Mike,

Thanks for the great post. A bit confused though, I found my category – Is it recommended then to only choose from the list of synonyms for the rest of the category slots?

Should I avoid putting my state and city as a category?

Thanks

I bet this only took like 5 minutes to throw together…. 🙂

Thanks a lot Mike and here is my blog donation for the day. Let me know what you think!

Secret Local Search Ranking Facts For Free

Thanks Mike!

The categories have come a long way from when Google used to use Superpage’s.

I have once was penalized from the incorrect use of categories when I entered a geographic location in to one of them. I’d recommend against that.

I had a rash of business owners contacting me over past month or two because their maps rankings plummeted. Most of them had been stuffing extra keywords into the categories, including city names. So I would agree with Mike, don’t try adding geo-terms into your categories. Keep categories tightly on topic.

When choosing only 5, and you offer multiple services, beyond 5, just go after you biggest 5. The ones you see most volume in. Those are then likely the ones more people are searching for. You have to accept the limitations of Maps and ignore some of your offshoot services, if you’re well beyond 5 distinct categories.

When it comes to selecting amongst different wording or spelling variations of the same and similar terms us a tool like Google Insights to gauge what the more popular versions are, as far as how people actually type things into a search engine. In insights you can drill down to the state level to see how people are searching near you, which could possibly be different in another state. Kinda like “pop” vs. “soda”.

When it comes to things like plurals vs singular, I often opt for the plural. In organic SEO the engines are pretty good at matching up a plural to a singular because the plural has the root word in there for an almost match. But the singular does not have quite the match against a plural (missing an S). Now as far as how Google looks at that inside categories in maps, I don’t know for sure. It does look like it matters a bit. But it also seems to me Maps is pretty decent about matching up some of the service type terms that may be searched using an “ing”. Like plumber vs. plumbing.

In some cases it’s about trying to cover all the bases. For your category you may chose the singular. In your title use the plural, or ing. Within your description and additional fields, intermix the use of the terms as you lightly sprinkle keywords into your text there.

@Earlpearl

The synonyms are words that when typed will suggest a primary cagetory in the LBC field.

For example on the primary category Aerobics Instructor

If you type or begin to type any of these synonyms: aerobic, cardio, classes, fitness, fitness center, instructors, kick boxing, spinning, ymca, yoga

you will be presented with Aerobics Instructor as the suggested category.

I would love to know how Google assembled these synonyms as they are very interesting use of words. I have no idea of they are based on search behavior or their synonym dictionary or frequency….

@Stever
I would expand on your point of about geo stuffing. My sense is that Google is penalizing the listing regardless of the where the excessive use of geo terms occurs….

@Jim

My programmer located them for me.

@Scott
I have no idea when or if they will be added to the bulk upload. currently they are only supporting the original 450 or so categories in the bulk upload but they do offer an extra field for 5 additional “custom” categories.

Great post. Really interesting to see. At V-Enable, I was working with most of the local search/ad providers. It was very fascinating to see the wide variety of categories people were supporting. Often as little as a few hundred, but many up to 10,000! Typically those with that many were just using SICs or yellowpage headings, which often provide for poor categorization, inability to match from normal search queries; resulting in poor overall results. I’ve found that a few hundred categories with synonyms tied to the Parent list reflects a well revised and thought out categorization strategy.

It will be interesting to see how the Local Listing Ads (if/when they return) may affect this list. You may see Google increasing the volume of categories in order to sell more ads per business since the category name is the primary driver.

@Mike R

My sense is that Local Universal results show based on click thrus and end user behavior. IE if a search shows Local results and everyone always chooses organic than the listing might drop off the search results.

That being said, I do believe that “local seo” is falling under the same “evil” spell that is currently affecting the search phrases web design, web hosting, internet marketing and advertising agency where none of them are showing local results do to a bug. It must be in the same branch of the database tree where the wrong bit is twiddled.

I do not myself, fully understand how Google Maps established the synonyms in terms of defining them, presenting them in the LBC or how they affect search results. My guess would be that it is based on searcher behavior not LBC behaviors.

Exactly how a listing will be returned in search results based on synonyms would be an interesting exploration which I have yet to do. Categories are more likely to have more searches and synonyms are more likely to be less competitive. Since some of the synonyms are pretty weird and would unlikely produce great search results, others seem valuable as a category choice.

I.E. A random selection:

Category
–Synonyms
Aerobics Instructor
–aerobic
–cardio
–classes
–fitness
–fitness center
–instructors
–kick boxing
–spinning
–ymca
–yoga

Clearly some seem too broad and others very narrow. What “spinning” has to do with anything, is beyond me but it obviously makes sense to the algo.

Whether to choose one of Google’s synonyms or one of your own would depend on your understanding of the local situation including local search behaviors and phrasing as Stever pointed out.

@Colin

As I recall the Superpages upon which Google based their initial categorization had somewhere on the order of 8,600 categories. I am sure that historically those were dictated more by financial returns than user behaviors.

Google took a long time moving from their 450 word category setup with defaults to the Superpages categories so I assume that they spent a fair bit of time analyzing searcher behavior before they implemented them. I still do not know how often, if ever, these categories/synonyms are changing.

Whether they change or vary based on advertising demands will be interesting to watch out for. Given Google’s searcher centric viewpoint, it will more likely be based on user behaviors than advertiser’s desires but who can tell.

My sense is that Local Universal results show based on click thrus and end user behavior. IE if a search shows Local results and everyone always chooses organic than the listing might drop off the search results.

—–I created a listing for my news site Go Burley in order to rid unwanted local results that had the word “go” in the title, and where in “burley”. It took around 3 weeks for the map results to dissapear due to low CTR compared to my organic listing. I was very pleased given that a local one box might detract them to a places page instead of my actual news site. I would also hate for someone to drive to the ups mailbox I have for the site (I am so above P.O. Boxes Mike 😉 )

That being said, I do believe that “local seo” is falling under the same “evil” spell that is currently affecting the search phrases web design, web hosting, internet marketing and advertising agency where none of them are showing local results do to a bug. It must be in the same branch of the database tree where the wrong bit is twiddled.

——It is most definitely, along with local internet marketing, internet marketing consultant, or any other keyword dealing with my current business model. It sure seems to be taking a while to fix. “Web Design” use to produce an extremely large number of authoritative oneboxes…I wonder how that played in to the bug.

Whether to choose one of Google’s synonyms or one of your own would depend on your understanding of the local situation including local search behaviors and phrasing as Stever pointed out.

——Great advice! Category testing such a huge determination of ranking…especially when you move into the longtail in my opinion. I have found some synonyms that actually have a higher amount of searches than the main category choice. It would be interesting to do further study on synonyms and their triggering local results. If you need a lab rat, let me know.

@Stever, your comments on google seeing the “s” in most cases and associating it with the singular category have proved right for a lot of listings I do. Great thought!

@Bob

Thanks for clearing that up! 🙂 Now I know what spinning is. It occurred to me that these sort of dated clues might indicate when the synonym list was developed.

@Miriam

I am glad that you liked it. I am developing a database version of that will hopefully be available in the next few weeks. I find it really helpful too in early stage conversations…

Dev

Its hard for me to tell whether the listings I saw were being dinged for excessive use of geo phrases in aggregate or had just plummeted due to a change in Google’s criteria and these listings not having anything else going for them. It raised a caution flag for me.

You are missing the category:

Category: GPS Navigation Systems & Services (Mfrs)

By the way just checked out google map forums and it says they no longer except posts????

I hope you also looked at the search category database as it is much easier to work with than this list.

Glad you like the blog.