We’re guessing that if you are reading this, you have figured out that Google is the new Yellow Pages. Most consumers now let their fingers do the walking straight to the recycle bin with that big yellow book. So, if you are spending your ad dollars where your customers are not looking, you may as well be throwing it away.
Online local search is where the majority of mid to high income earners go BEFORE shopping.
It’s where they do their product and service research as well as seek out reviews on how and what give the best service and prices. If you can’t be found in local search: you do not EXIST to them. Since most people accept the fact that consumers no longer go driving around town to shop, we know that you have to come up first AND often when they are looking online.
What makes it harder is that Google, Yahoo and Bing all use their own INTERNAL local algorithms as well as list external sources such as Yelp, City Search and others. There are generally at least 8-10 different local search engines that the search engines and consumers use and each one optimizes separately.
Sounds scary, but here’s the good news: We include local search optimization with all of our SEO packages. Why? You need it to win and we are here to make sure that happens!