53 replies to this topic

[sg1]

Can anyone point me to blogs or online resources that have chalk full of information on localized search strategies?

I think the potential for local search is big but it does seem to be taking a while for the mainstream to use tools that aid this.

[bragadocchio]

Greg Sterling writes a lot about local search on his blog:

http://gesterling.wordpress.com/

[sg1]

I found this one as well;
http://www.smallbusi...t/local-search/

Also, if there any good online case studies that SEO professionals have done on localized search strategies for clients, I'd be interested in reading up on that stuff too.

[bragadocchio]

Good one.

Matt mentions a couple more in his post 61 Things I’m Reading Now

http://localonliner.com/

http://verticalsearch.net/

[send2paul]

You may try Local Alerts - it's a beta local search engine. I've not tried it myself, (up until a second ago!), and it could prove useful depending on what it is you're looking for.

I've used the power of local search on optimising some of my websites. Using the local search term results that initially found my pages, and then optimising the pages, (if necessary), to make sure that those local searches always keep coming.

I have a few listings for one of my websites in the local search for Google.ca. The website is a directory type website which gives local info for the region in which my website is showing up for local search terms - outstripping the local websites in that region.

More power to local searches - that's what I say!

Paul

[sg1]

More power to local searches - that's what I say! smile.gif

Paul

I completely agree. Unfortunately, I don't think local search has gained enough momentum among the masses yet. I think the Google Coupons idea is kinda cool but it won't take off until the masses realize the full value of local search. As of right now, alot of people are still relying on the phone book. We gotta ban the phone book and force them over to the internet

Edited by sg1, 03 September 2006 - 05:07 PM.

[send2paul]

.... and d'you know what?

The White/Yellow pages are absolutley hopeless from an SEO point of view, but if you are building local directory websites, they are an excellent source of local info - which you can then optimise yourself in your own directory..... I do!

Paul

Edited by send2paul, 03 September 2006 - 05:16 PM.

[ukdaz]

My clients (from my SEO work) have generated business not only locally but also regionally, nationally and a few on a global basis - aren't people forgetting its the WORLD wide web for a reason?

Why restrict your markets to just local search when there is a whole world of potential new business out there?

From my own testing, local search is ok but it does not yet yield the results as successfully as a website that is optimized and promoted to a larger audience.

Daz

[sg1]

Bill-

Found this very insightful article on localized marketing strategies and how Word of mouth is impacting small businesses. Rarely, am I able to find great insight like this, but this one is a keeper. It was mentioned on Guy Kawasaki's blog today. Here is the article

Edited by sg1, 05 September 2006 - 08:00 PM.

[bragadocchio]

The SF Gate article is terrific. Thanks.

I saw and bookmarked Guy's post earlier today Online Reviews and Small Businesses, but hadn't gotten back to it, to read it. I'm glad that I read the news article first.

Greg Sterling also had a post today about reviews, which I also bookmarked - The Power and Importance of User Reviews, which is about a New York Times article on user reviews. It focuses more on reviews themselves, but is interesting.

Why restrict your markets to just local search when there is a whole world of potential new business out there?

That may depend upon the objectives for the site, the types of services or goods offered, the logistics involved in growth, and other factors. For instance, a law site might want to focus upon potential local clients within its jurisdiction, and have a secondary objective on a regional or national (or even global) scale. The primary focus may be their preferred audience.

[sg1]

I saw and bookmarked Guy's post earlier today Online Reviews and Small Businesses, but hadn't gotten back to it, to read it. I'm glad that I read the news article first.

Well- what really surprised me was how many customers some of these local businesses were getting from review sites like Yelp and such. Until now, I've never even heard of Yelp.

3 things I've learned is;

• go get my clients to do an endorsement of me on said sites. Duh
• take more advantage of local search sites and use it as a positioning strategy when local search starts to take off more
• and I'm sure there is more, but I can't think of it at the moment because I'm still thining up more possibilities

Edited by sg1, 05 September 2006 - 11:10 PM.

[sg1]

Why restrict your markets to just local search when there is a whole world of potential new business out there?

From my own testing, local search is ok but it does not yet yield the results as successfully as a website that is optimized and promoted to a larger audience.

Well, it depends on how you look at it. I'm not a full time SEO professional. Most of my work is web design. I haven't yet put in the logistical structure to start picking up SEO clients just yet.

Now having said this, I read this interesting article on the concierge business and how it is booming right now; there are more and more people launching their own concierge business. Because this is a localized business, search strategies can greatly benefit these people because it is still in its infant stage right now and there isn't much SEO competition compared to other localized businesses, ie; realtors, financial advisors, etc...

So even a person like me who does web design could probably take on clients like these and do SEO work because it's not as hard as other vertical markets are to do SEO. So in the process, I add more value to my clients than just the web designer next door who only knows web design, if even. And simultaneously, I get experience with learning how to do SEO clients and build up a portfolio with that service.

[earlpearl]

Glad to see the question, SQ, and happy to see those comments. I need to review those.

I do all my work on local seo and haven't found one great resource yet.

Various forums that cover local seo include SEW, Webmasterworld, and SEORefugee. The forum at smallbusinessbrief.com also covers local issues.

None of them do it thoroughly or consistently but if you keep scanning them you will find some excellent help.

One area that really helped me include Bill's patent comments on local seo issues. A great idea can also be found here

Dave

[marianne]

As my patent investigating co-conspirator bragadocchio will affirm, local search is definitely on the radar major search engines. On July 6 of this year, one of the big three filed a patent for <a href="http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/
nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html
&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=authoritative.TTL.&s2=document.TTL.&OS=TTL/
authoritative+AND+TTL/document&RS=TTL/authoritative+AND+TTL/document">Authorative Document Identification</a> that enhances local search through the assigment and identification of "tokens" [i.e. address, zip code, area code, etc] based on local values.

I'm also newly devoted full-time to SEO and make it a practice to include some local placement in all of my bids.
marianne

Edited by marianne, 06 September 2006 - 12:01 PM.

[bragadocchio]

That was some day for Google, Marianne.

They actually came out with seven patent applications specifically about local search, which were published on July 6th, 2006:

• Generating and/or serving local area advertisements, such as advertisements for devices with call functionality (20060149624)
  
• Authoritative document identification (20060149800)
  
• Document segmentation based on visual gaps (20060149775)
  
• Indexing documents according to geographical relevance (20060149774)
  
• Classification of ambiguous geographic references (20060149742)
  
• Location extraction (20060149734)
  
• Local item extraction (20060149565)

I wrote some more about those here:

http://blog.searchen...g/060711-205551


Some additional patents and patent applications from Google on local search and geographic information in searches:

Methods and systems for endorsing local search results (20060004713)

Visually-oriented driving directions in digital mapping system (20050288859)

Method and apparatus for customizing travel directions (20060064241)

Digital mapping system (20050270311)

Methods and systems for improving a search ranking using location awareness (20050065916)

Search query categorization for business listings search (20040260677)

Address geocoding (6,934,634)

System for automatically integrating a digital map system (20050119824)

Assigning geographic location identifiers to web pages (20050182770)

[earlpearl]

SQ:

I know you mentioned webmasterworld in a different thread. Most of the time I'm there I'm looking at their commentary on local seo.

But it typically doesn't get me what I'm looking for, which are better ways to expand my web visibility for local seo.

What has worked best for me has been reviewing the literature on patents (Typically our friend, Bill).

Then test the patent language and terms and see if it is in practice. Has the SE implemented the aspects of that patent.

In some cases I've tested it on my own. In some cases I tested it a bit with Bill and/or others.

In some cases I've found that it works extraordinarily well. In some cases its not applicable to some local seo I do...but is for others.

By example, Google's LOCAL/Maps variation doesn't help much w/my main business but it works better for some sites that are more local than regional. That's just my read and experience on it. Other's may differ.

On the other hand a little over a year ago Bill published about G's implementation of Local address stuff for a local website.

Man that had a huge impact on local bus web sites...and they had implemented it months before they ever published about it...but its impact was a mystery to me (and at least some others) till Bill wrote about it.

Subsequently I tested it in a variety of ways. Wow, I found a killer application. Think I posted on it at seorefugee. It's sort of a sandbox buster. But really, I've tried to find others to test these things and get a bigger wider perspective on them...to see how applicable they work.

Anyways if you find the killer source of great information....let me (and others) know ;-)

[pleeker]

Hey guys - thanks for mentioning and linking to SBS. Very kind of you.

Unfortunately, I don't think local search has gained enough momentum among the masses yet. I think the Google Coupons idea is kinda cool but it won't take off until the masses realize the full value of local search. As of right now, alot of people are still relying on the phone book.

Good points, sg1 - numbers show that yellow pages usage is slowly diminishing, and I think that's going to continue. Much like newspapers, I don't think print yellow pages will ever disappear, but the web will continue to take more market share away over time.

I'm not sure the Google Coupon thing will amount to anything. Coupon usage is way down across the board compared to, say, 10 years ago. We're not a coupon-clipping society like our parents were.

I do think what Yahoo is doing will go a lot further toward pushing local search more mainstream -- integrating their maps system into Flickr, into Upcoming.org, etc. can only increase awareness. And Yahoo still offers better tools for users, and better advertising opportunities for businesses, than either Google or MSN.

Sites like Yelp and Merchant Circle and others also offer some intriguing opportunities, though I can't help but wonder if they'll eventually be bought out....

[JoeP]

Three of the many local search oriented blogs I read for general information and decent links.

http://andyvogel.com/blog1/

http://sierrawebmark...s.blogspot.com/

http://localonliner.com/

[Mary Bowling]

Insidious personalization of the SERPS, including localization, is taking place right now in ways that most people are not even aware of and Local Search Results are already being integrated somewhat into the regular SERPS. This is going to continue and progress, as evidenced by the Google Local Patent applications. The SE's want it to happen because it is often relevant - they just need to figure out how to tell when it is relevant and what results they should return.

For many industries, such as hotels, appearing for relevant geo-specific searches has always been critical and, in those niches, SEM's have become very good at optimizing for them. However, in Local Search, it is not your well-optimized website that is displayed to searchers. Instead, they see a business profile with factual information about you. Depending upon the platform, this may be simply your name, address and phone number or it may contain more details, like a map, the credit cards you take, the brands you carry, reviews of your services, etc.

You must be aware of all of those profiles out there about your business and try to keep the information accurate and up-to-date. Standardizing the information also has SEO benefits in some platforms, where an algorithm enters into the equation, like Google Maps (aka Google Local).

Local Search is incredibly amorphous - perhaps more so than the internet in general - and we're all going to have to figure it out as we go along. But for now, make sure you are optimizing your website for geographical terms and managing your online profiles.

Local Search is often a topic on the Blizzard Internet Marketing Newsletter blog at http://newsletter.bl...y/local-search/

[Black_Knight]

I tend to think that one of those areas where Yahoo is ahead of Google is in local search. Now, Yahoo haven't gotten at all to the same point here in the UK yet (typical of US biased search engines), but in the US, http://local.yahoo.com/ is looking quite good already, and it is still an early stage.

In fact I think Google may even be trailing Ask a bit in local search, despite Google earth, simply because Google's focus has always been so global that it requires a far more serious mental shift I think.

However, Google are probably the strongest at localising (to national and state levels) their default SERPs, without needing people to use a special local search tab or feature. It needs more granularity to be truly local, but it is certainly powerful at identifying results that are better suited to a particular country.