How Twitter’s New Geodata Will Optimize Local Business Websites

August 25th, 2009

map Suppose you run a cleaning company that serves businesses in Northeast Ohio.

You want to show up in Google search results for keywords like construction, cleaning and restoration services — but not for searches from Southern California or Northern Maine. You only care about searches from Ohio because they’re potential customers.

Right now your best tools are meta keywords (you can add local keywords to your web pages), links from local sites, and targeted local PPC ads.

But you’re about to get another very important tool: Twitter.

Last week Twitter announced that it’s going local — it’s going to make it possible to tie a location to tweets. This is big deal for marketers. It means that customers, businesses and search engines will be able to sort Twitter traffic by place.

There are at least three basic ways marketers focused on specific locations can take advantage of this new function:

(1)To Find People Looking for Their Service – Right now it’s possible to search Twitter for keywords like “cleaning service” but you get a worldwide search. That’s not very helpful for a business that serves customers within a specific geography.

But consider what happens when you can search “cleaning service” and narrow the results to a specific geography; all of a sudden the results of that Twitter search become a source of new business. Anytime somebody on Twitter asks for cleaning service suggestions, you can reach out to them.

(2) For Customers to Find Them – As soon as it’s possible to sort tweets by location, customers will get a powerful new tool for finding local business. Looking for a cleaner? Just search Twitter in your geographic area. The results will make it easy to see what the options are — and what their reputations are.

If you’re a local business, this means you need to get started building relationships and reputation on Twitter now.

(3)For Search Engine Optimization — Twitter and other social media tools are now a significant factor in Search Engine Optimization. The links and authority thatsocial media sites help your business create help you rank higher inorganic search results.

Now that Twitter is adding geodata, it will be a significant factor in local search. Searching Google Maps for a cleaner in Northeast Ohio? Chances are you’ll find a cleaner who has a lot of inbound location-specific links from Twitter.

What’s missing from this list? These are the biggest benefits that geodata will have for local businesses, but I’m sure there are more.