Small Business and Local Search

July 9, 2008
 

Hosts Bruce, Robert and Susan discuss a number of recent search headlines, with Google taking a starring role. Some of the topics covered include Google’s ability to crawl and index text in Flash files, the newly launched Google Affiliate Network, and Matt Cutts’s announcement about how the search engine uses the data it collects to fight spam.

Then Matt McGee, creator and author of Small Business Search Marketing, talks to Virginia about how his blog has helped him gain feedback and insight into a new book he wrote about the rock band U2. Through a survey on his U2 blog, Matt also found that Twitter has not yet gained mainstream adoption, so social media efforts should focus on Facebook and MySpace. Matt recently accepted the position of Director of Strategic Search at the SEM company KeyRelevance.

Following up on Matt’s suggestions for small business search marketing, Susan and Virginia offer some things to keep in mind when optimizing for local search. From the local results of the major engines and local-only search engines to Internet yellow pages and local review sites, local search is a fragmented space. Providing accurate business data through a number of avenues and going after long-tail queries should be a focus of any local campaign.