Local search is becoming more relevant and more prevalent as the big players like Google and Yahoo fine tune algorithms to account for localized sites and searches. Today I am going to focus on local search in relation to the larger search engines rather than the myriad of smaller engines that have also been making progress in this area.

With the advancements that are being made with local search, typical searches can now include not only information about "what" the user is searching for (such as keywords, a business category, or the name of a consumer product) but also "where" information, such as a street address, city name, postal code, or geographic coordinates like latitude and longitude.

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Results for obvious searches such as “Thai Restaurant Toronto” will now bring up a listing of localized sites, a map of the area, and other relevant information (if available) including reviews. Google and Yahoo will also try to narrow in on your search even more by prompting for further local information such as ZIP Code.

In order for you to ensure your Web site is listed in these localized results there is a submission process to be completed for the respective Local Business Listings (LBL) - at least for Google, Yahoo and MSN, for which the results are also tied directly to their respective Maps services, which is a great thing. However, there are a number of other factors that come into play when optimizing your Web site for local searches.

Following is a list of some of the factors that affect how your Web site appears in local results for both the big search engines and smaller local engines:

1. Proper and accurate LBL entries for each search engine.

2. Proximity to Centroid - a search engine's perceived “center” of a location i.e. the proximity to the center of Toronto for the Thai Restaurant example above.

3. Inbound Links - Relevance of local businesses, directories, terms.

4. Validation from third party sites (i.e. yellowpages.com).

5. Customer Reviews (positive/negative; sources i.e. Blog, Local.com, Zagat's, etc.).

6. Key Address information clearly displayed on Web site (full address & phone number on each page and on the “Contact” page, city/state in title tags, etc.).

7. Using the hCard microformat.

8. Phone Numbers - Local vs Toll Free, inbound links using the Phone Number, etc.

9. Media (images, videos etc.) associated with LBL entry and local relevance - title, description, alt, link, etc.

10. Localized hosting, domain, etc.

In upcoming blog posts I will go into more detail about some of these factors, such as how to submit accurate LBL entries and how to use the hCard microformat.

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