If local search isn’t on an businesses radar, it definitely should be. In my job, it’s been a priority for the past six months to organize and optimize our efforts to become more effective at local search. We want our locations to attract as much attention and take up as much real estate as possible when someone does a search for a product we carry in their neighborhood market. As more people search on the go and as search engines place more emphasis on displaying local results, the better you understand what’s going on, the better you’ll be in the long run.

Search Engine Watch came out with a good overview article to what you should be doing – http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2094582/Understanding-the-98-Google-Local-Ranking-Factors. Most of the suggestions are common sense but I’m still amazed how many businesses, both large and small, aren’t even doing the basics.

Here’s what I consider to be the basics:

• Updating all fundamental information such as store hours, address, phone number, etc. so they provide users with contact information and a way to find you.
• Selecting pertinent categories that describe your business. Each local review site (Yelp, Citysearch, and Places) had different categories to select from. Most offer you the ability to choose more than one. This helps you to show up in search results or when people are drilling down into specific categories.
• Adding a description of your business and services targeting specific keywords. This not only gives the user some context to what you do but it also has SEO benefits.
• Adding links to all your social media profiles including Facebook and Twitter. It’s easy to do and it gives more ways for the user to connect with you.
• Encouraging users to post reviews. Make sure employees mention that they’d appreciate a review to satisfied customers, offer signage in-store reminding visitors, etc. The more reviews a store has (especially positive ones), the more authority and relevance it’ll have in local search.