Local search

In my business, local search isn't important. But for a lot of B2B companies it can be, either as a local distributor or service company. The recent roll-out of local search (Google, Yahoo) is a good way to find people ready to spend money.

I just made my first purchase of a local service via Google Local Search. It was so much easier than a phone book, too. The only dissappointing thing is that the listing Google brings you to doesn't necessarily have the vendors website listed, but thats most likely because these local companies don't have one.

So this looks like a new reason for local B2B companies to get on the band-wagon and get their own websites. For a local landscaper, I previously advised that they shouldn't expect to get leads from the web, especially since general results are crowded with directory services. Now the local search cuts those out.

Here are some tips to make your site local search friendly from the MarketPosition Newsletter April 2004: "Therefore, it's important that you design your Web pages with local searches in mind even if you also sell globally.How do you do this? It's easy. Simply add local keywords such as
address, city, state, province, or postal code to all of your keyword-rich Web pages"