Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:28:33 by Matt Hopkins
Mobile search is the "next big thing" and all search engines are
investing heavily in their technology to deliver search services in
better ways to a mobile/local user.
Yesterday, Google announced the release of an improved mobile search interface for the UK market.
One
of its main features is the ability to remember your location for
certain types of searches. This means that you don't need to add the
location in the search term (e.g. bike shopPortsmouth ). In other
words, once you have entered your post code or city as your location,
any searches that Google considers to have "local intent" will be
restricted to businesses closest to you.
This is great news as we have been anticipating this type of behaviour when working with our Local SEO clients for some time. But it's interesting to see what Google currently considers as a "local" type of search.
First
of all, you can't set your "local" location in the "Settings" page for
Google mobile. I don't know why; to me, this would have seemed to have
been a logical location. So in order to tell Google where you are
located, you need to first enter a query that it considers to be
locally oriented - e.g. "Pizza Restaurant".
When you first enter
this type of search - you get the "global" ranking results as you would
with the web version.. but if you scroll down a bit you will see a box
where you can "enter your location".
Once
configured, you'll get Google Local Business entries in the results
followed by web pages that are filtered for local content.
When
I first tried it, I placed my Portsmouth post code and searched for a
"pizza restaurant" - the first result was a place in Southampton (20
miles away) which was disappointing.
The real issue is what
triggers a "local" search in Google. Now that I have set my location,
I would expect all of my search requests to take this into
consideration. But this is not the case.
Shops,
restaurants, garden centres, dentists, etc - all come back with useful,
local results. And the nice thing about getting these results on your
mobile phone is that the phone numbers are hyperlinked so that you can
call them directly by clicking on it. Also - if you have Google maps
installed on your phone, you can get directions - which is superb.
However,
I would have expected some other types of searches to have "local
intent" that do not. For example - if I wanted to buy or rent a house,
wouldn't that be location-based? I tried to search for an estate
agent or letting agent near me; but no apparently not - I only got the
national listings.
Local SEO is becoming an essential part of marketing for any business that is targeting
customers within close proximity to their business. Part of this
process is to ensure that the search engines understand where your
business is physically located and what kind of business you are.
Mobile search will be like pouring gasoline on the fire for local - it
solves the second half of the equation by identifying the location of
the searcher and it takes relevant to the next level.. relative. You want search results to be relevant; but when you are using your mobile phone, you also want them to be geographically relative.
Matt Hopkins
Managing Director |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
