Local Search: Getting More Exposure for Your Business
You've got your website, your business cards, your listing in
the Yellow Pages, your SEO, but what are you doing for Local
Search optimization?
Local and Mobile Local Search evolved because they were market
driven. It's how most people search these days. Now you can
narrow your online search by location - specific city, zip code,
country - whether or not you intend to get in the car and go
there.
Local Search is the modern equivalent to the Yellow Pages. I
don't know about you, but I haven't picked up the Yellow Pages
in 5 years. For a while I stored them in my office to gather
dust. Last year's one I threw in the trash immediately. I'm a
computer person.
70% of consumers search for local services and products ONLINE.
Over 25% of all searches on the engines are looking for local
results.
In doing research for this article, I read what others had to
say. One article said that people looked online for information
"even if they intend[ed] to spend money locally." Excuse me,
EVEN IF? It doesn't matter to me WHERE I intend to buy, I look
online ALWAYS.
Now this search method is available on mobile phones.
I consult in offices and I see what the executives and lawyers
go through with their hectic schedules, trying to find out where
they're supposed to be literally on the way out the door, with
the phone ringing.
A good secretary has a packet prepared (what a luxury) but most
of the time the boss is yelling on the way out the door, "Which
court? Where is it" or "Where's her office? Get me a map!"
Lawyers are big spenders. They also spend more time in a car
than you might think. Courts are located where they're located,
and sometimes it's easier to drive a couple of hours than hassle
a plane trip. Many use that time to get on the phone, and also
to get back to their personal lives. I think some opt for
driving because of the possibility of peace and quiet. The only
time I talk on the phone with a friend of mine who's a busy
attorney is when she's driving to "the Valley" (3 hours) for a
deposition. Texas has long stretches of open highway.
And what else do we do in the car? We muse. We get back to our
personal lives. I drive monthly several hours to Dallas to see
my grandkids. It's me, the long drive, the radio and the cell
phone. I do a lot of thinking, including books I meant to buy,
the need for a decent audio-book for these tiring trips, a sweet
remembrance for my honey, and that great Arbonne anti-aging
cream I heard about.
I buy everything but groceries on line. I have a packed schedule
and keep a tight calendar. Probably like you, I'm highly
organized, but also highly-busy, so I deal with things on a
now-needed basis. I don't even keep a Rolodex any more, or
addresses and phone numbers in a daytimer. I grab the address
and phone number online, if I need it, and then get a map.
So someone connected the dots, and you can now get local (or
beyond) results on your cell phone with services such as Google's Local
Mobile Search, available in most US cities. If your mobile
or device supports XHTML (WAP 2.0), you're equipped.
Let's say you're driving along, as I was the other day, finding
myself in Austin (60 miles from home) and remembering that the
next time I was in Austin, I wanted to pick up some Wagyu (Kobe)
beef. But what the heck was the name of that store? I'm 2
seconds away from the information with a cell phone at hand. I
pull off the road and enter "Kobe" and "Austin" and there it is!
The Meat Shop on Peyton Gin Road. Where the heck is Peyton Gin
Road? I don't live in this town. That's a click away too.
(Please pull off the road to do this, folks!)
HERE'S HOW YOU DO IT ON YOUR CELL PHONE:
1. Type in http://mobile.google.com/local
2. In the "what"
box enter the query and in the "where" box enter the
location
3. Select and hit the "Google Search" button
4.
Scroll through the results
5. Find the location, driving
directions, "click to call" if you need it.
Or go to the Google home
page on the phone's web browse.
SO CAN I FIND YOUR BUSINESS THERE?
Check to see how you're doing on the search engines:
Google: http://www.local.google.com
Yahoo and Overture:
http://maps.yahoo.com
Mapquest: http://www.mapquest.com
Verizon: http://www.superpages.com
You don't want to miss this venue for your business. How do you
optimize your website for "local"?
1. Do your keyword research. Get a free keyword research guide
here: http://www.wordtracker.com/keyword-research-guide.html
2. Check out Overture Keyword Selector Tool,
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/?mkt=us and
Wordtracker, http://www.wordtracker.com
3. List physical address of your business on your web page,
near the top
Today's Popular Articles
4. Include city and state in your meta and title tags, i.e., <
meta name="title" content="Coaching San Antonio"
5. Add location information in site content - body text and
links
6. Get a GeoURL tag free: http://geourl.com m including
longitude and latitude. Here's what mine looks like:
7. Add geosensitive metatags, i.e., meta name="zipcode"
content= "78232, 78234"; meta name="city" content="San Antonio,
Austin, New Braunfels", on for state, county, country.
8. Submit events:
http://www.aboutcitysearch.com/submit_event.html
Use this strategy in your marketing. In fact, if you're the kind
of person who likes to make money from a business, you can
follow the bread-crumb trail backward.
If you sell clothes, when do people buy new clothes? When you've
lost weight, had a baby, or are having an affair.
What do you do when you have a life crisis, like a heart attack?
You realize you need to change your lifestyle. You need help and
you're willing to pay for it. You also need a LOCAL professional.
In addition to Internet marketing consulting, I'm an EQ coach. I
sell products and services related to changing emotional
lifestyle, i.e., emotional intelligence. One time when people
realize they need to change their emotional lifestyle is after a
heart attack. The good cardiologist will tell them it's
correlated with Type A personalities, i.e., hostility, chronic
anger, poor anger management.
Checking wordtracker I find that most people google
"cardiologist" but around 85% use a string including the name of
the city where they live, i.e., "cardiologist San Antonio."
Something else I found. I sell emotional intelligence (EQ)
assessment tools. (You need to know where you are to get where
you want to be.) Now in the field of psychology, it's extremely
important that these are "assessment" not "tests" so I carefully
did my metatags with "assessments."
Not! People who are looking for this instrument call it
"emotional intelligence test." I changed my keywords and traffic
and sales went up.
When you're doing your market plan, don't forget to optimize
your business for local search.
About the author:
©Susan Dunn, Internet marketing consultant,
http://www.webstrategies.cc , mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc .
Consulting, services and products to make your business a
success. Susan is the author of "Marketing
with EQ" and other ebooks for your personal and professional
success. Need to find out about an employee? TheCloser can help.
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