Of all the projects we’re working on and all the topics I speak about, I’m the most excited about local search and the growth of what’s happening out there on Main Street, USA. In fact, there are so many smaller, local retail businesses “getting it” now that the growth of Local Search is out pacing overall online search. And you know that’s big because the web continues to explode, month after month, year after year.

What does this mean? It means that the landscape of search is changing right before our very eyes. It means that small mom and pop companies that service the city they are located in are growing and finding new, more efficient ways of doing business.

A tremendous surge in the annual growth of local search far out paced growth of overall Web search.   How do we know about all of this?  I’m seeing it in my clients. I’m hearing it on the street. And studies are showing it too. In fact, a study conducted by comScore, Inc., a leading Web behavior research firm, and the Yellow Pages Association this past spring produced some very interesting data.

The study found that local search — the practice of using online search tools to find local businesses, products, or services — grew 58 percent in 2008, reaching an annual total of 15.7 billion searches. By comparison, overall U.S. Web core searches grew at a much smaller rate of 21 percent year-over-year, nearing 137 billion searches by the end of 2008. Local searches stand at 12 percent of core searches on the top 5 portals.

“Even if the searcher doesn’t know the company or brand they will ultimately give their business to, the decision to actually make a purchase has often already been made,” said Neg Norton, president, Yellow Pages Association. “That is a strong argument for local merchants to develop and maintain an online profile, if they haven’t already done so.”

I agree. And interestingly enough, 75 percent of the top 100 “local” keywords searched on the web are non-branded, which means that most people have not decided on a specific company when they start their search. If your company comes up…you have the chance at getting some new business, just for being in the right place (top of the local results on Google) at the right time (their search). Other interesting data:

• 54% of people out there have substituted the Internet and local search for phone books
• 90% of online commercial searches result in a local offline purchase
• 61% of all local searches result in a transaction

But not all companies are there yet. If you are a barber, manicurist, dry cleaner, laundromat, delicatessen, sandwich shop or any other local business that depends on local foot traffic, it’s time to get on it!  People want to do business with you. If you want to find out how, make sure you pay attention to a few important items:

Optimize each page of your site for SEO

• Make sure the HTML tags on your page include your location info where appropriate
• Make sure your address appears in at least a few places on your site, as crawl-able text
• Make sure your city name shows up in key places like title tags and headings
• Your contact information should be on every page of your Web site
• An optimized contact us page with all your information on it

Solicit Local Links

• Submit to directories and get your company listed.
• Some are paid listings – investing $100-400 is a small price to pay for the potential traffic. Most important ones:

- Superpages
- Yelp
- TrueLocal
- Local.com
- YellowPages.com
- Localeze
- MerchantCircle
- Hot Frog
- InfoUSA

• Mobile Search on the Rise

- There are 54.5 million mobile Internet users in the U.S., 15% of iPhone applications are local

• Google’s Local Business Center – Set up a Gmail account prior to filling out the form
• Yahoo’s Local Search – Set up an account before you proceed with the listing
• Live Search Local Listing Center – Set up a Microsoft Live account
• GetListed.org – a one-stop shop for generating multiple listings
• Look at directories that cater to your local market

-  Ask your local chamber of commerce and other local web directories to link to your site
-  Make sure that your information is complete and that it uses the same keywords on your site

• Reach out to your satisfied customers and ask them to come and rate your business and/or write a review.

-  Positive reviews will add more credibility and help you stand out in the crowd
-  Send review links to all of your clients, and ask them for a brief positive review

• Study your competition and find out where they have local link groupings

-  Local link groupings: Page on the Internet where all, or most of, your competitors get incoming links.

• Link your location page to your Web site as well as your Facebook and Twitter pages

Once you’ve done all of this, I guarantee you more business will be coming your way. It’s not too late to jump on the web train! But “The Local Express” is leaving soon…

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