I am surprised I didn’t hear about this from any typical news source, but Google has launched a 411 information service powered by their local search engine.
When you call 1-800-GOOG-411 it first asks for your city and state, which you give verbally. Then it asks for a keyword or category, I said “pizza” for my first query. Instead of the top 10 it gives you the top 8. At any time you can say “start over” or say the number of the listing for more information or to be connected.
When you’re in the details section you can say “text message” and instantly you’ll get the address and phone number of the place you were interested in.
So what does this mean for you? It means that local search SEO is more important than ever! Now instead of just computer users having access to local search, people driving around town everywhere will depend on Google for finding you, not the yellow pages they keep in the car.
I’ve been using Google SMS for a long time to find addresses and phone numbers of businesses locally. You just send a text message to 46645 (GOOGL) and type in “pizza near columbia mo” and you’ll get about 3 listings back with addresses and phone numbers (mine arrive in 2 separate text messages).
If you haven’t started on local search SEO for your site, it’s time!
