Know the importance of 'Local Search'

08th Dec. 2015

The Internet is global and searches on search engines can reveal results from all over the world. That’s all good and well, but what if you want to find an electrician or doctor in your neighbourhood? This is when local searches come in handy.

Local searches on search engines can limit your search to a specific geographic location. This is useful when you are searching for businesses or service providers in a given area. For instance, searching for a hotel or car rental in a place where you will holiday or a veterinarian or accountant in your neighbourhood.

Some electronic devices will now automatically use local searches – for instance, smart phones or tablets are able to ascertain your location using the global satellite positioning system. This means that if you are in London and you search for ‘restaurants’ the search engine will automatically return results for restaurants in London, without having to search for ‘London restaurants’.

These types of local searches are not only useful for users, but also for businesses that want to target consumers in specific locations. For instance, a house cleaning service in London does not need to advertise to people living in Germany! This means that search engines can help advertisers target users in specific locations - ads will appear only when users in that location do searches or when searches are made for services in a given location.

For the house cleaning service in London, this would mean that the ad would only appear if someone located in London did a search or someone searching for ‘London house cleaning’. This allows for businesses to advertise their goods and services in a specific geographic area and make their ads more relevant.