I had an interesting local search weekend. I am always interested to see who is optimized for local search as I feel that companies in Canada are not as optimized as well as they should be. So I was out on Saturday looking for a certain DVD and I dropped into Rogers to see if I could find it. While in there I thought I would see how a large player like Rogers performs for local search. I did a local search on Google Maps on my Blackberry (that has a GPS) for “DVDs” and to my surprise Rogers did not ever come up. Surprised that such a large player would not be optimized for local search. So I thought I would test another large retailer, I live by an Indigo (Chapters) Bookseller retail store. So right outside their doors I searched for “Books” to my surprise they did not even come up in the results. Then I went by Golf Town and searched for “Golf” and they did not even come up. Interesting.
To me this is an opportunity for the smaller retailer to compete with the larger retailers. This is a common way everyone is searching and if not they will be searching. If your washer breaks down you will not look in the yellow pages as its easier to search in the your smart phone. So in conclusion big guys like Rogers, Indigo and Golf Town have to optimize for local search and all other industry niches this is your opportunity to optimize first. Google always has liked history so maybe if you are first you will be ranked well once everyone gets on the local search smart phone band wagon.
