• really poorly most local business use (or don’t use) local search
• really abysmal local results currently are
• really easy it could be to improve results

Really!

So let’s address these issues individually:

Why don’t local businesses participate?

Because they don’t know any better and don’t believe that this applies to them. Whether you are a small business or Fortune 100; chances are you do need local search.

Let’s use a practical example. Assume I decide to cook Pad Thai for dinner and require ingredients. If I query, “Fish Sauce Morrisville, NC 27560” in G-maps, then ideally I will find local retailers who sell it. IMO, an outstanding opportunity for any business that sells what I need. My decision is going to be based on locale, store reputation and potentially price.

And that leads me to issue #2

Why are the results are crap?

Here’s what Google Maps gives me:

All restaurants…and completely irrelevant. It appears to be pulled from Web Search and then ordered by location. This doesn’t help me.

How can they fix it?

A feed. Forget limiting local search to services. Increase it to include products. Stores keep inventory electronically. Do you think for a moment that your local supermarket doesn’t have some idea of how much Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia they have on hand (give or take a pint)? Why couldn’t they list the inventory in an XML or Excel file and submit it to Google the same way we do with shopping engines or Google Base?

Data Fields could include:

• Product name
• Product skew
• Product description (optional)
• Product image (optional)
• Store location(s)
• Store phone number
• Hours of operation
• Product price!!! (hey, there’s a novel concept)

And if you tie that to Google Maps, all of a sudden, you have something useful for both big box and small businesses. Additionally, because Google Maps is tied to location rather than PR relevance, content, metadata, etc. the user gets to decide based on:

• How far they are willing to drive
• How much they are willing to pay
• Their previous experiences with that brick and mortar
• Google Coupons from the manufacturers versus the retailers

Overall, this seems to be a remarkably inelegant, yet simple solution for what I believe to be a very common problem?

Do you agree? What am I missing here?