Local Search Visibility

Google estimates that 20% of all web searches are local searches — searches by people who are looking for information on products and services available in their immediate geographical area. And local searches will continue to grow along with the growth in mobile devices such as the iPhone and Android. Searches performed on these smart phones are two to three times more likely to be locally targeted than searches performed on non-mobile devices. Google helps out with this by giving mobile users the option to only browse local results when searching.

In order for your business to take advantage of this trend, you have to be sure you have a solid presence in local search results. Here are four things you can do to establish this presence:

Use location words on your web site. Put your address in the footer of every page, for example, and refer to your location in your description of what you do. Integrate location words into your title and meta tags as well.

Sign up for Google Places to get your business found on local search results on both Google Search and Google Maps. Also add your business to the Bing Local Listing Center and the Yahoo Local Directory.

Get links from the web sites of other local businesses: Links from other reputable businesses in your area are gold in the eyes of search engines. All else being equal, a web site that has more links from local and relevant websites will gain more visibility in local search results.

Look for opportunities for citations: Citations are mentions of your business name and address on other web sites, even if there is no link to your web site. Listings in Yelp or in Superpages, Yellowpages, or YellowBook are examples. Other useful possibilities are mentions in a Chamber of Commerce or other local business association web site, or a listing on a social network such as Facebook. You can use a free service such as GetListed.org to quickly show you how your business fares in local search and help you make moves to improve.