Five tips to maximize the long tail of local search by Daniel Bower, 12 February 2008

Local search is fast becoming the most exciting search vertical on the web. Recent research by the Kelsey Group reported that 70% of Americans consult the web before making local buying decisions, while 36% of search engine queries now request local results.

By exploring local search, small business owners and marketers can benefit from both direct lead generation and general brand awareness. Brushing up your local keyword research skills is the place to start.

Local search presents huge long tail opportunities; the range of keywords, and the variations of those keywords that can land someone on your page are vast. Take for example our site welovelocal.com. In the short term after our launch, 96% of non-paid keywords had just a single visit.

While developing www.welovelocal.com we’ve learned a fair bit about the intricacies of local search. These tips are for anyone working, or looking to work, within the local space; be it ways to help flesh out your site's content for good natural listings, or ways to research keywords for an effective paid search campaign.

Know your local geography

Geography can be a pain - in fact, it can be a nightmare. Despite what it may say on a map there is always more than one name for a single place - there are probably more like ten. While one keyword may get the bulk of the traffic, it's guaranteed that there are others worth scooping up.

Spend time on any available local resource you can, researching all the variations - Wikipedia can be a surprisingly valuable starting point - but we found just pointing on a map and asking people you know to be equally helpful. For example, while doing a bit of research in a small part of north London we were given a list of six different names to call it - suffice to say we now cater for them all.

Find local places of interest

You want to be able to scoop up those people searching who aren’t too knowledgeable about an area. In this case you’ll want to make sure you have all the most recognizable landmarks covered. Get out a travel guide (or just search for one) and cover the popular tourist spots. This works for big parks, stadiums and transport hubs too. If people congregate there in the real world, you want to make sure it’s part of your strategy.

For example, in London we were keen to capture those searching for “restaurants near Buckingham Palace” or “hotels near Hyde Park”. It’s more time-consuming than “London” but worth it in the long run.

Work around the category

If you’re managing a number of different types of local businesses, it’s important to make sure that you cover the broader category terms. While generic terms such as 'bars' and 'restaurants' may get the lion's share of the traffic, you’ll benefit from including niche terms too.

Indian, Kosher and Middle Eastern Restaurants may all have substantially lower yields but combined will help bulk up your campaign - while this may seem like an obvious point you’d be surprised how many people overlook this.

Needless to say, time-intensive keyword research such as this is best aided with tools such as Wordtracker. Not only will it help you pull out the more popular terms that even the best of us miss out, it will also help you pick up all the misspellings too, which, when dealing with such a large keyword base, can be a particularly challenging task.

Use review sites and business directories

It goes without saying that a business owner/marketer should ensure they have maximum visibility in the various review sites and local business directories.

In the US these sites include Yelp, Insider Pages and Angie's Lists, but also the much smaller sites such as the excellent Lawrence.com. These sites provide an invaluable source of local data which can help you research fresh keywords. Spend time examining the way they are structured, the terminology they use and, where possible, the language used in the reviews.

Search around the smaller areas you wish to target and find community forums and niche sites - establishing the local issues which face your audience can be a great way to grab attention.

Feed web analytics data back into your campaign

No matter how comprehensive your campaign is, there will still be people who discover your site using keywords you never would of thought of - it’s the beauty of local search. Make sure you have your analytics tools running and are keeping a close eye on any keywords that start to bubble up. Make sure you’re reporting daily, rather than weekly or monthly, otherwise the small changes are likely to be lost in a sea of data.

Research from Hitwise earlier this month reported that small businesses rely on search engines now more than ever before - it’s a trend that is only going to increase as SMEs see the lead potential of local search. It’s yet another reason to hone your local keyword research skills.

For another article on homing in on the long tail, have a look at Wordtracker's Three Good Reasons to Target the Long Tail.