Google is a Local Search Engine

In terms of being a local search engine, let’s take a brief moment to study how Google can enhance your profile within a local area and the way you can market your business with a view to achieving long-term profits.

How often have we heard the tale of a company that decides to build a web presence as a means of marketing their services or products in an online capacity?

The research has been carried out, an expensive team has been assembled to design the pages, a copywriter has been employed to produce the content and the directors sit with baited breath waiting for their new website to take them to next level.

And still, nothing happens. The phone doesn’t ring, the investment in producing the site appears to be wasted and nobody can quite put their fingers on how it all managed to go so horribly wrong.

In truth, you may have produced the best website in the world but it isn’t going to bring an army of customers to your doors

if you’ve failed to market it correctly. Catching the eye of your target audience is essential and in recent times, Google Instant has proven to be a formidable tool in directing the right type of potential business to your doorstep. Customers are frequently taken to the websites of companies within their own area on a basis of locality and relevance and this is achieved by the display of potential search engine results on an ‘as-you-type’ basis. Naturally, Google has managed to tap in to the strengths of locality particularly well in the past and the advent of Google Local is set to take former successes to new heights.

We’ve been preparing for the power of Google Local for some time and have already developed a series of budget modules that support keyword optimisation and three word predictive text entries. Most companies that market online use three supporting keywords on each individual module and, with most of them needing to use three of these modules in total, the nine predictive texts they require creates a dynamic website that can compete strongly within any local marketplace.

Google allows potential customers to seek out products and services within a local area through the use of its own algorithm and this also makes placement on Goggle Places an absolute necessity.

Results on Google Local will be placed on the organic side of the search and it is inevitable that Google will eventually be charging for this service so the dynamics of the concept are likely to change again sometime in the future. At the moment, it is entirely possible to upload video footage and to receive reviews but once again, changes are anticipated and it is expected that Google Local will eventually use a universal system that allows consumers to ‘vote’ on the relative merits of a company using a star system similar to the one made popular on eBay.

Prices will most likely be charged on a seven-tier basis with ratings from ‘A’ through to ‘G’ which will be based on data content within a website and the review rating each company receives. It is anticipated that up to 35% of all global searches will use Google Local data although geographical locations are also likely to have an influence on results. The resource will also optimise searches for a particular type of business. For example, a potential customer searching for plumbers will receive results on local companies from Tier ‘A’ down to tier ‘G’. This proves that Google are significantly shifting their bias towards producing local results.

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After detailed analysis of the future marketplace, it appears Google are committing to local results as a means of generating additional income and they are set to double their potential income using these innovative new methods. Searches for a particular service or product, such as a local garage or businesses that sell household appliances, will yield results that allow thousands of customers to vote on local company positions.

To optimise performance in an online capacity, local companies need to be using resources such as Google Video, Google Images and Google Places just to compete. However, most businesses within a specified area usually serve a radius of between 20 and 100 miles but ignore the importance of optimising their websites by adopting the local marketing power Google has to offer.

For most companies, the time to release their potential over a larger marketplace won’t happen until 2011 at the earliest. This can only be good news for businesses that are committed to marketing their products and services to a local customer base already there.