I was thinking how it had been a while since I’d written a post about local search. Then I read about a recent survey by Search Engine Land about the rise of mobile search and decided that for a small business, they really are one and the same. How can this be? One is done from a computer, the other from a mobile phone. One is driven by a user-friendly interface, the other is spartan in appearance but highly convenient on the go.
The reason local and mobile mean the same thing to a growing business is, the most important content you can enter into this channel turns up in both. And usage of both is growing.
Back to the study. Search Engine Land polled its readers and drew some very interesting conclusions. (Let’s first state the obvious: yes, readers of this kind of content are generally ahead of the pack in terms of digital media consumption and adaptation to the gadget-driven lifestyle.) But directionally speaking, the trends are very similar among the general public-and watching readers of Search Engine Land in 2007 tells you a thing or two about how the rest of the world will start behaving in 2008. Not to mention: hardware and software developers look to these early-adopters for insight into how to design their next-generation products.
Here are the key takeaways from the study:
* 41% own a “smartphone” (e.g. Blackberry, Treo, iPhone)
* 57% use their phones to cruise the internet (note that this number vastly exceeds the 41% from above)
* 97% use their phones to send and receive SMS text messages
* 47% access the mobile internet more than once a week
(We know from the success of the iPhone that this is no fad.)
You may ask, “why would someone want to access the mobile internet?” An even better question is, why would someone need local search? Here is an example of a real-life situation easily resolved by local search.
* “I am looking to buy property in Chicago but I don’t know the city at all. Where do I start?
- Solution: search for “rent apartment Chicago”
- Result: I now have a list of apartment brokers, and can even see a map of where their offices are located, in case I want to visit a few in the same day.
What’s remarkable is that with the growth in mobile search, you could resolve that problem just as easily with your mobile phone as with a computer. The same holds true if you need an oil change, a pharmacy, or a New York deli sandwich.
The bottom line is, listing your business in local search channels ties your name and location to important keywords, multiplying the number of scenarios in which YOU could be one of the apartment brokers turning up in the search results (to use the example from above). If your office address is your home address, and you’re concerned about privacy, you can always get a PO Box-the city, state and ZIP information will still be useful to search engines.
The smartest way to place in local channels is to have your marketing consultant handle this while already doing search engine optimization for your company’s site.
And if you haven’t tried it by now, I recommend you take Google SMS for a spin. This service has been around for years and can be utilized by even the most rudimentary of cell phones. Try typing your business category and the zip code of your office address. See your competitor’s name showing up on the screen? Time to get busy with your local search marketing.
Posted by corbesrenan 
