As search engines attempt to collect and distribute the world’s data, local listings are becoming more prevalent in search results. Searchers seeking local products and services will often find local business listings at the top of their search engine result pages. In addition, the major search engines are now offer a local component – Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Live Search local and AskCity, for example.
The information posted in these areas is typically collected from a variety of third party resources, but merchants also have the option of feeding store locations to the engines themselves. This is a major step towards the evolution of local search. Third party data is limited to business name, location and phone number. Engines that accept merchant supplied data allow additional attributes like business description, service categories, and brands sold, hours of operations, parking options, etc.. These additional attributes increase the chances for a merchant’s business listing to appear under a wider range of relevant search queries.
It is our job as search marketers to make sure businesses are listed properly and the engines are getting the right data. In the blog posts that follow, I will delve into the important aspects of Local Search and how business - can drive more business without having to spend a your entire marketing budget on improving your search listings.
More to come.
Friday, January 30, 2009
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