A short post today, just looking into the future of search and of local search.
One of the main reasons I believe it is crucial for (almost) every business to have a web site that makes some effort at ranking at its local arena is that it looks logical to me that in the near future search engines will try and offer better service and user experience through local search.
10 Years ago writing down the term “New York City Plumber” would have astonished its searcher, simply because no one really expected to get a full list of dozens of candidates for the job, today it is almost the opposite, everyone expects the results to be there, and the next step is giving it to them, without any effort.
Even today Google asks you if you want your local search engine or the global one, the next step is not to ask, and to go even deeper (from country to state, from state to county, from county to a block?), and once this happens its going to be war of the pixels for exposure, because in that tiny space above the fold all of your potential web clients will live.
