Search engine results can be filtered by region or location. Search engines can display these results based on the searcher’s location or search phrases that include location. Local search results can include more than just your site or your blog entries, they can also display maps, reviews, driving directions, pictures, related sites and more.
There are on-site and off-site factors each business needs to think about.
On-Site
You want your business to do well in your local markets so you need to optimize for those markets on your website. This means you need to include your location and other cities you serve throughout your web site. You also need to include your phone and address. There are ways to optimize well and ways to get your site penalized. Although you need to optimize for location(s), you need to also remember that the content needs to sell your company and create trust. Having “Sarasota”, “Denton” or “Naples” on your pages 40 times will not create trust.
Off-Site
Every business needs to be concerned with off-site local search. Adding your site to Google maps is a good example, but it isn’t so simple anymore. There are ways to enhance your listing and get as much as you can out of that listing. I good SEO company can help you with that.
Some other places you can add your site and business info to are:
Our Local Search Class:
On 10-08-09 SEO Aware will be giving a one hour class on “Local Search” and we will be showing how to make off-site Local Search work for you. Learn more about our Local Search Class.
Thank you for this information. With multiple locations I can tell that this process can takes some time.