In today’s tight economy small business owners are watching the bottom line and cutting costs, and often its advertising and marketing budgets that are first on the chopping block. Many are choosing to move their marketing dollars to the web as recent studies suggest that shoppers and information seekers are choosing the web over the yellow pages and other traditional advertising mediums in greater frequency.

Bearing that in mind, local search offers a limitless and free opportunity for small businesses to reach customers on the web, and those who take advantage of this sooner, rather than later, will have the best chance to reap the financial rewards.

What is local search?

Local search is defined by Wikipedia as “the use of specialized Internet search engines that allow users to submit geographically constrained searches against a structured database of local business listings.”

What’s the difference between search and local search?

Typical local search queries are more specific than regular searches, where a person might enter only what they are looking for − keywords, a business name, a category or a product name. Local search consists of ‘what’ and ‘where’ information – for example, a street address, city, postal code, or geographic coordinates like latitude and longitude. Examples of local searches include “Picton restaurants” or “InfoLink Prince Edward County”.

What’s the business advantage of local search?

Business owners who would like information such as their business name, address, phone number, website, business description and business hours to appear on local search engines have several options. The most reliable way to include accurate local business information is to claim business listings through Google’s, Yahoo!’s, or MSN’s respective local business centres. Millions of people search Google Maps (Google’s local search engine) every day. A free listing on Google Maps makes it easy for them to find you. Google Maps invites businesses to list their location, hours of operation, GPS and driving directions, and searchable map and detailed product information, as well as customer reviews, video, pictures and downloadable coupons. And it is totally free of charge.

To claim your business listing all you need is a free Gmail account. To claim your business listing go to https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=lbc&passive=1209600&continue=http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter?hl%3Den%26gl%3Dus&followup=http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter?hl%3Den%26gl%3Dus&hl=en

Other local search engines include Bing and Yahoo! Local. They both offer local businesses the opportunity to upload their business data to their respective local search databases.
http://listings.local.yahoo.com/
http://www.bing.com/maps/

Mobile local search

By the year 2012 it is estimated that more searches will originate from iPhones, Blackberries and Androids than from laptops and desktop computers. That’s just around the corner and small businesses should be jumping in to this market now!

The popularity of mobile search has given rise to new generation of consumers − those who search online and buy offline. Today’s web-savvy shoppers are using mobile browsing like they used to use the yellow pages to search for product information, pricing and where to buy locally, and this presents a unique and mostly free opportunity for smart business people to access this market of customers who are ready to buy!

Mobile browsing plans are expensive and traditional websites were not designed with mobile and local search in mind. A mobile search-friendly webpage will deliver short bursts of critical information formatted for the small screen of a web phone. Google is the major player in mobile search and recently introduced a voice recognition mobile search feature for smart phones. Yahoo and Bing also hold part of the market. For more information on mobile websites http://myinfolink.ca/page/2/