Local Map Optimization

Here are a couple of amazing statistics regarding local search. Every month more than 1.3 billon local searches are conducted and of all users online 82% regularly perform local searches. What’s more 80% of family budgets are spent within a 50 mile radius of home. Local search might as well be called map search because this is what is going to connect your local business to the local searchers you so covet. They want to buy your products and services – but they have to find you first.

When local buyers are looking for services or products on Google the ten most relevant businesses appear what is called the 10-pak. While you can register your business for free on the local map listings, Google displays only 10 companies on the first page (displayed as A-J).

Research has shown that 90% of all clicks are for businesses on the first page with the top position (A.) getting 42% of all clicks.

Map search is a growing trend and Google and Yahoo are doing a good job of displaying local businesses within their Map products. It is no surprise that Google is the leader in local maps search given their size and the problems that Yahoo has in establishing a solid search technology strategy. Bing isn’t up to par yet but I would expect that to change in the near future.

Google is continuing to refine their local search algorithms and recently made changes to how they display search results for broad, locally targeted search terms. If the search has a local intent you are likely to see the Google map at mid page. These generic terms are commonly search for services like dentist, florist, pizza, real estate agents, doctors, etc. The technology uses IP targeting that knows the searchers location to then serve these targeted local results.

This makes Google local map listings one of the most important elements in your online marketing strategy and critical to your businesses future. The first thing you need to do is to claim your business listing.

The next big task is to start competitive analysis on your marketplace:

• Who is showing in the top 10 spots
• Do they have web sites
• How many citations do they have
• How many reviews

In the more competitive marketplaces you don’t stand a chance of cracking the top 10 without a website as a central piece of your local internet marketing strategy. We have seen significant improvements when focusing on ensuring that you have categorized your business correctly when setting up your local business listings and also on really studying which citations Google gives additional weight too – this varies by business category.

Once you have a good idea of how you stack up you need to get to work on adding your business to local directories and the appropriate review sites. This is not something that takes a tremendous amount of time to manage, once you get the building blocks in place, but you should continue to monitor your position and where you competition ranks on at least a monthly basis.

With a comprehensive local maps optimization plan we have seen dramatic results in as little as 2-3 weeks in markets with decent levels of competition.

You should also set aside some time each month to work on increasing your citations. Take a look at businesses like yours in larger cities and see where they are getting their citations from. This is a way to get ahead of your local competition instead of chasing them.

Get familiar you’re your local business center analytics, Google has done a decent job in providing you with a good deal of useful information for you to get a better feel for where your traffic is coming from. Local map optimization is the central piece in your local search arsenal. You need to master this sooner rather than later as your business is either improving or declining – it is never staying the same.