Post edited 11:37 pm – October 26, 2009 by fishmarketing

Lately I have noticed that local businesses have been creeping into organic results – even for broad terms. I am not talking about the map pack, I am talking about the results below. I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this and had any insight on what SEO factors could be getting a local site into those organic results?

Example, I am searching from Inner-East Portland for "Pizza". I see big pizza chains, then the map pack. A couple obvious suspects like Wikipedia and Pizza.com, but then it gets real interesting.

Pizza Schmizza (Local Chain)

Mississippi Pizza Pub (Local One Store)

Most interesting, how could Mississippi get there? They are in the map pack too, but not #1. They have less reviews than anyone in the pack. They don't have any apparent SEO on their site besides a plainly posted address. Yet, they are on the home page and even beat out Papa Murphy's. I'm sure their pizza is awesome, but googlebot doesn't have a sense of taste…yet.

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