If Local Search was a building, it was look something like this' )photo from the Telegraph( There are new things being added, subtracted, re-arranged, re-named, left unfinished, and stolen all the time in the industry. We have seen the rise of deals, check-ins, mainstream local results in SERP's, review fights between the giants, and countless other methods of connecting local businesses to customers. Because of this,

We all know how important title tags are when it comes to SEO. Not only for ranking but it will also be the first piece of information a searcher will see about your site. I like to think of a title tag as a first date. You want to look better than you really are, and hope you can impress just enough to cover up future blemishes that someone might get to know. So, the question is how do title tags translate on the local playing field?

If you were to ask me what the biggest let down in the local search industry was a year ago, I would have answered without hesitation'..tools. There are PPC tools, SEO tools, Social Media tools, and even construction tools' but local search seems to have been the fat kid picked last in gym class. That being said, Local search got a bit more popular & over the last year there was some pretty cool tools that made their way into the local search space. On top of that,

These last two months have been quite interesting with the launch of the Google Places O-Pack . It seems like everyone and their dog finally decided that Google Local is going to be a huge theme for the big "G" moving forward, and a lot more businesses are focusing on it. Here is a chart showing the volume of leads that have come through my Local Search Marketing Company since the Oct 27th update. As you can see, the last few months have been good for business.

Yes. Not only did I tie in the word cornucopia into a local search post, but I managed to spell it correctly as well. Now lets get down to the nitty griddy. On October 27th Google rolled out a new way )and algo( to display local search results called Local Places Search . This update was a very large momentum shift in favor of local search and businesses that had a Places Page . Here is a before the AlgoWeen update, and after shot.