It’s not hard to understand why. A dentist in Des Moines may have a Web presence, but it’s unlikely he’ll be filling cavities in Cleveland. If your drain clogs in Denver, a plumber in Pittsburgh isn’t what you need now. The major search engines know this, in fact. Various geo-location technologies are baked into their algorithms. So when someone with a toothache in Des Moines searches for a “dentist,” one of the Big Three search engines is likely to figure out where she is (IP addresses are one indicator) and shove that local dentist’s site to the top of the results.

Pretty neat, right?

Well, it works if the search engine knows about the dentist in Des Moines. Therein lies much of the wisdom when it comes to optimizing for local search: defining locality (where is your company located and what area do you serve?).

It’s not only local service providers, shops, and tradesmen who benefit from local search optimization. So, too, do national retailers. You don’t just want to visit Wal-Mart; you want to visit the nearest Wal-Mart. You don’t order a pizza from Domino’s corporate headquarters, but you do want to order from the Domino’s in your neighborhood. Local search is important to every business, organization, and service with a localized customer base—or bases.

It’s a pity more businesses don’t know about and take advantage of local search. Local search can level the playing field considerably between large national businesses and small local providers. Given a degree of search savvy and a Web presence, a neighborhood flower shop could have just as much visibility and clout as a nationwide florist such as FTD or 1-800-Flowers. It’s a matter not only of knowing how to play the game, but also of knowing the game exists in the first place.

A down-and-dirty (as well as highly effective) technique to optimize for local search is not to rely on a single “Contact” page for local information. A local business can add a footer to every single page of its website that contains its street address, city, state, zip code, and local phone number, including area code. Quite possibly, it’s appropriate to use a degree of location in title tags as well—for example, Smith, Brown, & Jones Law Firm, Dallas/Forth Worth, TX.

Locally oriented keywords and phrases are also critical, and should take into account the various terms people use to refer to localities, which can be broad as well as specific. Here’s a hypothetical example with local keywords highlighted:

No one in the great Chicago area ever refers to their region as “northern Illinois”. But if they did, you can bet our fictitious locksmith would have cobbled the state’s name into his keywords as well. He’s betting on the fact that his customers aren’t just searching for a “chicago locksmith” in a town that big, but are winnowing down their searches to a more localized level, such as neighborhood.

Also bear in mind that local is as local does. The preceding chapter mentioned a New Yorker in Zip Code 10019 who wanted to order a pizza. New York is a large, but concentrated, urban area. Few residents of the city would be willing to travel more than a handful of blocks for a pizza. In Montana or New Mexico, by contrast, a customer may be willing to drive miles for the same pie. Yahoo! and Google Local know this. Both services sort results by distance.

When coming up with a local optimization plan, it’s critically important to understand what local is for the area in question.

A first step in local search optimization is ensuring that your business is listed with the major search engines, as well as with the Internet Yellow Pages (IYP). The IYP is the source of much of the local data used by search engines, as well as other online directories and listing services. Do they have the correct information? Is your listing linked to your website? Businesses with multiple locations in a single metro area can benefit from having separate directory listings for each and every location.

Don’t overlook local listings on popular directory services, such as Zagat, Citysearch, Yelp, Superpages, Judy’s Book, Yahoo! Local, travel guides, regional websites such as Boston.com and Nola.com (both run by major newspapers), ShopLocal, Chambers of Commerce, and local trade associations and other business groups.

For many local businesses, user-generated content and star ratings are a critical component of search results. The more—well, the more positive ones—the merrier. Ratings and reviews create additional relevant content associated with a business or listing, deeper descriptions, third-party authority, and can often be sorted by rating.

There’s no reason not to get the ball rolling by asking friends and family to begin reviewing or rating your business. A hairdressing salon in my neighborhood has a sign on the counter politely asking clients to add their comments about the business to Citysearch. In addition to creating greater search visibility and content, third-party reviews amount to a form of word-of-mouth marketing, one of the most persuasive and influential types of persuasion out there. It’s worth spending time developing ratings and reviews, particularly in a local context.

Further emphasize locality by adding a page (or perhaps adding to your contact page) of detailed directions for finding your business or office location. Write these out in detail, like so:

Add a link to a map service (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, MapQuest, and so on). And when linking to the directions page, “click here for directions” isn’t good enough. Instead, use “click here for directions to our Lakehurst flower store.”