Google Local Business Center–Put the Power of Google Behind Your Local Business

The Google Local Business Center is a tool that enables business owners to more effectively connect with customers searching on Google for information about local business. It puts business owners in control of their local business listing and helps them to provide information about their businesses that is authoritative, helpful, and, timely.

The Local Business Center is even useful for businesses that do not even have Websites since the Google Local Business Center makes it possible for them to use the local business listing their presence on the Web.

Signing up for an account with the Google Local Business Center – and adding or claiming your local business listing – should be a top priority for your business for five key reasons:

Your Customers and Competitors’ Customers Search Google to find Local Businesses

The Google Local Business search engine – which you can find at either local.google.com or maps.google.com (maps is, by far, the more popular of the two) – gets an average of more than 50 million unique visitors every month.

That’s a lot of people searching every month for, among other things, local businesses to buy from.

And although it’s advisable to sign up for local business accounts at Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines, a Google Local Business account should be your immediate priority because, as you can see in the graph below, Google is the runaway leader in local business search market share, with more than double the local business search market share of maps.yahoo.com, maps.bing.com, and yellow.pages.com combined.

Comparison of traffic values for Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yellow Pages local search

Of course, in spite of Google’s best efforts to promote the Local Business Center – and the utilization of maps.google.com – there are many millions of people who still use the google.com Website, even when searching for local business information. And, as you’ll learn in the next section, that gives local businesses an opportunity to capture some space at the top of Google’s “traditional” Web search results.

A Google Local Business Listing Can Take You to the Top of Google

Google’s launch of universal search in May 2007 meant that content from Google Images, Google Local Business/Maps, Google Video, and so forth could be integrated into its “traditional” Web search results pages.

This means that Google can – and often does – serve up local business listings as part of the Web search results even if location is not specified (it appears that Google’s search algorithm is able to detect “local intent”).

It’s increasingly common to find Google local business listings on the first page of search results – often at the top – as the “Google Local Business Seven-Pack” (a reference, obviously, to the fact that Google displays the top seven local business search results in a cluster of seven).

Google local business listings often appear above organic search results

Alternatively, Google may display a search query box at the top of the search results page that asks searchers: Looking for local results for keyword?

Google's local business search bar appearing within search results page.

Either way, a Google Local Business listing can put a business on the fast-track to a coveted position at the top of Google’s search results that may have been impossible to capture otherwise.

People Who Search Google for Local Businesses Take Action

A Google-sponsored, comScore.com study that looked at the importance of search in influencing offline buying behaviour found that 25% of searchers purchased an item directly related to their search queries, and that, of those buyers, 37% completed their purchases online while an even greater 63% completed their purchases offline following their search activity.

Google/comScore study of the impact of online search on offline buying behaviour

The study results underscore the fact that a Google Local Business listing is not only effective at driving traffic but, more importantly, it is effective at driving traffic that converts.

The Advent of Google Local Business Search for Mobile

As they continue to become more sophisticated and the browsing experience continues to improve, access to the Internet via mobile phones will continue to rise. In fact, Gartner predicts that access to the Internet via mobile devices will overtake PCs by 2013.

Google has clearly understood for a long time the synergy between local business search and the mobile Web, as some key developments suggest:

• Google’s July 2005 acquisition of Android Inc, a manufacturer of software for mobile phones (which triggered speculation that Google was looking to dive into the mobile phone market; the acquisition also eventually led to the development of the Android mobile operating system)

• Google’s September 2009 launch of an improved Local Search for Mobile that allowed users to, among other things, “star” search results on their PCs and have them automatically appear on their mobile phones; it also allowed users to search by browsing local business categories without typing (the video below offers a brief introduction to the functionality of Google Local Business Search for Mobile)

• Google’s November 2009 $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising company AdMob (on the heels of a five-fold increase in mobile search traffic over the previous two years)

• Google’s December 2009 distribution of Favourite Places decals to more 100,000 of the most sought-out and searched US businesses on google.com and maps.google.com (see the video below for details on Favourite Places)

• Google’s January 2010 entry into the mobile phone market that finally ended years of speculation about Google’s plans for the mobile phone market

Naturally, Google will continue to innovate in both the local business search space and in the mobile web search space. The key takeaway is that the businesses that get on board early will be the ones to reap the greatest rewards. And it all takes to get on board is to visit the Google Local Business Center and claim or add your local business listing.

The  Google Local Business Center is Easy to Use and It’s Free

If you’ve already got a Google account, you can simply sign in to the Google Local Business Center and get started right away. If you don’t have a Google account, all you have to do is sign up for one (you can sign up on the Local Business Center sign-in page).

The video below offers a brief walkthrough of the easy process for signing into the Google Local Business Center and claiming (or adding) your local business listing.

As Google continues to promote local business search, usage of local search by consumers will only increase. And considering that consumers who employ local search are buyers, don’t you think that you should sign up for Google’s Local Business Center and get your local business listing working for your business today?

Next Up: Google Local Business Ranking Factors

Getting listed with Google’s Local Business Center is the first step. After you’ve established your presence, you’re going to need to optimize your local business listing to ensure it has the best chance possible to rank at the top of Google’s local business search results.

We’ll look at the factors that can help – and hinder – a listing in Google’s local business search results in the next post.

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