The rise of mobile devices and online maps has opened up a whole
new area of search – local search. In April 2010 Google said a
fifth of all searches are local searches.
When I’m planning a holiday, I now use Google maps to find
attractions to see, public transport to get around and cafes for a
quick snack. When I’m there, I’ll find Wi-Fi hotspots (my
favourite has to be in the Gardens at London’s Natural History
Museum) to find things I’d not planned for.
So it’s vital for businesses to get themselves
onto the map and public bodies to boost their service uptake by
connecting locations to services. It’s also vital that the
right places are connected; I once walked for nearly two miles to a
nature reserve to find the visitor centre marked on the map was the
administration buildings and not the entrance! The entrance
wasn’t on the map - it was on a side road a mile and a half back
the way I’d walked.
Here are seven ways to make sure you’re accurately represented
in the search engines local index.
Is Your Contact Information Search Engine Friendly?
Check that your key contact details on your website (ideally
your home page and contact page) are accessible to search
engines. Make sure they are in HTML and not buried in a
graphic, Flash or other format. Ideally include your physical
location and phone number.
Google Places
Get your free Google Places page. This
lets you set your location, contact information, categories and
opening times. If you’ve got multiple locations there is a
bulk upload facility using a spreadsheet.
Bing Local
Bing may not get as many visits or send as many visitors to your
site as Google, but its users are loyal and so if you’re serious
about local search you’ll want to get your Bing Local listing
too. To do this you need to go to the 118
Information website and follow the simple steps to find
your business there.
Claim your Profiles
There are other local search websites and directories. Some are
new including Yelp and Foursquare, while others have been
around in some form since before the web like Yell.com and Thomson Local. Not only
does being listed on them give you more places where you can be
found, it reinforces the information about where you are to other
search engines and prevents someone maliciously cybersquatting on
your location.
Check your Records
Many offline records, from company registrations to Yellow Pages
listings, include your organisation’s contact
information. Make sure these are up to date as the search
engines may be checking these sources to validate the data they are
using. This is especially important if you’ve moved premises
as your old address can be listed instead of your current one.
Add a KML File to your Site
KML or Keyhole Markup Language files can be added to your site
in a similar way to an XML sitemap. Instead of telling search
engines about your web pages, it tells it about your places.
Like an XML sitemap, you can submit it to Google through Google Webmaster
Tools. There are a variety of tools you can use to make a
KML file or we can help you with this.
Advanced Markup
To really help the search engines understand where you are, you
can use specialist markup. Using the hCard / microformat
in your website’s html to mark up locations is probably the
best known way of doing this.
Google, Bing and Yahoo came together recently to launch
schemas.org which has many specialist markup formats you can use to
make pages more search engine friendly. These include a
basic place format along with
specialist formats for local businesses, tourist attractions and
civic structures from bus stops to zoos.
You can also add downloadable vCards to your website so visitors
can easily download contact details to use. With these there
is no need to cut and paste contact details from a web page into
your contact list in your email or on your smartphone.