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The Local Search Revolution has Arrived!

Local Search Listings Explained

Part 1

By Esoos Bobnar www.searchenginehelp.com

Originally Published: April 2005

Local Search Market getting HOT!

So what exactly is local search, and how can you best position your business to take advantage of it?

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
Outside North America?
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.

How To Get Listed In Local Search

  1. InfoUSA

  2. 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).
Search Service Data
Provider
Yahoo! Local infoUSA
Yahoo Yellow Pages infoUSA
MSN Yellow Pages Acxiom
AOL Yellow Pages infoUSA
A9 Yellow Pages Acxiom
Verizon SuperPages Acxiom
SBC SmartPages infoUSA
Bell South Real Pages   Acxiom
Switchboard infoUSA
Lycos YP Acxiom
Excite YP Acxiom
iWon.com infoUSA
InfoSpace Acxiom
Dogpile YP Acxiom
WebCrawler YP Acxiom

How To Check Your Listing

  1. Google Local - http://www.google.com/lochp

  2. Yahoo Local - http://local.yahoo.com/

  3. MSN Local - http://local.msn.com/ – Still not yet quite as extensive as most other search engines. Don't be surprised if you're not listed.

  4. Ask Jeeves Local - 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.

  5. AOL Local - 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.

  6. A9 Local - 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.

Continued: Targeting Internet Yellow Pages >>>

This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software.

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