The Local Business Information “Cloud”

Gib Olander of Localeze, a business information provider to local search services, presented a concept at the SMX Local conference last week that I thought might be helpful for businesses who are trying to wrap their heads around how they can use search engines to drive qualified traffic to their sites.

Gib talked about businesses creating a “cloud of content” for each individual business location to capture different types of search queries by potential customers. There are “Recovery” queries, where the user is trying to find you based on data they know about you, and “Discovery” queries, where the user is trying to find someone like you but doesn’t know about you yet.

When available to search engines via your website, online yellow pages, etc., the data that can satisfy each of these types of queries makes up the “cloud” and provides multiple paths for a searcher to find you. By having more data available in the cloud you provide more inbound paths for searchers and thus can attract more customers.

Here are some examples of data that you should have in your cloud:

Types of Recovery Queries (I know who I am looking for)

• Business Name
• Business Address
• Business Phone Number
• Primary Business Categorization
• Local Business Website Address

Types of Discovery Queries (I know what I am looking for)

• Products Offered
• Business Specialties
• Services Offered
• Payment Methods Accepted
• Location’s Hour of Operations
• Unique Offerings Within a Business Category

The moral of the story: Make sure you have all of your information available on your website and anywhere else search engines may find it (e.g. yellow pages sites) so potential customers who are searching for you can find you.