As a service provider to major brands and independent dealers alike, it’s interesting to see how smaller retail players act in their marketing approach. What do you mean, you ask? Well, let’s take a look at some examples.

A local outdoor shop carries major brands like The North Face or Patagonia or “Insert Big Name Brand” here. It is well known for its local people and the helpful experience it provides customers who are shopping for big brand quality with a local service spin. You can talk to these independent dealers and store operators and they will be quick to tell you that they are indeed a “local business” and they are proud of it.

Now, here is where the disconnect happens. They forget to act like a local business online. They forget to fill out their local pages on the major search engines. They forget to make sure that the hundreds of online local directories have the right contact information on them and provide a link back to their website. They also forget that Google is more and more becoming a local search engine.

Huh? Yup, a local search engine. You see the people at Google are pretty smart. Sure they are paying attention to the mobile market and offering geo-location flavored search results. You knew that right? Well, they are also changing their UI (user interface) and rolling it out slowly. They have been for several months now.

So why should you care if Google is going to look different to the user? Take a look below at the screen shot found in an article over at SearchEngineLand.

Notice the highlighted area in the search result which is right below the search box. Google wants to know where you are so it can serve up local results. Traveling on business with your laptop and want to do a little shopping? Google can tell you where to find what you are looking for: locally.

So what are SMB’s and independent dealers of major brands suppose to do? Remember that you are a local business and Google will treat you as such online.

• Think about AdWords campaigns that will ensure you at least have a chance of being the local business of choice for whoever is looking for what you offer.

• Make sure you spruce up your Place Page in the Google Local Business Center. Did you know you could give coupon offers right there and control them from beginning to end?

• Make sure that in bing and Yahoo Local your listings are claimed and your information is correct.

There’s more but first you have to remember that while the search engines, particularly Google, seem like some big behemoths they are really just a way to advertise your local business to the local people who spend money locally to get what they are looking for from a local merchant.

In Google’s eyes, if you don’t act like a local business online then you really aren’t a local business at all. Now that is something to think about, huh?

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