Search engine optimization is a very important element to help your site rank well. It is a process that helps your website gets found when their potential customers enter specific search terms. Google Local Business Center allows you to list your company when it is combined with a city name. It is an easy-to-set-up potential source of website traffic that complements your other SEO and SEM efforts.

The power of Google local is that it lists its Local Map-based searches above the rest of the data. This means if you are using this service, your site can get seen before the number one listed site in the Google organic search results.

Google can display a ‘local business listing’ for every business in the world. A local business listing is just a simple web page with your business name, address, and contact details. As a business owner, you can choose to add a bit of product information, and also discount vouchers to encourage people to get in touch. Even if you decide to make your own website, Google local business listings appear in the SERPs and can drive high numbers of potential customers to you: take control of yours today.

Additionally, you will want to ensure the following items are covered by on your website:

• Include your address and phone number on every page of your website, ideally at the bottom of every page.
• Include your city and state in your website’s content, titles, descriptions and/or page headers.
• Do some searches on Google to find out which phrases local business listings show up for, and optimize your site for those phrases.

When mastered, local business search engine optimization has the potential to be very lucrative, generating large amounts of targeted traffic, within a short amount of time.

Google Local Searches makes life a lot easier. Google Local searches homepage features a new technology known as “My Location”. With Google’s Local Search, finding you is as easy as a click of the mouse.

Simplifying Google Local Searches

Available exclusively on Windows Mobile devices, Google makes good use of its Gears Geolocation API to get an approximate ID on where you’re located. The API uses the same Cell ID technology Google uses for Google Maps on mobile devices. How does this affect your local search results? With My Location, users only have to type in whatever they’re searching for without adding a location in. Whether it’s sushi, the weather, or a local restaurant, Google will find both your results and your location. The API does most of the heavy work and cuts down on the amount of time spent typing in all of that information. We think this beats having to change your location every time you travel to another city or state.

Addressing Privacy Concerns

If you’re concerned about your privacy, Google does its best to make sure your information is protected. According to the latest Google Mobile blog update:

“We take your privacy seriously and have designed Search with My Location so that it doesn’t associate your location with any personally identifiable information, even if you are logged in. We won’t send your location until you explicitly opt in, and you can always opt-out from the Gears Settings under the Tools menu.”

We’re glad they noted that you’re opted-out of this option by default.

Limited Availability

Unfortunately, only a handful of Windows Mobile devices are currently supported. It would’ve been nice to see this in the Google app for the iPhone too. International Google users will also have to wait for this feature, as it is only available in the US and UK.

To check and see if your device is supported, head to “www.google.com” on your mobile web browser. A “My Location” link should be available right under the search box. You may have to refresh the page to see the link. If refreshing doesn’t help then your device probably isn’t supported at the moment. My Location is a small, but more than welcomed feature for Google Local searches. Here’s a brief clip provided by Google on how “Search with My Location can help save your thumbs”.

Google Local Searches