Google launches India Labs, local search and local business centre

I have been following the recent Hot tourist destination with great interest. Local tourist place is a key factor in local search, so it’s no wonder that “entrepreneurial” marketers are doing there best to screw with Google’s (and other’s) fabulous search engine for local places. To some extent I am willing to look the other way when a fellow colleague wants to try a little experimentation, but not when they are doing it right on my front porch.

What Google India has done is  launching a new India serving platform, Google India Labs, and two new India-specific products, Google Local Search and Google Local Business Center to provide locally relevant information and opportunities for Indian users.

Google Local Search has been designed as a useful tool for Indian users looking for locally relevant information on local businesses like restaurants, shops, and hotels..

It will also give users a platform to provide valuable feedback to further improve the products. India Labs would initially showcase two India-centric products -

• The Indic on-screen keyboard iGoogle Gadget
• Google Indic transliteration

Ever since local search engine optimization has become industry-accepted, webmasters and local business owners have wanted a way to benefit from it. For those in the search engine optimization (SEO, SEM) field, this means optimizing sites to be ranked high for localized search queries.

This can be done by including your targeted geographical area(s) in your Title tags, content and links. Chances are your site can rank higher for "Bangalore office supplies" than the more competitive term, "office supplies". That's simple. Job done, right?

Hardly. A local income tax accountant would care more about getting qualified business in February and March than how high they rank in Google for "Your City Accountant".

Isn't this contradictive as optimization means achieving high search engine rankings? Not at all. The best Search engine optimization (SEO) firms focus more on conversions than rankings alone. It's great to get users to your site, but it does little other than ego-branding if they don't take action once they find you. This is especially true in local search engine optimization.

One important aspect in keyword research is that there are many local colloquialisms across the country. People in cochin and coimbatore might be searching for the same thing, but would enter two totally different search queries to find it. Localized keyword research like this is just one example of "what's good for the user is good for the search engine".

Inbound linking can be as crucial as content. These links are about quality, not just quantity. If you belong to a Chamber of Commerce or any local business association, chances are they have an authoritative web site, and many of these will link to your site at a nominal or no cost. Inbound links like these and other authority sites can be golden. It can give you very targeted direct traffic as well has help you in the search engines. This isn't to discount traditional link building, but it definitely helps to receive natural links like these. 

Small businesses have smaller marketing budgets. Just a yearly print Yellow Page ad can be a big chunk of it. Most small business owners have a good grasp on how their Yellow Pages return-on-investment performs. It's more static.

If they're going to sacrifice a penny of that budget for their site's optimization, they want to know they're getting their money's worth.