MSN Search Engine Tip:Inside "Near Me" Search
"In order to ensure the address is parsed properly you should format the address as in the following example:
1 Microsoft Way Redmond, WA, 98052
Notice the capitalization for the city name and state. Also, make sure the city and state are not separated by any html tags."
One of the new features introduced in the new MSN search engine is the "near me" option. This is an effort to help searchers find local businesses, and will be important to many webmasters.
This article is from the MSN blog and gives a definitive answer to how to work with this feature. The point made in the article is that you have to have your address on the page or pages that you want to have found when the searcher selects the feature. For most businesses with a local impact, this should probably mean on every page, for example, in the footer. Pay particular attention to the recommendations for the format of the address.
I would also suggest, as an additional precaution, that you find a way to include the zip codes near your location somewhere on your site, just in case searchers include their own zip codes in their searches to find businesses near them. I am not yet aware of the search engines including any kind of feature for "approximating" zip codes by finding codes near the one searched for. Some of the mapping sites do include this kind of proximity searching to give you distances to businesses (although I don't think they do it on the basis of zip codes).
1 Microsoft Way Redmond, WA, 98052
Notice the capitalization for the city name and state. Also, make sure the city and state are not separated by any html tags."
One of the new features introduced in the new MSN search engine is the "near me" option. This is an effort to help searchers find local businesses, and will be important to many webmasters.
This article is from the MSN blog and gives a definitive answer to how to work with this feature. The point made in the article is that you have to have your address on the page or pages that you want to have found when the searcher selects the feature. For most businesses with a local impact, this should probably mean on every page, for example, in the footer. Pay particular attention to the recommendations for the format of the address.
I would also suggest, as an additional precaution, that you find a way to include the zip codes near your location somewhere on your site, just in case searchers include their own zip codes in their searches to find businesses near them. I am not yet aware of the search engines including any kind of feature for "approximating" zip codes by finding codes near the one searched for. Some of the mapping sites do include this kind of proximity searching to give you distances to businesses (although I don't think they do it on the basis of zip codes).
posted by RGMyers at 11:48 AM
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