Posted by: Nikki Burmaster, Marketing Coordinator
The importance of local online search strategies has increased exponentially within the last year. Implementing and continually optimizing local search techniques give businesses, especially those in very competitive industries or those with smaller marketing budgets, a leg up in the online marketing space.
Companies with local listings on the three major engines receive preferential treatment on results pages, showing in the top few listings when served. This is a major advantage considering the integration of paid ads, tweets, videos and more in many search engines’ results pages that are pushing actual organic results lower and lower on the first page.
In addition to higher search engine results, many listing services allow companies to add coupons and messages featuring current promotions or recent releases. Some local listings offer mobile integration, displaying search results with click-to-call features and local ad extensions that populate maps, directions, reviews and more.
And local listings aren’t just for B2C companies anymore. Companies can now hide their addresses on Google if they do not have storefronts but will still receive preferential ranking for their Place Pages – a perfect strategy for B2B companies.
If your company has already implemented local listings, all you have to do is keep your entries up-to-date and optimize accordingly. If your business is not yet utilizing local listings, a great place to start is evaluating your search traffic. First, figure out which search engine the majority of your traffic is coming from. Then create or claim local listings in that engine and go from there. Make sure listings are as complete as possible, including pictures and map locations, and provides accurate, not overly salesy information.
For more information on the different local listing options, see the links below:
Google Places
Bing Local Listing Center
Yahoo! Local
