The field of local search marketing has gotten increasingly competitive over the past couple of years, and has become absolutely critical for local business success. Go ahead and conduct a Google search. Most searches, from pizza to dry cleaners, now bring up the infamous Google “7-pack,” a list of 7 local business results. Along with paid ads, local search results occupy a significant chunk of screen real estate on the results page, leaving only a few standard organic results above-the-fold.
This means that from an organic perspective, an advertiser that is not in the top 3 listings must rely on local search results for a strong, above-the-fold placement. And like search engine optimization (SEO), local search success can be very time-consuming but ultimately rewarding, as well.
Strong Google results rely not only on a local listing with Google itself, but also with other directories such as YellowPages, Yelp and CitySearch. They all interact with one another, so an inaccuracy on one directory risks repeating itself elsewhere and a business will need to closely monitor its online presence.
If you haven’t already, go ahead and claim your listing with Google Places and populate as much information as you can. This tells Google it has the most up-to-date and accurate information. Afterwards, MGH recommends submitting with Superpages, infoUSA and YellowPages, and making sure the data is correct on regular basis. Then, submit with smaller directories and check data periodically to make sure information is correct.
The ultimate goal is to make sure your business has a lot of accurate data from a lot of reputable sources. This puts the business in a strong position for local search success and a coveted Google 7-pack listing.
