It's estimated that 30 to 40 percent of all searches are made with local intent. However, for certain types of businesses, search almost always has local intent. If you have such a business, it is critical to be found for as many pertinent local searches as possible.
If where you are is important to what you do, then you must maximise your business's presence in the Local Search results and optimize it for the best performance. People searching for you may be across town or a continent away. Wherever they are and wherever you are, you want them to find you.
Here are some reasons why Local Search is so important?
- Local businesses of all types are realizing that they need a visible online presence in order to compete in their marketplace.
- The Local Search platforms of major SearchEngines have become very robust, with useful features that attract an ever-increasing number of searchers to them.
- The users of print yellow pages are rapidly moving to Internet Yellow Pages and to other locally-focused websites for information that they used to look for in printed phone books.
- The Search Engines know that Local Search is different from traditional search and that when people search with local intent, they want and expect to see different results.
- The Search Engines are committed to intergrating Local Search results into the regular Search Engine Results Pages.
Mary Bowling