If your customers and prospects are locally based the importance of concentrating on local optimization of your web site and local directory listings gets more important with each passing day.

Google quietly upped the local search game by inserting the Google Maps local 10 (listing of 10 local businesses) into search results for local products and services regardless of whether the searcher used a geographic term in the search. It used to be that if you wanted to get local results for a good tailor in Kansas City, you typed in “Kansas City tailor.” Now, by detecting the location of your IP address Google will add the local result to the search results for the much more generic phrase “tailor.”

Notice the search in the image above was for the word tailor, but returned listings for Kansas City tailor.

My feeling is that this makes it more important than ever that your local business is showing up in those Google Maps results. (For now the search terms returning these kinds of results are primarily limited to B2C plays like tailor, taco, or electrician )

So, I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again – get to work on getting listed and getting in the top 10 on Google Maps.

1) Make sure you’ve claimed your listing – Google Local Business Center
2) Enhance your Google profile by adding lots of descriptions, images and videos
3) Optimize your web site for local search with local terms, links, mentions, suburb names, and your business address and phone on every page
4) Get links back to your site with local phrases in the anchor text – ie:”Best Kansas City Tailor”
5) Get reviews on your Google Maps profile – anyone can add a review directly into your profile and Google appears to give profiles with reviews higher weight – be proactive on this one.

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