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“...probably the best newsletter on search engine promotion in the world.”
This month's issue
The Local Search Revolution has Arrived!
Local Search Listings Explained
Part 1
By Esoos Bobnar
www.searchenginehelp.com
Courtesy of
SearchEngineNews.com
| April 2005
Originally Published: April 2005
While searching the web these days, it's hard
not
to notice all those little Local tabs sprouting up in the vicinity of the
search
field on virtually every major search engine. Within the past year, the race has been to integrate a plethora of advanced features into
local search
capabilities.
Already we're seeing features like customer reviews and ratings, storefront and product photos, detailed maps with directions, hours of operation, forms of accepted payment, integration with cell phones, and
much
more is promised to follow. Picture a million paper phone books combined – on steroids and capable of providing
instant
results for an information-hungry and time-challenged customer base. The potential for
local search
is really quite staggering!
So what exactly
is
local search, and how can you best position your business to take advantage of it?
In a nutshell, local search is essentially the Internet's version of the phone book. The difference being that this "phone book" is
much
faster and
far
more responsive. For example, suppose I'm in Boston staying at the
Harbor View Hotel
and in need of a haircut? No problem. I Just enter haircut followed by the zip code of the hotel where I'm staying – 02114 – and I instantly find Richard's Haircutting for Men a scant 0.4 miles east and with directions.
All that took about 30 seconds from
concept
to
completion
leaving me with a feeling of satisfaction that no
regular
phone book could ever provide. I'm now addicted to
local search
after only a single dose! Throw away the phone book, never mind the concierge.
Now, if that little demo hasn't yet convinced you, chew on this recent finding...
70 percent of U.S. households now use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally for products and services... Findings also suggest the Internet is poised to surpass newspapers as a local shopping information resource.
Source:
The Kelsey Group
Simply put, local search – including local search on mobile devices – is about to dominate the world of brick-n-mortar marketing. Ready or not,
here it comes! ...we suggest you get ready now,
before
it starts costing you a fortune to negotiate the learning curve. Oh, and get used to the fact that
the big yellow phone book
is well on its way to becoming nothing more than a cheesy doorstop.
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Outside North America?
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Editor's Note: Currently, local search is concentrated on the United States and some parts of Canada. While we strive to provide useful information to subscribers world-wide, most local search engines are still in beta testing and have limited their market to North America. As their coverage expands to encompass countries outside this region, we will also expand our reporting of
local search
strategies to apply to this rapidly-evolving market.
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How To Get Listed In
Local Search
The first step to getting your business listed in
Local Search
is (surprise) to buy a listing in the
offline
Yellow Pages (yep, that cheesy
doorstop-to-be
we just dis'd). Here's why:
Most search engines get the bulk of their local business listings from just two companies:
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InfoUSA
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Acxiom
...or else from Internet Yellow Pages sites which also derive their listings from these two companies. Both have compiled enormous databases containing detailed information on most of the businesses and consumer households in the US and Canada. And much of their data is pulled from your basic
Yellow Page
and
Business White Page
directories (aka, the cheesy doorstops).
The good news may be that your business already has a listing in your local Yellow Pages – if not, then you should get one! Don't worry about taking out a big colorful ad with lots of information about your company. We haven't any reason to believe that expensive ads offer any advantage in local search rankings. Nor does
lots of business information in your Yellow Pages ad
seem to enhance your local search listing's comprehensiveness. It appears to us that
any
Yellow Pages listing at all will get you included in most local search engines just fine.
By the way,
InfoUSA
has the more user-friendly website of the two. They provide a way for you to actually check to see if your site is listed with them by using their
Directory Assistance Plus
web search. And, if you find your business is not listed or is listed incorrectly, you can use their
add/update
page to correct your listing.
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Search Service
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Data
Provider
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Yahoo! Local
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infoUSA
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Yahoo Yellow Pages
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infoUSA
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MSN Yellow Pages
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Acxiom
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AOL Yellow Pages
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infoUSA
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A9 Yellow Pages
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Acxiom
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Verizon SuperPages
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Acxiom
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SBC SmartPages
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infoUSA
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Bell South Real Pages
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Acxiom
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Switchboard
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infoUSA
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Lycos YP
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Acxiom
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Excite YP
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Acxiom
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iWon.com
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infoUSA
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InfoSpace
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Acxiom
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Dogpile YP
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Acxiom
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WebCrawler YP
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Acxiom
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The table on the right is a short list of which company is providing data to some of the most popular Internet Yellow Pages and local search engines.
You'll note the conspicuous absence of
Google local
from this list. Google actually builds its local search results using feeds from several
Internet
Yellow Pages. Thus, Google is indirectly taking results from both InfoUSA and Acxiom via those Yellow Page feeds. Ask Jeeves appears to be doing the same.
How To Check Your Listing
Once you have a Yellow Pages listing (the cheesy doorstop version), then chances are you'll be found in most local search engines. To check your listing, enter your
business name
and
zip code
into the search fields at the following locations:
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Google Local
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http://www.google.com/lochp
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Yahoo Local
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http://local.yahoo.com/
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MSN Local
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http://local.msn.com/
– Still not yet quite as extensive as most other search engines. Don't be surprised if you're not listed.
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Ask Jeeves Local
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http://local.ask.com/local
– Not quite as good at word parsing as Google and Yahoo. For instance, sees
timeshare
as different from
time share. Be specific in your spelling and punctuation of your business name or category.
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AOL Local
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http://localsearch.aol.com/
– Divides its results into directory-like categories, so you may have to drill down a few levels to find your listing.
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A9 Local
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http://a9.com/
– Not really a local search engine, but A9 does have local features, as well as their own Yellow Pages. Type in your business name and zip code and see what comes up.
If your business is missing from any of these local search engines, see the engine-specific information provided later in this article. Chances are good that even if your site
is
listed, your business information may be incomplete or inaccurate and you'll probably want to update and improve your local search listing.
Continued:
Targeting Internet Yellow Pages >>>
This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition.
FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those rankings.
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