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Many Bristol Businesses today are missing the potential to make inroads into Internet marketing by not having a Local SEO strategy. How so?

Dashboard Statistics, Huge Screen Real Estate Exposure, Reviews, Locality, Mobile Search, Increased Local Search uptake are just some of the reasons why your business should be interested.

Dashboard Statistics

Accountability is essential in any business and it is useful to review the statistical actionable data contained in a Google Places Dashboard every 30 days focusing on:

• Number of Impressions your company was displayed within the search results
• Number of Actions based on queried keywords
• Number of Clicks for more info on Maps
• Number of Clicks to your website

Is this something you would like to see each month? Below is a Dashboard from a friend’s website that is not being SEO’d by Phil Yarrow Consulting.

Google Places Dashboard - Aspire Photography Swindon

Huge Screen Real Estate Exposure

Google has been expanding the screen real estate for Google Places for years. The most recent rendition announced on the Google Webmaster Central Blog covers the large amount of space Google is providing to companies who have signed up for Google Places. Instead of the small one line results displaying just the company name, much much more is now being displayed.

• Company Name
• Company Description
• Website Address
• Google Places Page
• Address
• Telephone Number
• Reviews
• Map that moves when user scrolls downward

Surely this is something all business owners desire to see on the front page of Google for their business type?

Note the huge amount of screen real estate below (seven companies are being listed taking up a much larger space then previously) that is now being taken by the Google Places search result for “Bristol Toy Shops”, a very topical search query during a the last business quarter.

Google Places - Bristol Toy Shops

Reviews

Imagine if the quality of your customer reviews had a bearing on your search result ranking. Well now they do. Google Places ranks specific competing companies on one page. These companies would likely receive a similar amount of reviews as their competitors. That is, of course, if your competitor is also requesting its clients to leave reviews. Notice the reviews left for Toys R Us in Bristol adding up to a 4 out of 5 star rating.

Google Places - Reviews

“We’d never be able to request our clients to leave reviews for us” you may argue. This may have been the case if you had asked your clients ten years ago. However, they are more tech savvy now than you may give them them credit for. One excellent way to entice clients to leave reviews is through incentives.

• “Please leave a review on this Review Website and we’ll add you to our monthly £50 raffle”
• “Leave a review on this Review Website and we’ll send you a £10 gift voucher”

These and many other ideas work wonders in encouraging your clients to leave feedback. Google Places takes feedback not just from Google Place reviews, but also a whole host of websites that your clients may have already left feedback with. Some of these are:

• www.qype.co.uk
• www.yelp.co.uk
• www.localsearchdata.com
• www.welovelocal.com
• www.thomsonlocal.com
• www.freeindex.com
• www.upmystreet.com
• www.bview.co.uk

Locality

Local business searching is centred on distance. Therefore displaying the result within a map if less clandestine, less of a treasure hunt style mentality and much more customer oriented. Again, this can only be of benefit to you as a business owner.

Google Places - Map

If the searcher desires more information, he or she can easily click on the red alphabetised pin which will take them to Google Maps giving a topical search result within a map.

Increased Local Search Uptake

Reports forecasting an increase in traffic globally for Local Search show year-on-year growth patterns. Reports from SEMPO, Optimise My Website, Econsultancy and eMarketer all state encouraging figures for all businesses with local intent and show that usage of Local and Mobile Search is expanding exponentially.

On using Mobile Search for Local Search within the Google networks, earlier in the year Eric Schmidt trumpeted the synergy between these two powerful mediums. He stated that there positive growth was forecast that belied any pessimistic voices for Local Search not having the legs. Now with real time search and precise geographic capturing, providing your customers with pinpoint data is now even easier. The attention Google is placing on Local Search by recently purchasing Groupon, moving Marissa Mayer from Google into Geo and Local Services, creating a mobile operating system and manufacturing their own mobile phones gives you plenty of reasons to take Local Search seriously.

If your business needs clarity on this, we can assist you with your Local SEO Strategy.