Local Search for local businesses
For many small businesses, local search is the most important and rewarding marketing they can do. Local search is a term referring to use of internet search engines to find “what” and “where”.
- What may refer a product, a service, or a supplier; and
- Where refers to a specific location be that a suburb, a city or a region.
For a local business to be found in a potential customer’s internet search for terms such as “dentist near me”, they must first have their business setup to take advantage of local search.
There are many business directories available on the internet. Some are very broad in intent (such as Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business) and others concentrate on specific verticals (such as Yelp and trivago).
An example of Local Search
A site which I have written up on my Portfolio page is a great example of Local Search in action. Read the full article here, but the image below shows a typical result of a successful local search.
When the term “upholstery insurance quote” is searched by an enquirer who is physically located with the local area of this business, Mandall Upholstery is displayed at the top of the local pack of three nearby visitors …as well as top of the natural search.
This result was achieved by having these elements in sync:
- optimised Google Business Profile (GBP) setup with correct selection of categories, services, products, etc
- business website with pages and posts synchronised to this optimised GBP
- well maintained GBP with regular posts, reviews, etc
- business website optimised for SEO – overall site structure, on-page SEO, fast delivery, etc.
