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Local Search: Why IT Matters to You
By Richard Zwicky

A couple of weeks ago I was at a conference, and in the halls 
chatted with a number of people who were in total awe of 'local 
search.' The latest and greatest! The next BIG thing! It has not 
ceased to amuse me watching various organizations and the search 
engines themselves fall over each other in their march towards 
offering 'local search.'

It has long been obvious that eventually, the world wide web 
would become local. It's the only natural evolution. Did anyone 
really expect the Internet to keep growing as a virtual world, 
completely disconnected from the physical world forever? Of 
course not. While there have been some Internet only players, 
most web sites have been reflections of traditional businesses. 
It's natural that the Internet would evolve from being a research 
tool, to a geographically disconnected tool for connecting people 
to products, services, and communities.

So why all the fuss on local search? Because the market is now 
filled with billions of web pages, representing over 10,000,000 
individual businesses scattered around the world. The Internet 
can supply business and consumer needs for anything except 
perhaps hot coffee! The number of users online has also reached 
critical mass. Users are no longer automatically turning to 
their local Yellow Pages, they click over to Google, Yahoo, or 
MSN. But now, they don't just use the search engines for 
research, they expect to find information about their community. 
They expect to find coffee shops, restaurants, shoe repairs, and 
the like. They want to find businesses that are close to their 
present positions.

Fulfilling this desire for local information is a logical step 
in the development of the search engines. I own a Treo; When I'm 
driving around and need to find something which I know is offered 
locally, I pull out my Treo, log on, and search for the item. 
Sometimes, if it's a restaurant, I look for a particular dish I 
am craving, but like many people, I also plan ahead. Then I use 
my desktop. For example, next month I'm traveling to Banff. I'm 
going to want to take my son dogsledding and also find a place 
to have a fondue. I'm not worried about the dogsledding; I know 
someone who provides that service. I could wait until I'm there 
and look around for a Swiss restaurant, but I thought I would 
give the latest local search tools a whirl; Take them for a real 
world test drive. I tried all sorts of searches, but none of the 
engines could handle the queries properly. I tried for an hour. 
Good thing I wasn't using my Treo. I couldn't afford the bill!

Why couldn't I find what I was looking for?

Well, quite honestly, the search engine companies are botching 
the offerings in local search. Does anyone really think that 
finding results by zip code is relevant? Look at how much 
territory that covers, it's far too much to be useful. Do you 
know that it's possible to get the location right down to within 
10 feet? Why don't the search engines do this? The technology 
exists.

Also, does anyone at the search engines do any real world 
quality control and verify how accurate their local results are? 
A couple of weeks ago, before heading to New Jersey, I typed in 
'Italian restaurants, veal scaloppine" and the street and town 
where to search from. What did I get? A SUBWAY sandwich 
shop!!!???

I tried it with Mexican food too. Imagine what was third on the 
list? SUBWAY!!!

Then I tried Yahoo! I was not impressed to discover that the 
closest Italian food to the area of New Jersey I was visiting... 
Is in Brooklyn!

The search engine business model is built on relevance. Get the 
right answers to customers quickly and efficiently. Get them off 
your site, and to their destination. Do that and they will come 
back for new searches. Make them come back too often for the 
same search and they will go elsewhere.

So what can you, an independent web site operator do to attract 
local search customers from the search engines? How can you help 
the search engines fulfill their mandate? This is where local 
search engine optimization comes into play.

If your business has a physical location and a web site, then 
local search is part of your future. The fact that most people 
have not considered local search yet demonstrates how often 
overlooked it is as a tool to draw traffic to your business.

Local search can be supported simply by properly including local 
information in your web pages. If your web page is properly 
optimized and also tuned for local search, then customers will 
know to frequent your business when they need particular goods 
or services. For example, I was in a restaurant recently that 
served pizza topped with escargots. Not many of those around! 
But if that's what your customer is craving, wouldn't you expect 
them to find your eatery when they search online? That's what 
optimization does for you. Now add localization to the mix and 
the same people can easily figure out how close to you they are, 
and how to get to your location!

There are many ways to include localization terms to facilitate 
the search engines working with your web site. At the most basic, 
you need to include your address in visible textual content 
within your web pages. Assuming the search engines can get to 
those pages, you're part way there. You will also need to include 
that information in other areas of the content of your web site. 
Include it in your meta tags, and where applicable, in link 
text. There are specific meta tags, and xml schema tags for 
localization; if you don't know about them, get a professional 
SEO to help you. If they don't know about them, then you need a 
new SEO.

Search engine optimization for local search works the same as 
regular web site optimization. But by localizing search terms, 
you are providing additional contextual information for the 
search engines to do their work.

Optimizing part of your web site's content to ensure local 
attention will not minimize the opportunities your business 
receives from regular, Internet wide search engine traffic. 
Instead, it will supplement existing traffic with increased 
highly localized traffic which will likely result in people just 
walking into your business without ever mentioning that they 
found your business online. When you ensure your local clientele 
can find you, you make it easier for them to support you. 
Ensuring that they find you is the only thing that should matter 
to your business.

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Richard Zwicky is a founder and the CEO of Metamend Software
(http://www.metamend.com), a Victoria, B.C. based firm whose 
cutting edge Search Engine Optimization software has been 
recognized around the world as a leader in its field. Employing 
a staff of 10, the firm's business comes from around the world, 
with clients from every continent. Most recently the company was 
recognized for their geo-locational, or LBS technology, which 
correlates online businesses with their physical locations. 
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