Google Local Business Center - The Importance of Local Search
01-October-2008, 05:15:18 PM
Google's Local Business Center (https://www.google.com/local/add/), allows businesses to get online exposure and is tied into Google's mapping system. The service is free, and the only requirement is that you have a real physical address to list. After adding your business info, Google will send a postcard to the physical address you've listed as a way of verifying ownership. Once you've entered the verification code shown on the postcard, your listing will be activated.
As mentioned, this service is tied to Google Maps. Whenever users enter search queries inside of Google Maps that are relevant to your business, they will see a pinpoint on the map which will correspond to your business location. By clicking on your listing they can get more detailed information such as your address, store hours, and website address. Now I tend to think that most present day users are probably using Google Maps to help find their way to a specific address that they are already searching for. I don't think that Google Maps is used by the majority of people for general search queries such as "SEO services in Austin". For that, most people still use the standard Google Web search tool. So then...you may be thinking that this Local Business Center listing isn't so valuable for natural search. If so, you'd be very wrong. Here's why...
Local Business Center Listings are Integrated into the Search Results for Google Web Search
That's right...by entering your business info into the Local Business center, you increase your chances of being listed for natural search entries on Google's standard web search engine. When Google detects that a user is looking for a geographical based search, it will pull from the Local Business info and provide a type of mini version of the Google Maps listing. The picture below shows a sample search listing for "pizza Austin". The results would be the same for "Austin pizza"...I just tend to qualify searches with geographical info at the end of my search string.
Now as you can see, the very first thing listed were the local business listings and a mini map. Google detected that we didn't just want general information about pizza; we wanted to find local pizza shops. Whatever city we enter as our qualifier, Google will present listings from that specific area. We can also get much more focused by providing a qualifier such as a zip code. With a zip code, the listings will be honed down further.
Google will Suggest Local Search Results even without a Geographical Qualifier
This is really interesting. For certain search phrases, Google has determined that it is likely that the user is seeking local info. As a result, it will suggest that the user perform a local search even when they did not initially qualify their search with any geographic boundaries.
In the example below, I entered a very simple search query for "pizza". Encircled below you can see how Google then suggested a local search query before even listing the natural search results. Now if I were to utilize this local search box by entering my zip code, I would get a local listing similar to the one we showed earlier.
Google is not the only one providing these types of local business listings. Yahoo and MS Live have similar services which should also be utilized by your business. Also, for the purpose of this example we did not talk about Google's personalized results which I will discuss in an upcoming blog post.
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