– Update — 28/10/2010

With the advent of Google Local updating regional informational searches with place page data and local maps taking precedence over the normal ad space, some of this post has become even more relevant to local businesses seeking exposure.

What you will have noticed now is ANY informational searches for example “hotels in Gambia” will bring back SERP`s with localized results, whereas before it was only through your .co.uk or whatever country specific Google search you were using.

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Where would we all love to be with our businesses in Googles organic search results?

*You said 13th didn`t you?

No?

Well that`s where you are if you expended all of that time and effort to gain what you thought was the #1 spot if your strategy was to rank for “travel agents in London” where is your number 1 spot now? Just below the PPC? Well if you clicked through that link you will see it is sat below the 7 pack.

I am not going to go into query numbers for that term but i know if i was allinlondon.co.uk i would be pissed at all of the potential traffic i was missing out on. Now compare that search term to “travel agents in Oban“!

Oh you spotted it! Yep, a 2 pack. See an opportunity there? Of course you do.

So what do you do if you want to climb the rankings for these local search terms and you are a travel agent in London going after that term?

You don`t run.

Any half arsed SEO will start to look into the competitions backlinks and citations, which is part of the meat that makes up local SEO but not the whole pie. Trailfinders for example have put a lot of effort already into getting to where they are in that 7 pack for London travel agents. Now grab there phone number and search for it, no wait i`ll do it for you. “020 7292 1888” quite a few results returned right?

Now which of those backlinks are you going after? Which ones are you already on?

Now wouldn`t life be as sweet as Eric Smiths in Oban if we had a tool that would tell us which sites we were already listed on and which we need to be listed on. That`s what i thought.

While honing my SEO Ninjitsu on Huomah i became aware of this weeks upcoming SEO Dojo chat with Garrett French and Darren Shaw who will be giving an insight into their new tool Whitespark Local Citation Finder .

Of course i gave it a whirl yesterday and after waiting what seemed like an age i received the results as promised for my local search term by email. Nothing fancy, no singing or dancing, just a sweet couple of lists which included the 7 pack, unique domains and a 3rd list which included all URL`s for the term.

One search and results by email. Sweet.

Now i know via Dojo Radio that Darren wrote this in a day and spent another day polishing and refining the tool but i well believe that he and Garrett are well on the way to a tool i will be happy to put into my arsenal for local SEO clients and i am looking forward to tomorrows chat.

Yours Sincerely

Eric Smith

I am kidding of course, oh to be an Oban travel agent

*I used artistic licence to derive the number 13 by including “Local Business Results for…” and “More results near…” which together with the 3 PPC and 7 pack gives your “organic #1″ a 13th spot.