Andrew Boyd has started a blog about blogging in Australia and interviewed me.

I received the latest issue of the excellent Search Marketing Standard magazine yesterday. The theme for this issue is “International Search Markets” with articles on the search industry in the UK, Italy, Germany, Russia and China.

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A month ago I noticed local business results appearing in Google Australia. I’ve been keeping a close eye on it and doing some analysis of the results to get a feel for when these results are coming up and clues to how they are ranked. It’s still unpredictable. For the same industry type the local business results appear for some locations and not others. What you see one day is often different from the next.

I saw local business results for a regional area as opposed to one postcode for the first time yesterday. The area was “Sunshine Coast” and for a variety of business types.

The first three results are clearly very advantageous for businesses. It usually means a spot right at the top of the organic listings with the added advantage of information such as the business phone number on display on the first page and more information such as reviews and images one click away.

Businesses that have detailed, consistent information in a variety of places are given prominence. Information types consist of an overview, details, reviews, photos and web pages. In all the examples I looked at, businesses that have a spread of information across these data types did the best. So businesses that have listings in several of the sources used by Google and also have photos and reviews are ranked highly.

Common reasons for not being present at all in the local business results are:

• The business details are not included in Google Maps Australia. The listings in Google Maps are currently provided by Truelocal so this generally means that the business isn’t listed in Truelocal.
• The business is in Truelocal but the business category is incorrect or the business isn’t listed in all relevant categories.
• There are inconsistencies with the business name and/or the address across multiple sources

I spoke with Truelocal today and was told that they have a data team currently cleaning up the categories and fixing errors. Individual businesses can call and get their listings updated and corrected where necessary. Businesses can also put their details into Google Maps Australia but there is a verification process and a 4 week time span to see the full details.

The first Australian Blogging Conference is being held at the QUT in Brisbane on 28 September.

I’ll be there and looking forward to meeting fellow bloggers.

The format is facilitated discussion rather than speakers and presentations which sounds good.

Click on the image to get the details.

Rand Fishkin interviews Lucas Ng who is an in-house SEO/SEM at Fairfax Digital in Sydney. I hardly ever watch blog videos as I’m far too impatient but I had to watch this one as Rand was asking him about the differences in the seo industry in Australia and the US. Also I sat next to Lucas in one of the sessions at Search Summit Sydney and he’s a nice guy : -)

Watch the video but if you’re impatient like me here are some of Lucas’s comments:

The problems with broad and expanded match in Google adwords aren’t new but I’ve seen more discussion on it recently and I’ve also come across more examples in my own campaigns which I consider to be stretching the boundaries even more.

This article was sphunn (sphinned?, submitted to sphinn?) and generated some discussion on Rose’s blog and in sphinn itself.

It primarily talks about the problems with overlapping keywords in different ad groups. Sometimes broad match keywords can result in situations where you have carefully crafted a very targeted ad for a specific product and then Google displays an ad from another ad group unexpectedly (from your perspective). It typically occurs if you have an ad group with a general keyword like watches and another ad group with narrower keywords such as mens sports watches. If someone searches for mens sports watches then, in theory, either one of the keywords can trigger an ad as they both fit the criteria for broad matching with the search query. This is what I mean by overlapping keywords. From your perspective as an advertiser you want the ad targeted to mens sports watches but it’s not always the case. If the bid for the general keyword is higher this can be the one that is picked over the more relevant one.

It gets more complicated with expanded match. Ads can be triggered when someone searches for something related to your keywords. So, Google might consider timex watches to be relevant to mens sports watches and show your ad.

The result is more traffic, which can be good, and this is how it is justified by Google adwords. The big downside is ads showing for queries that really have no relevance to you. This lowers the click through rate and generates unwanted clicks.

The fixes are:

This will deservedly get a lot of links especially as it’s in every blog writer’s interest to provide something which explains how RSS works and how to use RSS feeds.

Meg, who writes the excellent blog Dipping into the blogpond left a comment on my post about Google local search in Australia.

She talks about searching for local content but getting US results. The example she gives is “palmdale cemetery”. Instead of getting information about palmdale cemetery located in NSW, Australia, the local listings are for cemeteries in Palmdale, California.

I had a look at this particular example. I could find some online references to Palmdale Cemetery, NSW but couldn’t find a Google Maps listing or a website.

That doesn’t alter the fact that the Californian results displayed as “local business results” are not relevant for someone searching in Google Australia from an Australian location.

I guess we’ll see a few more changes to local search and a lot more discussion on it. This is a good post from Bill Slawski. It mentions some of the difficulties with contact information including what to display and when.

Just over a week ago I wrote about the rules for when Google ads are shown in the yellow box above the organic results on the left hand side. To recap, you don’t always see ads there and it depends on whether the score of the top ranked ad is high enough to qualify for a position there. The score is dependant on quality score multiplied by the actual cost of the click.

A week is a long time in the adwords world and the formula for top ad placement is about to be changed again.

What will change is instead of the actual cost per click being used to determine the score, the maximum bid will be used instead. This is supposedly to get more ads over the threshold and eligible for the yellow box slot.

So, say an advertiser bids a maximum of 50 cents for a particular keyword. Due to the way the costing system works they may only pay 30 cents for a click depending on what the advertiser in the position below pays. This will all remain the same but currently the 30 cents may not be enough to qualify for the yellow box. When the formula changes it will be the 50 cents that is taken into consideration.

So, will there be an increase in bids in a move for the top box position? I doubt it for the majority of cases. I’ve been the only bidder a few times though and in cases like that maybe it will make sense to set a higher maximum bid to be promoted to the top left. Any thoughts?

This week I searched for “mooloolaba accommodation” in Google Australia and was pretty excited to see local business results at the top of the organic results. This is the first time I’ve noticed local results in this onebox format and in this position. The Beach Club Mooloolaba are clients of mine so it’s very satisfying to see them at the number one position (I have permission from them to use this example in the post).

The implications are significant:

1. It changes the first page of results considerably. The local listings are at the top and take up quite a bit of space. 3 results are pushed onto page two whenever Google chooses to display local business results. For example, the “mooloolaba accommodation” search returns three sponsored links in the yellow box followed by 3 local business listings. That’s pretty much all the space taken above the fold. I imagine it will have an impact on PPC advertising.
2. It’s a great opportunity for smaller businesses who have found it tough to compete for a top 10 position
3. In addition to the page one presence there’s a lot of information provided for each business including contact details, descriptions, payment options, photos and reviews

Clearly, it’s now going to be very important to pay attention to local search. There’s been some discussion centred around when local business results are displayed, how to get a business listing there and how to optimise for the top 3 results that are displayed on the first page.

When do you see local business results?

If the search query contains a business type and a location, you may see local business results but not always. The narrower the geographic area the more likely Google will show results in the one box format. Mooloolaba has one post code. A search for “sunshine coast accommodation” encompassing several post codes doesn’t display local business results.

How do you get a local business listing?

There’s a link for business owners at the bottom of the local business results page. It takes you to Google Maps where you can create a listing.

Information is currently being pulled in from a variety of local directories as you can see by clicking on “more information” associated with any business listing.

The important question - how do you optimise for local search?

This post speculates on 10 likely elements of Google’s local search algorithm. Here’s a summary of the main ones:

• the business has a presence in several of the sources from where Google is pulling local search information and where the details match across all sources so that Google is more likely to trust the information (keep your local business listings up to date!)
• the web site is optimised for local terms eg a physical location and phone number on the web site (every page?)
• The number of reviews for the business included in the local listing may also play a part.

Any observations on local search examples, particularly in Australia, or any thoughts on the impact? I hunted around to see if I could find any recent mention from Australian bloggers and found this post on the Rave About It Blog.