Local search is becoming increasingly important. Google reports that 20% of search queries have local intent, amounting to billions of searches per month. What's more, local search is even more critical in the booming mobile search space. Microsoft recently reported that 53% of mobile searches have local intent.

Beyond raw numbers, local search is important for another reason - those searching locally are often the most highly qualified customers. People searching for "prom dress" may just want to browse styles, but a search for "prom dress in michigan" indicates they have a real intent to purchase. Making sure you show up prominently when local searchers are looking for your products or services is critical for success. It will only become more critical as the push towards mobile search continues and as more and more people stop consulting the yellow pages and go straight to their favorite search engine to find what they need.

Thankfully, there is a lot you can do to optimize your website and your online presence for local search. If done correctly, this can give you a tremendous competitive edge and propel your business for growth. In this brief crash course, we will look at the most important things you should do right now to increase your local SEO and start getting in front of potential customers when they are ready to buy.

Step 1.) Claim Your Local Listings

Each of the major search engines provides it's own local listing database, and they all allow you to "verify" your business to take control of that listing. If your listing isn't located at all in the services, then you can create one from scratch. However, it's very important that you search very hard first. It's better to claim a listing that's already in the engines so that you can take advantage of the current ranking prominence of this listing and so that you avoid creating a duplicate listing.

Here are the three major providers and the links so that you can register your pages.

1. Google Places
2. Yahoo Local
3. Bing Local

By far the most important of these is Google Places, but it is definitely best practice to claim your listing at all three engines.

Step 2.) Optimize Your Local Listings

Once you have claimed your listing, it's time to get your hands dirty with some optimization. This is a list of some of the most important factors to consider.

Listing Consistency

Search engines aggregate data from across the web so you want to make sure that everything is absolutely consistent. If things vary even slightly there is a chance the engines will make a mistake and create duplicate listings, diluting the value and hampering your ability to rank well.

Business Title

Make sure you use the full, correct title for your business name. It is tempting to stuff a keyword or two in there, but this strategy is dangerous. Google may badly penalize your listing if they discover invalid keyword stuffing in the title. Better to keep things legit and use your real name.

Categorization

Properly categorizing your listing is a very important step. Make sure you research all of the possibilities before choosing the most relevant. Most engines will allow you to select multiple categories (for example, Google allows 5), so make sure you take advantage of that. Usually, it is best practice to use 2 or 3 preset categories and include a couple of custom categories based on your most important keywords.

For example, in our Google local listing we included the preset categories "Website Designer", "Internet Marketing Service", and "Marketing Consultant." For custom categories we included "Search Engine Optimization" and "Social Media Marketing."

Business Description

Since you should not be putting your keywords in the listing title, the business description is the perfect place to make sure you have your most valuable keywords listed. Construct a concise and persuasive summary of your business and incorporate those keywords to get the most out of this field.

Phone Number and Website Address

If at all possible, you want to include a phone number with a local area code in your listings. This is a sign of credibility to the search engines and can have a significant impact on your ranking. Of course, include a link to your website as well (if you don't have a website, you should definitely contact us!)

Photos and Videos

Google will allow you to upload up to 10 photos and up to 5 YouTube videos to display on your listing, and the other engines have similar options. This is a great opportunity to enhance the value of your listing, not only so that you get higher rankings, but also so that potential customers who visit your listing can see these multimedia. If you sell products, consider including some product photos or videos. Other good choices here include photos of your physical location and video testimonials from happy customers.

Additional Information

There are other bits of information you can include with your listing and you should always fill them out when relevant. The search engines tend to rank well-developed listings higher, and these extra bits can also be useful for customers when they visit the page. Including your hours, payment methods accepted, and service area are some examples. Most engines also allow you to submit custom information. Consider listing things like the brands you carry, your parking availabilities, whether or not you are available for off-site meetings, and any other relevant piece of info.

Step 3.) Optimize Your Website

Google's local results used to be separate from organic website rankings, but they recently changed the format and this has a big impact on Local SEO efforts. Now, the optimization on your website is far more important than it ever has been. Sure, a well optimized place page can help you rank, but to truly rise to the top you need to make sure you are taking care of things on your home turf as well. Here are the most important SEO factors to consider on your website for local optimization.

Local Keywords

Using so called "geo-modifier" keyterms like "Michigan web design" or "oil change in Detroit" is very important for your local SEO campaign. Make sure you conduct the proper keyword research up front. Once you've found the right keywords to target for your preferred local market, include those keywords in your Title Tags, URLs, and page content. If your business is localized at all, you should definitely be incorporating these important geo-modifier keywords into your SEO campaign.

Local Links

Links are always good for SEO, but local links are especially good for Local SEO. Try to find some obvious local link partners like Chamber's of Commerce or local clubs that might be interested in your company. Another great option is to sponsor a local charity or two - they will likely be more than happy to link to your website by listing you as a sponsor. A double-whammy - perform a good deed and improve your local search presence at the same time. However you do it, getting local links is an important piece of the optimization puzzle.

Step 4.) Get Listed on Citation Source Websites

In addition to the major search engines there are a slew of other websites where you can list your business. Prominent ones include Yelp, InsiderPages, and CitySearch. You should claim or create listings on these websites using all the tips discussed in Step 2. There are 2 benefits of these listings. First, they may be a source of traffic to your website (Yelp.com in particular is a very popular online service). Secondly, Google and other search engines will crawl these third party data sources to buttress their own database of information. If you are listed consistently across all the major services you can see your rankings increase.

Step 5.) Get Reviewed

Another important ranking factor for your local listing are the reviews you have on your listing. These reviews can come from a number of places. They can come directly from the search engine itself. Or, they can come from 3rd party sources like Yelp (mentioned above). Google actively aggregates reviews from some of these 3rd party sources as well.

Therefore, you should try to get some reviews (hopefully positive!) on your listings once they are optimized. You may receive reviews over time, but it's also a good strategy to proactively seek out reviews to speed along this process. Ask some of your favorite customers to leave a quick review on their service of choice.

Most SEO experts believe that whether the reviews are positive or negative does not have much impact on rankings. However, getting good reviews is obviously helpful once visitors are viewing your page. You should actively monitor all the major services for new reviews and be sure to respond in a positive manner to critical reviews. A well-phrased response can turn the tides and show that you care about your customers, turning a potential negative into a positive for your company.

Step 6.) Get Social

To round out your Local SEO efforts, it may be wise to expand your presence in social media platforms. There are a number of local "check-in" services like Foursquare and Gowalla - make sure your company is registered on these platforms with up to date information. Facebook recently rolled out "Facebook Places", so you should also make sure that your company is registered there.

Resources

Here are some helpful and highly recommended resources.

GetListed.org is a great service that allows you to register for free and automatically track your listing status with the major search engines and a couple other major local websites like Yelp.

If you want a truly comprehensive reference of local search ranking factors, I highly recommend the in-depth survey produced by David Mihm.

Crash Course Conclusion

In this crash course we have only scratched the surface of what is possible with a Local Search Engine Optimization campaign. If you have a location-centric business, a local SEO campaign is very important for your success. However, the reality is that being a small business owner comes with a lot of challenges already, and so it may be unrealistic for you to manage this entire process yourself. If so, please contact us and ask for a custom Local SEO proposal.