Archive for November, 2010

Conservatively speaking, experts estimate that 30 to 40 percent (and growing) of all Google Search’s are by people looking for a local business. That is huge for businesses trying to attract qualified, credit card totting, motivated buyers to their website.

Although hard to define, let’s review what I think are the primary definitions for a local search.

Viewed together I hope this helps clarify a somewhat innocuous term. For some types of businesses all searches are local. Dry cleaners, copier dealers, home builders, plumbing, tow truck service, dentist, appliance repair and so forth. Also known as hyper-local enterprises, many businesses rely virtually 100% on attracting local traffic.

Another example is for businesses that are location-specific, but the people searching for them are located outside of the local area. Examples include vacation condo rental, cruise lines, dude ranch resorts, car rental agencies, golf courses and amusement parks.

And there are businesses wanting to attract people from inside and outside of their local area. Examples of these are financial advisors, consultants, regional hospitals, household movers, and mortgage companies.

How does Google handle local search? They are committed to bringing up the most relevant results from every inquiry. They try to interpret the local intent of the query and then deliver local search results that fit the bill. For example, if a person types “lawyer” and a city or neighborhood into a search box, he/she most likely wants to find someone locally.

Once the local intent is determined, Google will deliver local search results in a number of ways. Given the power of the “relevance” Google will provide what they determine are the best results and will display them in the local box at the top of the organic results:

Once Google thinks that the person is searching for a local business but isn’t completely sure which business is most relevant, it will show some of the local results at the top of the listings with phone numbers and links to more information at Google Maps. This “group of three” may appear in the middle of the page too.

When Google is positive that the searcher is looking for a business in a specific location, it will show a “group of 10” of the local results with phone numbers and direct links to Web sites. This generally shows up at the top of the organic results but may sometimes be found somewhere lower on the page:

Searchers may also go directly to Google Maps to search. When they do, Google Maps displays local business results and a map with pinpointed locations.

The last, but most obvious way that local search results are displayed are in the naturally ranked organic results. The businesses that are most well-optimized for a query will rank above the others here in the universal SERPs (definition). Local search results can appear in many different places and styles, but that doesn’t give you the whole picture, either.

Not all searches for local businesses take place at the search engines. For some people, offline search behavior carries over to the Web; they go directly to an Internet Yellow Pages site to look for local business information. Others have learned to use Web sites like craigslist, Insider Pages, Kudzu, and Merchant Circle to find data about local enterprises. Depending on the type of business, people may also search using a vertical, or topical directory. Researcher agree that these “secondary” search sites are no where near as popular.

In summary you will notice that local search is a combination of a number of variables. It is an attempt to handle the many ways in which a searcher may enter text and then deliver the most relevant information based on that inquiry.

The key then is to have your business positioned on Page #1 of Google, Yahoo and Bing (the predominant Search Engines). This is accomplished through Search Engine Optimization. Check out our No-obligation Questionnaire.

Is your business popping up on Google Page #1 or are you buried somewhere never to be found?