Quality and Authority – King and Queen of Local SEO 2015 Ranking Factors

What is going to set you apart from your local competitors in 2016?  Understanding local SEO 2015 ranking factors. In 2014 and 2015 you and your competitors worked on your citations, links, reviews, site maps, keywords, integrating location in your website along with optimizing your Google My Business page.  The bar has been risen to quality and authority.

Have you noticed in your local map searches there is no longer a link to your Google+ page?  You can’t even find it in your primary Google SERP (search engine result page).  However, have you noticed your photos show?  Keep adding photos!

The experts predict behavioral signals and/or mobile signals will make up 9.5% of the Google algorithm for localized search results.  That is up 38% compared with last year.  Clickthough rate is in the top ten factors as well.  Google is also tracking post-click time spent on-site and is why focusing on quality content is a good idea!

Citation quality and consistency are still in the top 5 factors.  And we are not talking about those hundreds of directories as their authority has declined.  Do we keep focusing on links?  Yes.  But focus on locally-relevant links, location keywords in anchor text along with product/service keywords in anchor text.

A local SEO client emailed us this week and said, “They found us on the internet.  The requests are pouring in!”.  Yes they were found on the internet 🙂  They were found because of quality content and authority in their field.  The excellent Google reviews help too along with hiring a SEO expert to keep you on track and to help stay on top of the ever changing Google algorithm.  Content marketing and digital marketing is ever changing and encompassing more than just content on your website.  It’s your content everywhere in this digital world coming together with a central strategy to bring you more business.

For the local SEO 2015 ranking factors report, visit the Moz Blog.