“Local Search is seeking information online with the intention to make a purchase offline.” As online marketing has drastically changed in the last few years, there is also big change in SEO techniques and search techniques. If you are dealing in local business, becoming findable in local search is necessary for your business.

There are 2.6 billion local searches in a month, which means there is a large audience who searched for local businesses, and 91% of them use search engines to search for a local business.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing are search engines that have created algorithms for local search, including customizable business listings for every business. These listings include basic information for your local business like name, logo, contact information, location on a map, business times, website, address, and a description of your products and services. You can enhance your listings with image, video, coupons, and special offers.

Private label local search: Traditional local media companies, including newspaper, television and radio, are starting to add local search to their local websites to attract local search traffic and advertising revenues from the niche market in which they serve.
These types of companies develop their own technology or licensed from a third-party online local search solution provider. These are “Private Label or White Label” local search.

Social local search: This local search is incorporated with social signals. This type of social search includes Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Foursquare, and LinkedIn. Social local search increases your listing ranking. You can combine social search signals, such as Facebook likes, and ranking signals, such as keyword relevancy and distance, to give a better crowd-source experience to your audience. Social media also helps you with featured mobile apps, which make your business discoverable to your audience.

Mobile local search: Several providers are providing local search for mobile devices. It will help your customers search your local business using their mobile devices. Your customers can search for your products and services, contact information, and much more.
Business owners and local search: Every business owner or individual who wants his details, like name, phone number, address, business description, and business hours, to show up in the local search have many options for doing so. They can do this by claiming business listings through Google’s, Yahoo’s, and other search engine’s local service centers. The listing information can be listed via traditional yellow pages or search engine optimization services. The geo-tagging techniques (i.e. tagging photos with the location) can also be used.