Optimize for the NEW Local Centroid - The User! Miriam Ellis @ Moz

[Linda Buquet]

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Many business owners and even local search consultants think the centroid is still the center of town. That changed a couple years ago and those in the know realized that the centroid varied and was the center of the cluster of business for that industry in that city.

See this 2013 post where I share the newer centroid theory discovered by Mike Blumenthal.

Fast forward to today - post Pigeon. A lot has changed and now the searcher is really the centroid and neighborhood search is more important than before.

Miriam Ellis wrote a VERY detailed post over at Moz this week. Wanted to be sure you saw it.

<a href="http://moz.com/blog/mastering-serving-the-user-as-centroid">Local Centroids are Now Individual Users:
How Can We Optimize for Their Searches?</a>​

Head over to read it - some really great points!

Miriam quotes David Mihm who said:

"Google is getting better at detecting location at a more granular level—even on the desktop. The user is the new centroid." ​

Chad Russel cherry picked some of the best points & posted over at the Local Search Pros Community.

Chad said:

In particular, I cherry picked these points because I know that I don't do enough of them:

1. Label images with hyperlocal terms and share them.

2. Blog about the local things you do often, not just the big events.

3. When it comes to Review Management, make sure your profile has a business description with hyperlocal terms and areas.

So head over to read Miriam's post and the Pro's comments.

What do you think? Pick up any good tips?
Anything to add???
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[Eric Rohrback]

This has especially been important as mobile search has been on the rise. I wonder if it's a combination of both mobile device targeting and Mike's industry cluster idea. I would recommend taking a look at the patents that Google puts out like Bill Slawski does. Gives you some great insight and some factual ground to base some of these ideas off of. More technical reading, but very interesting stuff