Local Search- Getting Found Online By People In Your Community

Every day more and more people are putting away that big yellow phonebook and turning to local internet searches to find goods or services in their own home town.    According to a recent article published on entireweb.com research has shown that somewhere in neighborhood of 70% of households do some kinds of search for a local product or service on a daily basis.

So What is a Local Search?

When you search Google or Yahoo for a product or service with location words in your keywords you will see the search engines display a map at the top of the search results with up to 10 "Local" search results.  When you search for anything using a location in your keywords you will find Google will display a map at the top with links to 10 local results, then the usual organic results will be displayed.  Below is an example of a local search on Google for "Janesville Wisconsin Webdesign".  The first ten listings are local Janesville Web Design companies followed by natural listings (Notice Foremost Media is right at the top):

Helping to drive the local search market Google recently made some changes to the way it's it displays search results so that when you search for anything Google will display local results fourth in the list of search results. To do this Google looks at your IP address and detects were you are located.  The hopes are that this will give you more relevant search results and help you find a local business.   Below is a generic Google Search for "website design"  (Note- Your results may look a little different depending on where you are at in the world)

So how can local search effect your business?

Statistically web surfers will only view the first few pages of a search results returned on a search engine and with search engines like Google starting to display local search results at the top of the search results list combine with peoples tendency to prefer to do business with a local company this ads up to a great opportunity for local businesses.

If you business is not found on the local search results then you may be missing out on valuable sales.

Listing Your Business In The Local Search Results

Most of the search engines have a FREE way to submit your site into their local results.  Typically the process involves setting up a account with the search engine and submitting your contact information as well as a description of your business.  Google will actually follow up your submission with a automated phone call to your business to verify you really are a local business.   You can get started with Google Local Here.  The process only takes a few minutes and the pay back can be great.    If you need help with local search engine marketing contact Foremost Media today.