Why Local Search Will Become Even More Important in 2012
If you’re still not trying to tap into local search, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Global searches are all well and good, particularly if you have worldwide aspirations, but achieving visibility within your key target areas is becoming increasingly important.
With the personalisation of search results and localisation of certain queries, securing every niche is essential. One of the key niches that any business will have is their physical locality. Geography and competition dictates that there can only be so many companies within a certain radius of one another. Therefore you should be able to secure decent visibility for searches in that region and attract traffic that is more likely to convert too.
Google and the other search engines haven’t exactly been shy when it comes to announcing updates relating to their algorithms, all designed to enhance user experience and deliver the best possible results. The rise of mobile search has coincided with an increased focus on local results. This isn’t an accident either. When people move around, they generally want to find businesses that are able to offer the products and services that they’re seeking within their vicinity. It’s entirely logical.
These changes aren’t going to stop anytime soon either. To ensure the best quality results, offering generic global sites isn’t always going to work. This is why search engines want to deliver the best companies, using ratings and other factors, within your geographical locality. Whilst major brands are still getting huge leverage due to their comparative size and authority, small businesses can still compete on a local level.
Let’s look at social factors though for a minute. The likelihood is that if you announce a promotion and are in direct competition with a huge online store, such as Amazon, their promotion is likely to get more shares. Therefore, in generic searches, you are unlikely to be able to compete with them. However, it would be safe to assume that if you are a small store located in one or maybe even a few towns, those shares, likes and reviews are going to be focussed within the same area. This is where local search results can really benefit.
It would be illogical if Google were to show the same results regardless of where you were (just as they used to). The fact that Amazon has thousands of social shares, millions of links and years of domain authority shouldn’t matter, particularly if you’re looking to buy a product there and then. They should be delivering the localised results as well as online-only companies. The quality of local results has to rely on what you say on site, what others say about you (through reviews and shares) as well as the strength and authority of the domain.
So make sure that you get your community buzzing about your brand. Let the search engines know where you are through local business profiles and work on the authority of your domain too. Local results are going to be almost as important as generic search terms in the not too distant future; so if you’re a business that gets a lot of foot traffic through your store(s), make sure your online domain is up to strength too.
