Recently, Google made a big change to its search engine results as they pertain to localized searches.
Google Place Search organizes search engine results around local places for localized searches.
So far, this has been a significant impact on the visibility for the search visibility for local businesses.
In the past, Google search engine results for local places followed the format of paid search results, local business listings, and organic results.
Since the Place Search change, the layout of search engine results has significantly changed.
Most notably, organic and local place results are now displayed in a new hybridized listing.
These hybrid listings contain components of both organic and local listings.
Google claims that prior to the switch, local and organic listings were generated by two separate algorithms.
They also claim that, with the switch, the algorithms have been merged.
Therefore, local search marketing and traditional SEO strategies need to be merged in order to increase visibility for these local searches.
In other words, neglecting either traditional SEO strategies or local SEO strategies will lead to less than optimal results for local searches.
So what kinds of strategy changes need to be made? The first step is to keep in mind Google's ultimate goal: serving quality results that reflect their users' search intent.
So what does that mean? Well, when it comes to search phrases for which Google has algorithmically inferred a local result, only those listings that provide a quality experience and are trusted are more likely to be displayed than those that do not.
From a search engine optimization standpoint, this primarily means link building and citations.
In the past, optimization strategies may have reflected a separation between organic and local SEO.
For example, some local businesses would even have completely different consulting services for their traditional SEO and their local SEO.
With this change, local and organic strategies should be combined.