Focus on Local Search…

Posted by Laura Bergells

May 31, 2005

If you have a site that’s focused on local business, getting search engine traffic can be tough….and it’s only going to get tougher.

Let me give you an example. Suppose I run a site that lets you preview the qualifications of local realtors (like, say Connect2Agent.com. Connect2Agent profiles thousands of realtors in hundreds of US cities. So, if you’re looking for a Kalamazoo realtor, you might go to your favorite search engine and type in “Kalamazoo Realtors”.

And you’d most likely be presented with a smattering of information in the top ten results — a few local realtor sites, a local realtor association, and a number of real estate directories. But what you REALLY want is a good local realtor that meets your needs, so you’ll just hope that Connect2Agent is in the top 10, so that you can research the qualifications of all the realtors in the Kalamazoo area. Otherwise, you’d have to wade through a bunch of realtor sites.

But the fact is that search engines now favor what’s called “local search”. This means that if you type in a city name with your search phrases, the search engine is likely to favor someone who has a yellow page ad in that particular city — which means that in the future, you’re going to have to wade through dozens of realtor sites to find the information you’re looking for — instead of going to a directory and review site like Connect2Agent.

So, directory sites like Connect2Agent will need to start building sites that are very community rich. They’ll have to start writing more content about the locales that they are trying to attract. They also need to update the information frequently, to keep their audience coming back for more information.

So, if your site is a nationwide directory, you’re going to have to start building local community pages. Here’s two tips/tools to get you started.

1. Check out RSS. Use an RSS aggregator (CaRP is free)and get local feeds at sites like Yahoo or Topix.net. Local RSS news feeds will change daily — giving your audience a reason to come back. If they are interested in moving to Kalamazoo, they can keep coming back to find out what’s going on in that community. The constantly changing RSS news feed will keep them informed. Additionally, search engines tend to favor sites that offer updated content. So, you’ll win with your audience, and you’ll win with the search engines.

2. Don’t ignore the suburbs. If you write only about Kalamazoo, you’ll be missing out on attracting people who are interested in moving to its suburbs. Be sure to research and include copy and news in the ‘burbs of the major SMSA (standard metropolitan statistical area — that’s census speak for “the major city”.) Use a tool like Local Search Keywords at 5minutesite.com to find out the names of the local regions….and write about them in your main city attraction pages, as well.

Here’s a sample of how I used both tools above to create an example of a community page for peopl who are looking for Kalamazoo Realtors.

The information will change daily, thanks to the newsfeed at the bottom. And I created a link to the Connect2Agent search tool that lets searches find EXACTLY what they are looking for in one click. Plus, I encourage people to come back to explore related topics to relocation.

So let me ask ya: what do you think of an approach like this?