Local Centroids are Now Individual Users: How Can WeOptimize for Their Searches?

"Google is getting better at detecting location at a more granular level--even on the desktop. Theuser is the new centroid." - David Mihm

The history of the centroid

The above quote succinctly summarizes the current state of affairs for local business owners andtheir customers. The concept of a centroid-- a central point of relevance--is almost as old as localsearch. In 2008, people like Mike Blumenthal and Google Maps Manager Carter Maslan weresharing statistics like this:

"...research indicates that up to 80% of the variation in rank can be explained by distance from thecentroid on certain searches."

At that time, businesses located near town hall or a similar central hub appeared to be experiencinga ranking advantage.

Fast forward to 2013, and Mike weighed in again with an updated definition of "industrycentroids",

"If you read their (Google's) patents, they actually deal with the center of the industries ... asdefining the center of the search. So if all the lawyers are on the corner of Main and State, thattypically defines the center of the search, rather than the center of the city... it isn't even thecentroid of the city that matters. It matters that you are near where the other people in yourindustry are."

In other words, Google's perception of a centralized location for auto dealerships could becompletely different than that for medical practices, and that neither might be located anywherenear the city center.

While the concepts of city and industry centroids may still play a part in some searches, local searchresults in 2015 clearly indicate Google's shift toward deeming the physical location of the desktop ormobile user a powerful factor in determining relevance. The relationship between where yourcustomer is when he performs a search and where your business is physically located has neverbeen more important.

Moreover, in this new, user-centric environment, Google has moved beyond simply detecting citiesto detecting neighborhoods and even streets. What this means for local business owners is that yourhyperlocal information has become a powerful component of your business data. This post will teachyou how to better serve your most local customers.

Seeing the centroid in action

If you do business in a small town with few competitors, ranking for your product/service + cityterms is likely to cover most of your bases. The user-as-centroid phenomenon is most applicable inmid-to-large sized towns and cities with reasonable competition. I'll be using two districts in SanFrancisco--Bernal Heights and North Beach--in these illustrations and we'll be going on a hunt forpizza.

On a desktop, searching for "pizza north beach san francisco" or setting my location to thisneighborhood and city while searching for the product, Google will show me something like this:

Performing this same search, but with "bernal heights" substituted, Google shows me pizzerias in acompletely different part of the city:

And, when I move over to my mobile device, Google narrows the initial results down to just threeenviable players in each district. These simple illustrations demonstrate Google's increasingsensitivity to serving me nearby businesses offering what I want.

The physical address of your business is the most important factor in serving the user as centroid.This isn't something you can control, but there are things you can do to market your business asbeing highly relevant to your hyperlocal geography.

Specialized content for the user-centroid

We'll break this down into four common business models to help get you thinking about planningcontent that serves your most local customers.

1. Single-location business

Make the shift toward viewing your business not just as "Tony's Pizza in San Francisco", but as"Tony's Pizza in North Beach, San Francisco". Consider:

Improving core pages of your website or creating new pages to include references to the proud partyou play in the neighborhood scene. Talk about the history of your area and where you fit into that.

Interview locals and ask them to share their memories about the neighborhood and what they likeabout living there.

Showcase your participation in local events.

Plan an event, contest or special for customers in your district.

Take pictures, label them with hyperlocal terms, post them on your site and share them socially.

Blog about local happenings that are relevant to you and your customers, such as a street marketwhere you buy the tomatoes that top your pizzas or a local award you've won.

Depending on your industry, there will be opportunities for hyperlocal content specific to yourbusiness. For example, a restaurant can make sure its menu is in crawlable text and can name somefavorite dishes after the neighborhood--The Bernal Heights Special. Meanwhile, a spa in NorthBeach can create a hyperlocal name for a service--The North Beach Organic Spa Package. Not onlydoes this show district pride, but customers may mention these products and services by name intheir reviews, reinforcing your local connection.

2. Multi-location business within a single city

All that applies to the single location applies to you, too, but you've got to find a way to scalebuilding out content for each neighborhood.

If your resources are strong, build a local landing page for each of your locations, including basicoptimization for the neighborhood name. Meanwhile, create blog categories for each neighborhoodand rotate your efforts on a week by week basis. First week, blog about neighborhood A, next week,find something interesting to write about concerning neighborhood B. Over time, you'll havedeveloped a nice body of content proving your involvement in each district.

If you're short on resources, you'll still want to build out a basic landing page for each of your storesin your city and make the very best effort you can to showcase your neighborhood pride on thesepages.

3. Multiple businesses, multiple cities

Again, scaling this is going to be key and how much you can do will depend upon your resources.

The minimum requirement will be a landing page on the site for each physical location, with basicoptimization for your neighborhood terms.

Beyond this, you'll be making a decision about how much hyperlocal content you can add to thesite/blog for each district, or whether time can be utilized more effectively via off-site socialoutreach. If you've got lots of neighborhoods to cover in lots of different cities, designating a socialrepresentative for each store and giving him the keys to your profiles (after a training session incompany policies) may make the most sense.

4. Service area businesses (SABs)

Very often, service area businesses are left out in the cold with various local developments, but inmy own limited testing, Google is applying at least some hyperlocal care to these business models. Ican search for a neighborhood plumber, just as I would a pizza:

To be painstakingly honest, plumbers are going to have to be pretty ingenious to come up with a tonof engaging industry/neighborhood content and may be confined mainly to creating some decentservice area landing pages that share a bit about their work in various neighborhoods. Otherbusiness models, like contractors, home staging firms and caterers should find it quite easy to talkabout district architecture, curb appeal and events on a hyperlocal front.

While your SAB is still unlikely to beat out a competitor with a physical location in a givenneighborhood, you still have a chance to associate your business with that area of your town withwell-planned content.

Need creative inspiration for the writing projects ahead? Don't miss this awesome wildcard searchtip Mary Bowling shared at LocalUp. Add an underscore or asterisk to your search terms and justlook at the good stuff Google will suggest to you:

Does Tony's patio make his business one of Bernal Heights' dog-friendly restaurants or does hisrooftop view make his restaurant the most picturesque lunch spot in the district? If so, he's got twonew topics to write about, either on his basic landing pages or his blog.

Hop over to Whitespark's favorite takeaways from Mike Ramsey's LocalUp presentation, too.

Citations and reviews with the user centroid in mind

Here are the basics about citations, broken into the same four business models:

1. Single-location business

You get just one citation on each platform, unless you have multiple departments orpractitioners. That means one Google+ Local page, one Yelp profile, one Best of the Web listing. etc.You do not get one citation for your city and another for your neighborhood. Very simple.

2. Multi-location business within a single city

As with the single location business, you are entitled to just one set of citations per physical location.That means one Google+ Local listing for your North Beach pizza place and another for yourrestaurant in Bernal Heights.

A regular FAQ here in the Moz QA Forum relates to how Google will differentiate between twobusinesses located in the same city. Here are some tips:

Google no longer supports the use of modifiers in the business name field, so you can no longer beTony's Pizza - Bernal Heights, unless your restaurant is actually named this. You can only be Tony'sPizza.

Facebook's policies are different than Google's. To my understanding, Facebook won't permit you tobuild more than one Facebook Place for the identical brand name. Thus, to comply with theirguidelines, you must differentiate by using those neighborhood names or other modifiers. Given thatthis same rule applies to all of your competitors, this should not be seen as a danger to your NAPconsistency, because apparently, no multi-location business creating Facebook Places will have100% consistent NAP. The playing field is, then, even.

The correct place to differentiate your businesses on all other platforms is in the address field.Google will understand that one of your branches is on A St. and the other is on B St. and will choosewhich one they feel is most relevant to the user.

Google is not a fan of call centers. Unless it's absolutely impossible to do so, use a unique localphone number for each physical location to prevent mix-ups on Google's part, and use this numberconsistently across all web-based mentions of the business.

Though you can't put your neighborhood name in the title, you can definitely include it in thebusiness description field most citation platforms provide.

Link your citations to their respective local landing pages on your website, not to your homepage.

3. Multiple businesses, multiple cities

Everything in business model #2 applies to you as well. You are allowed one set of citations for eachof your physical locations, and while you can't modify your Google+ Local business name, you canmention your neighborhood in the description. Promote each location equally in all you do andthen rely on Google to separate your locations for various users based on your addresses and phone

numbers.

4. SABs

You are exactly like business model #1 when it comes to citations, with the exception of needing toabide by Google's rules about hiding your address if you don't serve customers at your place ofbusiness. Don't build out additional citations for neighborhoods you serve, other cities you serve orvarious service offerings. Just create one citation set. You should be fine mentioning someneighborhoods in your citation descriptions, but don't go overboard on this.

When it comes to review management, you'll be managing unique sets of reviews for each of yourphysical locations. One method for preventing business owner burnout is to manage each location inrotation. One week, tend to owner responses for Business A. Do Business B the following week. Inweek three, ask for some reviews for Business A and do the same for B in week four. Vary the tasksand take your time unless faced with a sudden reputation crisis.

You can take some additional steps to "hyperlocalize" your review profiles:

Write about your neighborhood in the business description on your profile.

You can't compel random customers to mention your neighborhood, but you can certainly do so fromtime to time when your write responses. "We've just installed the first soda fountain Bernal Heightshas seen since 1959. Come have a cool drink on us this summer."

Offer a neighborhood special to people who bring in a piece of mail with their address on it. Preparea little handout for all-comers, highlighting a couple of review profiles where you'd love to hear howthey liked the Bernal Heights special. Or, gather email addresses if possible and follow up via emailshortly after the time of service.

If your business model is one that permits you to name your goods or service packages, don't forgetthe tip mentioned earlier about thinking hyperlocal when brainstorming names. Pretty cool if youcan get your customers talking about how your "North Beach Artichoke Pizza" is the best pie intown!

Investigate your social-hyperlocal opportunties

I still consider website-based content publication to be more than half the battle in ranking locally,but sometimes, real-time social outreach can accomplish things static articles or scheduled blogposts can't. The amount of effort you invest in social outreach should be based on your resourcesand an assessment of how naturally your industry lends itself to socialization. Fire insurancesalesmen are going to find it harder to light up their neighborhood community than yoga studioswill. Consider your options:

Remember that you are investigating each opportunity to see how it stacks up not just to promotingyour location in your city, but in your neighborhood.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Remember that Sesame Street jingle? It hails from a time when urban dwellers strongly identifiedwith a certain district of hometown. People were "from the neighborhood." If my grandfather was aMission District fella, maybe yours was from Chinatown. Now, we're shifting in fascinatingdirections. Even as we've settled into telecommuting to jobs in distant states or countries, Amazon isoffering one hour home delivery to our neighbors in Manhattan. Doctors are making house callsagain! Any day now, I'm expecting a milkman to start making his rounds around here. Commercehas stretched to span the globe and now it's zooming in to meet the needs of the family next door.

If the big guys are setting their sights on near-instant services within your community, take note.You live in that community. You talk, face-to-face, with your neighbors every day and know the flavorof the local scene better than any remote competitor can right now.

Now is the time to reinvigorate that old neighborhood pride in the way you're visualizing yourbusiness, marketing it and personally communicating to customers that you're right there for them.