Local Search is an emerging realm of online marketing. As people become more and more internet savvy, they are turning to the web for just about everything instead of looking through the Yellow Pages, it is so much more easier to simply run a Google Search. This is why it is incredibly important to have your business listed in the local search if you want to enhance your business visibility!
Talking about optimizing for local search, there are various factors that you need to consider like:
Size of the area as defined by the keyword search or Size of the map being viewed.
Listing on Google Business Center.
Google's definition of the region's center, either by keyword or map parameters like zoom level.
Local Search is not restricted to how search engined define the results. Rather, it also takes into account how the users and customers define them. For example, a business may be listed close to you but separated by a geographical barrier like a river or perhaps the national boundary that may limit the relevancy of the same to you. Likewise, a business may be miles away from you but it would be relevant to you if it is the nearest retailer that caters exactly to your requirements.
Here are some tips to inform Google and other mapping search engines about located:
List your address with the major data providers.
Claim your listing at the local business center.
Include reviews either at Google
List your business in the proper categories once it's been claimed.
Apart from these, here are some other things that you should do:
Have Local People to Link to your Content
If you have a local business, chances are that you would have content that suits the interests of the local population as well. This might be a good reason to ask bloggers and other users to talk about it and link to your content. This would in turn increase the relevancy of your business for that particular location and earn you brownie points in the Local Search.
Remember Local SEO is as tough as SEO
Some people think that local SEO is cheaper than SEO on a broader scale just because the audience base is smaller in the first case. Local SEO is still SEO and it requires the same amount of work when it comes to optimizing it.
But they are Different
Even though both Local SEO and SEO require the same level of effort and dedication, optimizing your website for regular search does not cover for local search. Even if your website ranks well organically, it may appear further down the page only simply because Google's use of Universal search. With this, the local results for the query often appear near the top of the listings.
In fact, the new redesign of search results pages that Google has been testing could have important impacts on local search. In the new design only 5 results appear as opposed to the seven that Google currently shows.
