Comments on: Does local search matter?

By: Scott McAndrew

Scott McAndrew — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:33:10 +0000

Hey Will - thank you for the thoughtful response. Local is accelerating in relevance, and sometimes it's difficult to know what is really going to make the difference. The emails you sent out respectfully asking people who have worked with you to write a review was a great idea. Reviews hold a lot of weight on Google's Local Listings. Your follow-up coaching people to place reviews on an alternate site once you had a handful of Google Local reviews was also a smart move. I'm guessing that you've already discovered many of the local ranking factors, but I wanted to turn you on to an excellent individual named David Mihm who has a great site loaded with excellent insights on Google Local. I'd specifically recommend his report. It's excellent.

By: Will Daly

Will Daly — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:46:51 +0000

Up until about 30 days ago I had focused exclusively on traditional SEO for my Phoenix based high rise and loft condo real estate web site…then I discovered local search. I have built a Google Map page, garnered a number of positive recommendations/testimonials and I’m patiently waiting to see what might happen.

Scott mentions “Which business listings appear depends upon a long list of factors (suitable for a post of its own)”. To that I’d like to add; which business “types” appear warrants a post of its own as well.

Broad business types like “real estate agents in phoenix” or “phoenix realtors” generate local results in Google while more narrowly defined/long tail terms (and more relevant to my site) like “foreclosure condos for sale phoenix” or “phoenix loft short sales” do not. I would guess that this will change over time. After all, for those of us old enough to remember, printed phone books required us to use very broad search words (although we didn’t know that was what we were doing at the time) and if we looked in the “wrong place” there might be a category note directing us to the proper location within the book. But unlike the limitations necessary with printed “catalogues” or phone books, modern search technology allows almost unlimited search options and depth. It only makes sense that local search will eventually be very key word specific vs narrowly defined as it is today. We will see…..

By: Does local search matter? | Terralever Blog

Does local search matter? | Terralever Blog — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:43:28 +0000

[...] Does local search matter? was originally posted on Scott McAndrew’s blog on September 8th 2009 [...]

By: Deborah Bradley

Deborah Bradley — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:23:47 +0000

Yes local search does matter because many people do searches to find products or services with in their area.

By: parminder123

parminder123 — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:15:44 +0000

Yes according to me local search matters a lot…i am sure that many people will surely like it. Definitely it will be of great help indeed. Thanks for the post and info.

By: Cheryl C. Cigan

Cheryl C. Cigan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:35:54 +0000

Hi - Very helpful and informative post for local businesses. I just finished a book, "The Known Method" which is for local businesses with websites (local is simply a matter of geography!).

Primarily what I wanted to accomplish and was to empower local businesses with the same information, tactics and strategies used by internet marketers. The premise being of course, it doesn't matter what the object is, product, service -- or local website -- the same tactics work.

The most profound realization in writing the book was when I studied the value of internet market segments in relationship to when local listings appeared on page one for these major keywords - if not for their optimized local listings they never would have appeared. When you think of the potential traffic impact for a local business appearing on page one of a $73 million dollar market segment, the advantage and possibilities are intriguing. I've put together a free report about the value of these market segments which is available here: http://budurl.com/KnownValue

Thank you again for another local business perspective!

Cheryl C. Cigan
www.known.com

By: scottmcandrew

scottmcandrew — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:52:37 +0000

Hey John – Thanks for passing that link — much appreciated!

By: seattleseocomopany

seattleseocomopany — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:48:05 +0000

I just recently found out about how to take advantage of the Google Small Business search. I had been focusing on SEO that wasn't location specific (selling e-products directly through a website). Now that I have a local business, registering with Google was my first step!

By: John Wood

John Wood — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:41:22 +0000

Listings in Brownbook.net also perform very well, sometimes appearing immediately below Google's 10 local business results and map.

By: marketingperformance

marketingperformance — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:47:18 +0000

True! You need local search availablility. google allows you now to tie your local search in with your adwords. So your map, local listing shows up and your name / thumbtack is more visible on the map.