One of the often overlooked things in local search is customer loyalty. The idea is that when people do searches, they’re looking for new places to go, to shop at, or things they don’t know about already. If you already know about a place, or a loyal customer, why would you need to search for it?
Although there are some grains of truth there, there are some things that we have to remember. It’s called the “Google effect” or digital amnesia, where consumers process information differently today. We are overloaded with information these days, that we have become used to rely on search outlets, such as Google, to find information instead of remember the actual content.
It’s quite easy to forget the name of the place you went to for food, or to shop, but you may remember it was near a particular area or landmark. But after you pull up search results for those locations, the choices of names and locations would trigger your memory.
Loyalty in local search is about being top of mind when choices need to be made and friends ask for recommendations. Wesley Young has six ways to build customer loyalty and drive traffic to your local search results in a post he wrote for Search Engine Land.