Local Search Optimization & Zipcode Search

Robin Goad of Hitwise just posted some data on postcode searches and seo (“postcode” sounds so much more polite than “zip code” doesn’t it?). He noticed an increase in searches for a specific postcode – b78 3tw – and figured out that it was related to people searching for directions for the Drayton Manor Park theme park. The increase in search traffic occurred around a school holiday so it was safe to assume that the searchers were parents looking for something to do with their kids.

Here’s the chart:

Robin also provides a list of popular terms that people pair with the post code when searching. If I were a UK site I might make sure that for the next holiday I had rolled out some page that target zip code searchers in a helpful way as part of my local search engine optimization strategy.

Whenever I suggest to a client that they may want to have a strategy to target zip code searches their first response is usually “nobody searches by zip code”. Take a look at your site. Have you come up with a good strategy to target zip code – sorry Guvnor – I mean postcode searches?