Search Marketing Fundamentals: Local Search

Make A Statement Locally

Until recently, local businesses relied on the yellow pages to be found by their customers. Now that the yellow pages have become an antique, there is a timelier route to guiding your customers to your business – local search marketing.

Local search marketing, or local SEO, generally helps potential customers find your business’ information online. With mobile & tablet visits set to overtake the PC, optimizing your website and online presence is becoming more important every day.

How Does It Work?

Search engines always punch out a local result when a potential customer searches the internet for a product or service offered in their area. In fact, today more than 1 in every 3 searches is considered local.

Increasing the number of quality “mentions” (citations) of your business’ information will improve your local search successes. These citations are commonly referred to as NAP’s.

The NAP is made up of:

• Business Name
• Business Address
• Business Phone Number

Two of the most important factors in finding your business locally are the citation consistency and citation frequency of your NAP on the web. The only complication is that there are a bunch of different local citations vying for your customer’s attention. Therefore, it’s important for your company to make sure that it is included everywhere your customers might be searching and all mentions of your local business on the web are correct and updated.

Local Search Today

Today, local search is a crucial component of being found online. In fact, 70% of mobile searchers may call your business directly from the search page, without ever viewing your website!

Local Search Checklist

If you’d like to see firsthand where you stand with local search, the first step is visiting getlisted.org to gain an accurate view of where customers are finding you online. You may be surprised to learn how inconsistent and imprecise vital pieces of your businesses’ information is online.

Next, you’ll need to claim all of the local citations you can get your hands on.  This is often where you can start making mistakes. Things can start to get very hairy if you are unsure what these local citation companies are doing in the background to process your information. It can often take several weeks for each local citation website to approve the changes you have submitted, and they don’t always agree with your information or include all of the details you may have submitted.

The reason for this is that many of the superior sites actually verify the information that you submit against other sites in the industry. Check out the graphic to the right to see how each of the largest players are verifying your business data:

You can see that Google reigns supreme, but there are a lot of other players in the local search market.

While claiming citations, you should also concentrate on finding sites which are discussing businesses like yours and what consumers opinions are about your offerings. This will help you to begin a conversation with your customers. Organizations like local dinner clubs, car clubs, and meet-up groups  with websites are great places to start.

Become A Part Of The Conversation

Local search gives you a chance to communicate with your customers. This is a good thing! Many websites in the local search space also come with an option to check in and write a review on your business after visiting. Some companies might look at this as somewhat of a headache, but it’s really an opportunity for you to engage with customers. What do your customers love? What are they not so pleased about? Don’t forget to handle negative reviews with care, and thank your biggest advocates.

The more reviews the better, and you can encourage your in-store customers to review your business online after they leave as well.

Should You Use Call Tracking?

The last task you can mark off your checklist involves measuring the value of calls and “mentions”. This requires some form of lead tracking, and many companies start with call tracking.

Using a call tracking number is a great idea both for training your sales team and identifying qualified leads. What you need to remember in local search is to keep your NAP consistent across the web. If you use a call tracking phone number, it should match the number on your website.

Part of what we do at Upward Brand Interactions is build lasting value for your business. We pride ourselves on building strategies that add value to your business long after our work with you is complete. Yext and UBL are “enhanced” (read paid) listing services. As a short-term solution, they may be able to provide the visibility that you need, but their long-term effects won’t last.

You will gain more benefit from handling local search patiently and deliberately. If you feel you would benefit from Local SEO, give one of our search representatives a call, or send us a message.