When most people today assume of the Internet, they consider when it comes to the World Wide Web and all the content on all the pages from websites all over the globe that search engines crawl, index, rank and serve up in response to search queries from the millions and millions of people who carry out billions searches across the globe every single month.

But Internet search isn’t just for the benefit of persons seeking content from any source anyplace in the world. Quite a few individuals who use search engines essentially use them since they are seeking data about places close to where they live or work or strategy to go to.

The Significance of Local Net Search

Local Internet search has been alive and properly - and growing - for years now. Actually, based on data published on Google’s blog, about 20% of all Google searches have a local intent to them (that quantity rises to about 33% for Google searches by way of the mobile Net).

A Kelsey Group study kind May well 2010 observed that 97% of all consumers use the internet to find local company facts - of whom, 90% use a search engine.

Seekers of Local Details Take Action

Individuals who use search engines to uncover local enterprise info don’t search just for the sake of looking. They search for the sake of discovering. And when they come across, they take action, as a Nielsen Net Ratings-WebVisible study discovered:

70% will call the phone number on a web-site
60% have referred a business enterprise they found on the net to a friend
52% constantly or usually research on line very first, then follow up with an offline purchase from a local organization
14% will send a small business they found on-line an email
11% will fill out an on-line form
How do those conversions compare to your Yellow Pages listings, radio and TV advertisements, and direct mail campaigns?

Google’s New SERPs Display Integrated Search Results for Local Businesses

It really should be no surprise that search engine giant Google - ever obsessed with delivering a greater good quality search encounter for its end users - has been operating challenging on improving its local business search facility and outcomes for fairly some time now.

And this week, Google rolled a new version of its search engine outcomes pages (SERPs) that represent a important change within the way universal search results are displayed whenever the search engine detects implicit or explicit local intent to a search query.

The new SERPs have eliminated the Local Company 3-7-10 packs in favour of an integrated search result. The new search outcomes for local businesses now combine details traditionally displayed within the Net search outcomes listings (page title, page description, and URL) with facts previously displayed only within the Google Places Page listings (pushpin corresponding to locations on the map, buyer ratings, critiques, and link to the business’ Places Page).

The map that employed to appear to left of the Local Enterprise 3-7-10 pack listings has now moved to the right - directly above the vertical paid search outcomes. It has also been produced “sticky,” so it remains in view as you scroll down the page.

Consolidated Web/Local Ranking Algorithms Could have Implications

Importantly, according to a post on Search Engine Land, Google claims that the ranking algorithm for local/place search has been improved and refined. Moreover, the previously distinct local and Web search algorithms have now been merged or consolidated.

This could have important implications for businesses which have held, within the past, top rankings in Google’s local organization search outcomes and Google Maps.

Local Businesses Have Been Lagging Behind

Local businesses have been - to their detriment - slow to embrace Google Places (witness the fact that about 90% of the 50 million+ Google Places Pages that Google had designed in September 2009 had been unclaimed, according to the most recent obtainable information). As a result, businesses have forfeited top rankings - and Net and physical traffic that top rankings can drive - to competitors that have only had to create a modicum level of effort at Search engine optimization for their Places Pages.

Using the new SERP display, local company outcomes take on new prominence on the very first page of Google. No longer will they appear as some aberration at the top (or within the middle) of the search outcomes. Now they are the search results.

The Time is Correct to obtain Your Local Search Marketing Effort in Gear

If your business has enjoyed top rankings within the non-local organic search results - but has completed little or nothing with its cost-free Google Places Page - you could be in for a big surprise.

If, on the other hand, your business enterprise has been shut out of the top search outcomes - local or otherwise - the time is suitable for you to make some moves.