With the current trend that the search engines have become the new Yellow Pages, Google, Yahoo and MSN have been altering their algorithms (a fancy word for how they determine who ranks for what and how high).   They are altering the algorithms to provide better local results. 

 Just 3 years ago trying to find a shoe store or gift store on a particular street in your town would usually yield maybe, 1 accurate result.  As more people began to search for local stores and businesses the search engines realized they had to improve their local search results and now they are competing to be the best as they know the site that provides the most relevant results could gain a serious edge in the searchers market share that Google dominates.  Google is trying to hold on to it and MSN and Yahoo are trying to capture it.

 Google has implemented the Google map results for local searches.  For instance, search for “carpet cleaning” in any city and you will get a list of results mapped on a mini map before the top 10 natural rankings.  So the question begs, where does your site show up for local searches. 

So how do you help your business to show up for local searches in addition to some good SEO. Make sure you are displaying a full address including zip code on your website along with phone numbers.  The search engines will use this information to map your business. 

Not only does this help but it also increases the “trust factor” for your website.  Search Engines are moving away from companies that hide behind contact forms and no direct address or phone number so having your full address and phone numbers will help to show the search engines that you are a legitimate, reputable business. 

 Home based business may want to consider a box office or an executive rental to ensure you have an address on your site, but don’t include your home address on your site for your own safety.

 In addition to this you need to make sure your site is appropriately optimized for your most related keywords and city name. 

This will help to ensure you are optimized for local searches.  Nothing complex, but you may want to consider having an SEO company optimize your pages if you aren’t comfortable doing this for yourself to ensure that it’s done properly and ethically.