10 Ways to Optimize Your Internet Presence for Local Search Queries

eMarketing & Commerce (eM+C) Magazine
John Faris

Former U.S. Congressman Tip O’Neill famously coined the phrase, “All politics is local.” In much the same way, retail and service companies are quickly coming to realize that all marketing is local. With the recent rise — and soon to be explosion — in GPS/mapping-enabled smartphones and drastic changes in the way Google searches trigger local results, local search is rapidly becoming a critical marketing channel.

The concept is more evolutionary than revolutionary; most marketers are savvy enough to already claim their listings in Google Places. However, that’s only the first step in a comprehensive strategy, since the majority of location-specific searches don’t take place on Google. Many consumers use other outlets such as online yellow pages, local directories and city guides like Citysearch or Yelp, as well as search engines, including Yahoo and Bing, to conduct searches for local businesses. Even if Google were to start dominating local search like it dominates general search queries, its results are heavily influenced by these other local sources.

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