Do you know how your company’s local searches appear in the search engines?  Most of the new customers we get at Cazbah have no idea how they appear or why it is even important.  So why is it important to have a local search presence?

• 20% of searches online have local characteristics.  That is over 2 billion searches every month. (Google / comScore)
• A solid local presence with Search Enginers will drive more traffic to your site and through your doors.
• Provides quick and easy access to contact information.  Phone number, address, and other important company information.

Now that we have established that Local Search is important let me give you a couple examples of how important it is.  Since local search focuses on your company’s Name, Physical Address, and Phone number, if even one of these bits of information is incorrect is can cause a lot of problems without you even knowing about it.

Company Name
Having your company name not listed properly is not the most serious of infractions but if the search engines detect many different possible company names for your company it will focus on one name.  That will tend to weaken signals coming from other directories such as the Yellowpages.com and give your site less of a chance for a strong local rank.  Remember, there are hundreds of online directories (citations) that list your company information.  All those directories share information with other directories  It is important that most all of them have the correct information.  How complicated are the relationships between these directories?  Take a gander at this:

Company Address
Recently I did some research for a customer of mine who moved their offices.  When they moved they listed their new location with the local Yellow Pages.  This listing was eventually picked up by Google Places and other directories.  This causes two problems.  #1 Google now thinks that my customer has two locations when they only have one.  You can imagine the confusion this causes with customers  #2 The new listing gets propagated across all the other directories diluting their local search rank and making a bigger mess to clean up.  This is what that looks like when we run one of the reports we use.  All the addresses that say 26 Evergreen Ave are the WRONG address for this customer.

(This report was generated using Yext)

Company Phone Number
I was working with a new client who had changed their phone number to their fax number years ago and picked up a new direct phone number.  What happened?  You guessed it.  Their fax number was listed on all the online directories as their main number.  They wondered why their fax machine number was always ringing but no one was faxing anything.  Now they know.  After months of submissions we have finally corrected most of the problems but as you can see below there is still one nagging fax number that refuses to be updated.  See the red number below.  We will eventually get it fixed but it takes months of dedicated work by a Local SEO professional.

(This report was generated using Yext)

Conclusion
Local search is important.  It drives a lot of qualified leads to your web site and through your business’s doors.  If you ignore your local online presence you risk confusing your customers and prospects and will lose business.  Conversely, if you care for and optimize your company’s online local presence your customers will have a better experience doing business with you and it will increase traffic and sales.  Don’t get complacent with your online listings.  Start fixing them today!!