Whether you are promoting a realtor's site, a restaurant, a comic book store, or anything else that can potentially be "local" in nature, you shouldn't ignore the various map and local options that the search engines offer. We all want to be the "number 1" ranked site, but it is often an uphill battle. The more active competative a keyword has, the longer that it will take to get on the first page. By registering with an engine's map or local search option, you can some times land on the first page even if you are not the top ranked page in the normal, "organic" results.

Top Ranking Skips Organic -and- Pay Per Click Ads

Lets look at the Google search for: car rental portland oregon.

The first 30 organic, non-paid results are for for sites like Expedia, Thrify Car Rental, Priceline, a local company called Landmarkford, and others. Above the normal search results you will see a special map area that also lists several Portland rental care companies. Hertz shows up with several links in this maps area despite the fact that they're not in the top 30 organic search results, and they are not playing the Pay Per Click game.

Go to a local or map search and plug in your business name and a local area.
http://maps.google.com
http://local.yahoo.com
http://city.ask.com/city

If you find that you are not listed, add yourself. These services are usually free.
Google: http://www.google.com/local/add/lookup
Yahoo: http://listings.local.yahoo.com/csubmit/index.php
Ask: You'll need to email your business info to Ask. Ross Dunn's Optimize for Ask article tell us:

Submit your business information to askcitybusiness@help.ask.com with the subject line Ask City Feedback " Business. Ensure the following information is added to the email:

* Business name and complete address
* Phone number
* The category your business best fits
* The website URL
* A contact persons email address

Reputation Management

Just as you might monitor your search engine rankings, make sure that you watch your map/local listings. You may notice that some companies have additional items in their listings like photos, reviews, stars/ratings and other bits and pieces.

Below: Does a five star location stick out a bit more than a no star location?

In Hertz's case some reputation management is called for. Google has a review area where they display a negative review that they've indexed from Citysearch. A Hertz manager should probably head to Citysearch and post something there about how management has changed, how you only need to notify their staff of the issue, etc. Post something to encourage web visitors of what you are doing today to ensure great service, let them know that you aren't letting a negative review in 2006 hang up today's visitors.

For the rest of us, now is the time to encourage your users to post their positive experiences at Citysearch, Epinions, and other sites. If you have some one that is emailing in and singing your praises, give them a few outlets.

Most popular search engines re-use data provided by Google or Yahoo. This is why you receive Google search results when you go to Earthlink, AOL, and others. Even so, engines like Google and Yahoo source reviews, maps, and other data from a wide variety of third party sources including:

Yelp
Epinions
Insiderpages
Discoverourtown
Directory Assistance Plus

If you find that your Google or Yahoo listing does not include a photo of your building, a review, or other data, you'll want to contact companies like those above.

Summary

Being found online is more than just a ranking. Getting into some of these alternative searches now may also help down the road. Search engines are already on many cell phones. Search engines, and their mapping data, are being used by airlines with seatback monitors. Soon you may find Google and other engines providing driving directions and local data to terminals in gas stations. Ask the engines, where in the world your company is found in their local and mapping services. If you are not found or the listing can be improved, now is the time to do something about it.

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