Google Local Is Coming, Are You Ready?

By Tom Stroud

With the internet increasingly being used to find local shops, suppliers, products and services many small businesses need to consider how they can best promote their websites to ensure they attract the growing number of local enquiries.

Instead of thinking of a website as an online brochure which promotes your business to the whole world, you should think about your website more like a listing in a phone directory. For most businesses, their website should be built and optimised with the primary purpose of being found in their immediate area as the most suitable site in a category. If someone is looking for "Fish Restaurants in Guildford, Surrey" they are going to enter just such a search, right?

Google and Yahoo both recently announced their models for tapping into the local search traffic. At last they have recognised they need to make it easier for web surfers to find the products or services which are nearest to the town or area they live in.

Everyone knew they would eventually get around to this very lucrative market so now is the time to prepare your website so it can be found first in your town, county or district. You can find out more about local search at these sites:

• http://local.google.co.uk/ - Beta site
• http://local.google.co.uk/help/faq_local.html
• http://local.yahoo.com/ - currently US only

The purpose of this article is to draw your attention to the benefits of "local" search engine optimisation and what is involved. In essence the principles are the same as normal search engine optimisation only the way of going about it is slightly different.

For those of you unsure what Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) actually is - It is the science, some would say art, of making sure web pages are "designed" in such a way that search engines can find, index, and rank them according to the value of their content. There is now entire industry built around this science as the value of a website is negligible if nobody can find it.

The traditional approach to SEO has been to create a website and optimise it so it can be found by anyone looking for a certain topic or subject, often known as keywords or keyword phrases.

Local SEO focuses on making your website the first found in your town, county or local area for a given keyword or keyword phrase. Geo targeting is the key. When someone is looking for a music shop, they don't search locally (at the moment) for the name of your firm. Think in terms of a Yellow Pages directory. They go to the city they are looking for and then the category and then the name of the firm to call.

Local search is structured much the same. So someone living in Bristol looking for a music shop online will search "Bristol Music Shops". In order to be the first site they see listed you must be able to win that type of search.

There are no hard and fast rules, as with all SEO they change constantly, but here are a couple of things you need to think about to get ahead of your competition in the local search race.

Title tags - Probably one of the most important pieces of info on your page, so make sure your title reads something like "YOURCOMPANYNAME Watford's oldest bakery"

H1 tags - Make sure that keywords for your site and your location are included in H1 tags - The Italian Restaurant in Salisbury, Wiltshire

Content - Add your address and phone number early and prominently (not a bad thing for every page really)

Meta tags - Opinions vary on the usefulness of these but there are some tags that may gain usefulness depending on how the search engines refine their methods.

• meta name="zipcode" content="CF71, CF72, CF12, CF14, CF15, CF20"
• meta name="city" content="Cowbridge"
• meta name="state" content="Vale of Glamorgan"
• meta name="ICBM" content=" 51.4539, -3.4588

City, State, and Zip code tags are pretty self explanatory but the ICBM one is a bit out there but kind of cool too. ICBM META tags are so named because InterContinental Ballistic Missiles were loaded with a target latitude and longitude before launch, and would speed through sub-orbital space before annihilating their destination.

If you go to the GEOUrl Address Server you can locate the exact latitude and longitude of your business. That's what those two numbers after the ICBM tag are.

Linking - Make your internal links local friendly - Instead of "Kitchen Designs" use "Manchester Kitchen Designs", assuming you're based in Manchester of course!

DMOZ - The Open Directory Project is a directory of sites that are listed by human volunteers. It seems that getting listed here gives you high marks with search engines so you need to do it but make sure that you go for the Regional listings all the way down to your town. It is unlikely (and not very useful) that you will get listed for a broad category, particularly if you don't provide world-wide service. Go for the "dog grooming" section of your town and you will have better luck.

Other Directories - In the UK Google states that they use listings on Yell.com to find local businesses so it makes sense to at least request a free basic listing as this will give your address and telephone numbers. It is also worth getting listed in as many of these phone book type of directories like Thomson Local Directories as you can. Some are free and there is thought that initially the big search engines will rely on these already built local directories.

Local SEO is yet another thing to think of, but the benefits of receiving more visitors looking for your products or services, in your specific area should pay dividends in the long term.