Google's Local Search

[Pi Squared Technologies]

As a designer I have several buisnesses that i have designed sites for that I would like to submit to Google's (and now Yahoo's) loacal search listings.

It seems that I can only submit one site for the local listings because I have to sign into my accounts and fill out the forms to submit my site. Is this true or can I submit more than one with out messing up my personal listing?

Any help would be appreciated.

[bhartzer]

You can now log into the Google Local Business Center and change/add information:
https://www.google.com/local/add/login

[Pi Squared Technologies]

Thanks. Any idea about Yahoo?

[bhartzer]

For Yahoo!, you can most likely find the information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/local/index.html

[markusnelson]

Is it me or does Google Local have a problem - I have setup a number of my clients with Addwords but targeted tward the Georgia area / it seems that some ISP's don't even give google the info nessisary to list the keywords under the locality -

This is a huge problem -

If anyone has any info on this let me know - they still haven't gotten back to me and it's been a week,

Markus...

[Pi Squared Technologies]

Should the local information (ie. the city and state)be part of your key phrase to rank better in google and yahoo local?

Just a question.

[alienzhavelanded]

Why even bother submitting? If you build it properly, they will come.

[Pi Squared Technologies]

Originally Posted by alienzhavelanded

Why even bother submitting? If you build it properly, they will come.

That is a valid piont!
However:
Most of the sites that I do are local brick and mortar places that want to generate face to face sales. They want customers to come into thier stores.
It seems that submitting these sites to the local searches would be a great addition to my seo efforts.
I have found out that I am able to submit more than one site under my user id for both Google and Yahoo.
It is a time consuming task to say the least (esp. if I want to submit all of the sites to both) because each one has its own cast of forms to be filled out and submitted.
I'm just not sure if all the time involved would be worth it but I guess any additional things I can do to get my clients site seen and get ppl to them helps.

[alienzhavelanded]

The time involved isn't really worth it and I doubt it'll make any diff in their rankings whether you submit manually or not. If you build the sites with proper optimization, robots.txt, etc..the SE spiders will come to you. You are simply wasting alot of time. They also shouldn't expect to see increased sales or store traffic simply because they have a website.

[Pi Squared Technologies]

I agree with you there too.
I guess then then I will need to ask another question then.
Would regular optimization of the site get it listed in the local searches too? Or do the sites have to be submitted to "Local" also to be included in the local serach?

[ctabuk]

No actually, I think there might be a local solution, in the UK I went into 'Local Tourist'sites and found loads of Directories that were plain and simply, local lists of local businesses, and they were crying out for local links. Try a simple "Local Businesses in ***** websites" I hope you may be pleasently surprised

[alienzhavelanded]

In the case of Google Local search, it requires a Google account to submit. Seems in order for you to appear there you would have to do this manually.

[sjk]

Originally Posted by Pi Squared Technologies

Thanks. Any idea about Yahoo?

I think with Yahoo! you have to put in your actual address for each listing. But you can add more than one local listing associated with a single Yahoo! account. I've been working on the exact same thing with google and Yahoo!. For Yahoo!, if you click here:

http://listings.local.yahoo.com/account?lslgn=1

Log in using your Yahoo! ID, if you have already submitted any listings, you should see it in there pending publishing. Yahoo! actually goes out and checks your website to see that the contact information matches before they "approve" it. You can click on "Add Basic Listing" from that screen to and add as many Local businesses that you want (as far as I know).

With Google, I just signed up with their Local thingie, you have to wait for something to come in the mail (which is what I'm waiting for) -- some type of verification before they'll list you on Google Local.

Hope it helps. :o)