Local search has been around now for several years.  At first, it wasn’t taken all that seriously—the thought patterns of many people out there were something along the lines of, “I’m trying to take my business worldwide on the internet, why should I waste my time with local?”

Attitudes have changed.

Let’s get straight to the point:  Local is the future of the web and you’d be downright foolish not to join in.  Why?

• People are using local web search as a new version of their phone book (so it’s even green, replacing mounds of paper and all).
• More and more folks are getting back to a “shop local” mindset because it’s good for their communities and encourages thriving local economies.
• Local search allows your fans to leave positive feedback which helps you to stand out from the crowd in the eyes of new prospective customers.
• Mobile phones interface very nicely with local search.  For example, just use your mobile device to search for a specific business or even a broad category and a zip code or city name (i.e. pizza 33630).  This puts you just a quick click away from dialing the number.
• Besides a web address and phone number, local search provides searchers with addresses, maps, and even directions right to your front door.  It’s sticky and interactive.

It’s clear that the major search engines truly believe in local and give local search results plenty of special advantages over regular search results.

After all, when the search engines are providing value to their customers by giving them what they want (like intuitive local search), it’s a win-win for all involved.  The search engines win customer loyalty and the all-important revenue that comes along with the opportunity to display more pages and show more ads.

And for the searcher?  Well, the benefit here is really simple—they find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, right in their own communities or wherever they happen to be at the time.

Going local is easy.

Just follow a couple of simple steps to submit to each search engine and that’s about all there is to it.  Not surprisingly, the local opportunities most worth focusing on correspond exactly with the top three major search engines:

• Google Maps – Google has very effectively tied in their local presence to their well-respected Google Maps.
• Yahoo! Local – Yahoo! takes more of a “portal” approach here.
• Bing Local – Bing (formerly MSN/Live) also takes a more traditional approach with their local presence.

We can’t just take local search for granted—optimizing properly for a strong presence across the entire web is definitely important.  That said, local is proven to produce results and it’s just so easy to take advantage of.  There’s literally no barrier to entry other than an hour or two of time.  It’s so simple, you must participate.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be really digging in deep and checking out all of the benefits to going local in detail and also providing step-by-step instructions on how to make it all happen.

Here’s a toast to local!

Until Next Time…
George Chaney
President
SEO King, Inc.