Local Search

What Is Local Search Optimization and Why You Should Care

This page is exclusively for local business owners. You know who you are…the attorneys, dentists, chiropractors, landscaping contractors, plumbers, etc. out there looking to get more customers in your local area.

You may have heard about Google Places/Google+ Local and Local Search Optimization…

…It’s basically all about making your company more visible on Google as well as those other local sites where your prospects are looking for you.

It’s a big deal for local businesses for a few reasons.

First, look at this screen shot from Google (you can click to enlarge it).

The local search results are the areas in red boxes. Notice how they dominate the page?

Equally as important is that these local results are prominently featured on mobile phones too. Around 50{a950ddf0e7a23367a7e0f17377d3737fa8b8b1820bab9af7071f88951eb5d84e} of local searches these days occur on smart phones.

And that’s not surprising. You can’t go out in public without seeing people’s attention fixated on that little smart phone in their hand. There’s a good chance some of them are looking for your business!

Ultimately, the importance of Local Search Optimization comes down to this…

…89{a950ddf0e7a23367a7e0f17377d3737fa8b8b1820bab9af7071f88951eb5d84e} of people making in-store purchases have conducted research online.

If you want local prospects to find you, getting high rankings in the local search results is critical to success.

How to Rank Highly in the Local Search Results

Getting high rankings in the local search results isn’t rocket science. While there are a number of factors that go into where you rank, here are the biggies…

1. Claiming and optimizing your business’ page on Google+ Local, Yahoo! Local, Bing Business Portal and other key local search sites (by the way, this is free to do).

2. Getting citations…a lot of citations. A citation is a mention of your business’ name, address and phone number, EXACTLY as they appear on Google+ Local, on all the websites your business is listed on around the web.

Think of them as a vote for your business. The more votes you have, the more authority Google assigns to your business, and the higher you could rank in the local search results. Building citations, the right way, is a long, tedious process. But it’s key to getting high local search rankings.

3. Getting customers to leave reviews for your business on local review sites like Google+ Local, Yelp, CitySearch and others.

Those are the big 3 and if you do those well (and you could certainly do them on your own), depending on your market/location, that may be enough to get you showing up on the first page in your local area.

If you’re in any sort of competitive niche, however, you may need some help.

That’s where we come in.

Our Local SEO Optimization team spends their days in Google+ Local and the other local search sites.

We stay on the cutting edge and know all the little secrets of how to build citations and optimize your business’ page on Google that make a big difference in the end results.

And we don’t take shortcuts.

Many firms that do local search optimization will use automated services to create citations for your business. Those services are time savers but often take months to fully distribute your data around the web. Plus, they fail to account for extra bonuses (like adding coupons, videos, etc.) and other optimizations you can add to these local search sites to give your citations extra firepower.

So we don’t use these automated tools and even our basic plan includes the manual creation of over 300 citations for your business to key sites around the web to give your business the best chance of Local Search success.

We offer 3 levels of local SEO optimization, based on your budget, your business and the level of competition you’re going up against.

If you’d like to see our local search packages (which include some offerings few, if any, other companies doing local search optimization can offer), visit our Local SEO package page.

Or, if you have questions, send us an email at [email protected] or give us a call at 314-329-1422.