the optional ones as well. Your page should also contain product or service keywords in the description, customer reviews, and your contact details. This will help Google get complete and viable information about your business.
By appearing in the Knowledge Graph, your business or brand is in the most attention grabbing position on the entire results page. It’s your job to provide Google with the information they need to put it there. While it’s not necessarily a quick and easy process, it certainly deserves a place in your ongoing marketing efforts. Webdancers can provide help with building this kind of online presence. Just leave a comment below if you have any questions.

Showing Up In the Google Knowledge Graph

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