Need Walk-ins? Optimize for Local Search

Most businesses that are not stuck in the Internet dark ages of Yahoo search and MySpace understand the importance of optimizing their website for mobile devices – small images, responsive design, limit JavaScript, intuitive navigation and a simple layout. But do these same businesses comprehend the importance of optimizing their local search rank? After all, 30-40% of all searches include local search intent.

With the exploding growth of smartphones and the limited competition inherent in address-based search algorithms, companies that are willing to invest a small amount of time and effort into optimizing local search, should easily be able to capitalize on increased foot traffic and local brand recognition. Then when we consider the effect local search rank has on global search results, it makes local search optimization a virtual no-brainer for any brick and mortar store, restaurant, or service provider.

Now that most major search engines integrate local search results into their standard search results pages, more often than not, a #1 local listing is just as valuable as a #1 organic listing. Not to mention far cheaper and easier to attain. Think of the sales opportunities – consumer searches for item on smartphone, your local search page pops up at the top of the search results, user either visits you in person or clicks through to your website and places an order online.

Where to Start with Local Search Optimization

So how does one go about wrangling the top listing on a local search? Here are some quick tips to get you going:

1. Location. Location. Location. Your physical address must be in the city of search. For new or migrating businesses, when you are trying to pick an address for your store, be sure to get an address in or close to a big city. Bigger cities have far more searches, and an exact match city address carries more weight than a proximity match address. Don’t get me wrong, proximity is good, but exact match is better. You also have the option of getting a virtual address through a virtual post office, but that will require a monthly fee and can complicate business listings.
2. Quality and quantity of citations. What is a citation? It is a structured review or listing of your business on websites like Yelp, Judy’s Book, Localeze, Merchant Circle, and Foursquare. There are over a dozen high quality sources for citations, another 2 dozen medium quality sources, and at least 50-100 lower quality sources. Spend most of your time focusing on the bigger, authority resources, building a robust profile, adding specific business information to your profile, and uploading photos and videos. Some of these sites like Localeze only offer a basic business listing, while others like Merchant Circle allow you to manage a highly interactive business profile with blog posts, consumer reviews, and much more. Sometimes these sites can be leveraged for additional sales leads by consistently maintaining them over time.
3. Proper classification. If you own a bakery, sell real estate, or offer any other specific product or service, your business should be listed under those exact categories. Just be sure not to stuff your keywords in the content of your business listing. Search engines detest keyword stuffing. Classification of your business should remain consistent across all of your online business listings and citations.
4. Authority of your business website. The higher trust your actual domain has with the search engines, the more favoritism you will get for your local search placement. High trust comes with age, optimization, and high trust links leading BACK to your domain (backlinks). So go get cranking on the link building campaign you’ve been putting off. It is also best to have your city and state in the website title tag, and the keywords you use for classification should appear on the site, if not in the title tag. Be sure to list your business name and address in hCard format somewhere on your site, perhaps the footer or contact page.
5. Reviews. Specifically positive customer reviews on your search engine business listing page. As I just mentioned, all citations are important, but citations posted on Google+ Local profiles, Bing Local pages, and Yahoo local pages, have more authority within their respective search engines. It is always good practice to encourage customers to place online reviews after a successful transaction. Don’t panic about negative reviews either. Those are perfect opportunities to engage dissatisfied customers and make things right – for the entire world to see!
6. Physical verification. Some citations require or encourage you to manually verify your business. Typically this is done by either phone or snail mail. Google will send a postcard to your listing address, for which you will have to verify receipt by entered a code online. Always opt to verify your business whenever possible.
7. Business page backlinks. Think about the quality and quantity of backlinks to your business listing. Backlinks to your main domain are more important, but backlinks to your business listings can help as well. Focus more on building links back to your search engine business listings than to the 3rd party citations that you will build. It is also helpful to get those city, state, and classification keywords as anchors for the inbound backlinks.
8. The small things. Now we are getting into the minutia of local search optimization. Some additional ideas include: geo-tagging media related to your website on content sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr, as well as social bookmarking of your business listing such as Facebook Likes, Google+, thumbs up on StumbleUpon, Tweets, and Foursquare check-ins.

That should be enough information to get you started.

Go now and create your listings on Google Places, Bing Business Portal, and Yahoo Local. Be sure your website is optimized for local search and mobile devices, implements proper calls to action, and is designed with a user experience that can capture and retain those highly targeted sales leads.

Go forth and prosper in this new world, where everyone is online, all the time.