Today we’re going to talk about how to perform a local search and know if you’re getting accurate results. Many of you have done a Google search and try to see where your company comes up in a local ranking. For the term roofing company or whichever key phrases, you think may apply to a search that would generate your page. One of the things you may not know or understand, but should, is that based on your IP address is, where you’re physically at, and doing your search, has something to do with what Google is going to show you. Also if you’ve ever been to a specific website before, it’s going to keep that in your cache. Obviously, most of you have been to your own websites from that exact IP address. So it’s going to skew how things populate in that search. Now the other thing is you may be searching for a company in a zip code that you’re not actually in right now, so if you didn’t know this, if you’re searching for a zip code that’s 10 miles away and you’re wanting to see how you rank for keywords in that zip code.
So in other words, if you’re Indianapolis, Indiana, and you’re trying to see how you rank for a Carmel, Indiana, you are going to get different results than if you’re actually in Carmel doing that same search. It can be encouraging sometimes because it may show you something better than you think it was going to or better than what it actually is. It can also be discouraging because you may rank very well for that keyword if you’re coming from an IP address in that city, versus wherever you’re at. Just understand that where you’re physically at is going to determine how Google’s going to show you the information that you’re wanting. A lot of times it can be confusing when we’re trying to figure out if you’re ranked at number two, but then when you go out there, look at it, you’re not ranked there while it’s going to depend on where they were at, when they looked it up and where you’re at when you’re just trying to look it up.
Think about these things as you’re trying to a dial-in how you’re ranked and where you’re at. There are some tools out there that will get you exact information on that as well. You want to be able to get some local search ranking tools that will help you to tell you where you’re actually ranking by zip code.
Think about this. Take it. Use it. Good luck out there.
