Over the past several years the number of people using smart phones to access the internet has sky rocketed. Many of these people use their phones and other mobile devices as their primary way to access the web, and others use it mostly while they are away from home. Wherever it is used, however, there can be no doubt that it has changed the way people are finding information forever. Businesses today need to understand that millions of people are using their mobile devices to look for things to do, places to shop, restaurants to visit and much more while out and about.

Where local businesses once simply put a sign out in front of their establishment, and hoped that people would stop in, they can now reach out to people in the area and actively encourage them to visit. When, for example, a group of people are out walking through town. If they decide they would like to stop for lunch, they aren’t just going to walk to the first place they see anymore. They will pull out their phones and type in a query about either the type of food they want, or just local restaurants in general. If a restaurant in the area has optimized their site for local searches properly, they will be displayed to these customers, who will very likely walk on over.

CHOOSING A LOCAL SEO EXPERT

When typing in a query on a computer it is typically important to include geographic qualifiers like the city name or zip code if you want only local results (though that is not always true). With mobile phones, however, Google and the other search engines can gather your current location from the device’s GPS. This is used to provide very targeted results to the individuals searching. Google can list different results for the same query based on where they are physically located at the time.
One of the most common things people are doing with their smart phones today is including the ‘near me’ qualifier. Typing in, for example, “Italian restaurants near me” will allow Google to find all the Italian restaurants and display them based on how close they are to you. Of course, if a restaurant hasn’t managed their website’s local SEO well, they won’t come up in the list. When people can’t find the restaurant online, they are far less likely to frequent it in person. This, of course, applies to all types of local businesses.

GOOGLE PLACES & OTHER LOCAL SERVICES

When typing in a query on a computer it is typically important to include geographic qualifiers like the city name or zip code if you want only local results (though that is not always true). With mobile phones, however, Google and the other search engines can gather your current location from the device’s GPS. This is used to provide very targeted results to the individuals searching. Google can list different results for the same query based on where they are physically located at the time.
One of the most common things people are doing with their smart phones today is including the ‘near me’ qualifier. Typing in, for example, “Italian restaurants near me” will allow Google to find all the Italian restaurants and display them based on how close they are to you. Of course, if a restaurant hasn’t managed their website’s local SEO well, they won’t come up in the list. When people can’t find the restaurant online, they are far less likely to frequent it in person. This, of course, applies to all types of local businesses.