Local Search Engine Optimization for Business Name Search

Here’s a way to get your fair share of traffic from Google and then some.

You may have noticed that Google serves up 3 local listings in its Web search results (results you get from searching via the Google.com home page among others) if G thinks you are searching for a yellow pages-like search. For example, a search for “Denver plumbing” yields this result:

But if you do a search that directly matches a business name then Google will sometimes show just the business as a single local result like it did in this search for “Santa Monica Plumbing”:

What this means is that in the right categories with the right business name in the right city you could be at the top of page one of Google for some high volume searches. It may be worth some time researching results in your city and creating some new business names. Once you create the names make sure you register them with Google Local Business Center, Localeze, InfoUSA, Acxiom, Yahoo Local and others. It helps if you actually are a real business related to the category BTW.

Warning: This does not work every time in every city. For example, Santa Monica Plumbing & Heating is at the top for “Santa Monica Plumbing”, but not for “Santa Monica Heating”. Smaller cities don’t seem to show these local results in Web search results a lot of the time.