I have a small confession to make. I almost chose to leave the words Local Search out of the title of this report. That's because, to me, Local Search implies looking for something nearby (also known as Nearcasting). And though Nearcasting is a form of Local Search, we can't forget about Farcasting either.

Farcasting is search performed with local intent but for a location that is not necessarily local. Travel searches are a great example of this. I'm headed to Tampa with my kids next week, so I searched online for Tampa Bay Family Restaurants to see where the best dinner places were in the area. I performed a geo-targeted search but my query was not local—it was for an area that was nowhere near where I live in Colorado.

It's very important when optimizing for local search that you understand how customers use Nearcasting and Farcasting and the impact each can have on your business. We'll discuss those topics, as well as Yahoo Travel, Google Maps and more. I'll also provide a handy checklist at the end for you to use to evaluate a site's geo-targeted local search readiness.

Although the ranking algorithm for geo-targeted local search is quite different from that used for the organic search results, we can identify several factors that will help your web site rank better for searchers performing geo-targeted queries.

There are an enormous number of online businesses targeting users looking for something located in a particular area. Hotels, plumbers, attorneys and more can all benefit from using enhanced geo-targeted search optimization tactics to out-pace competitors and capture market share for short and long-ta...