Last month I blogged about the Google Local Business center. We went in to add our site and within about a week received the verification card from Google. After that I just forgot about it.
Today I read Chris Sherman’s Search Day newsletter touting Google’s new local search feature for mobile phones. I could not get to the local search screen on my cell phone, which I assume is because my phone browser does not support XHTML. Not sure on that I’ll have to play around a bit more.
I was able to test it using my computer browser, which seems to give pretty much the same results as local.google.com.
Running my test, I typed in “search engine optimization” for Reno, NV. A month ago, a similar search brought up local sites that really didn’t offer any sort of SEO. The results were pretty lame and our firm was nowhere to be found, (even though we rank in the top 50 for “search engine optimization” and our site clearly states we are in Reno, NV. Adding our business with Google’s Local Business Center seems to have done the trick. We came up #1 (where we should be)!