Internet has killed the phone book. It also has highlighted a major weakness in search engines. If you are in Las Vegas and searching for restaurants you probably don't care how fantastic a restaurant in New York is. The search results you are want are the restaurants near you.This weakness applied to most services that need to be handled locally: plumbers, electricians, pool guys, photographers. Any time you need to actually see the person in person showing results outside of your area is wasting your time.

To eliminate this weakness Google and Bing have created local search and embed those results in the search results.

In the screen capture below we have done a search in google for "restaurants in las vegas".

When you specify a location in the search terms google returns a map showing local businesses that match the search criteria and these results are shown above the "normal" search results. As you can see the local search results return the business name, website, phone number and link to see reviews. Additional information can be added to a local search listing including a description of your business, hours, types of payment accepted and a coupon to get the visitor to take action.

Local Searches Are Done By Buyers

When someone searches "location restaurants" they are looking for somewhere to eat.

When someone is doing research on buying a car they search "ford" when it is time to buy they search "location ford".

When someone is thinking about getting their teeth whitened they search "teeth whitening" when it's time to buy they search "teeth whitening location".

That small difference in search criteria reflects a huge change in their mindset from passive looking to active buying.

Is your business showing up when people are doing a buyers search?