Consumers are increasingly searching for products and businesses online.

With the arrival of Google+ Local, a SoLoMo strategy appears like a must-have for local businesses to reach their target.

What is SoLoMo?

SoLoMo stands for SOcial, LOcal and MObile. It has emerged few years ago with the rise:

• of people searching for products online
• of the geolocalisation trend
• of the use of mobile phones and tablets

Why is it becoming important?

Google+ Local is now integrated in the social network Google+, and in Google results for local searches. There is also an iPhone App to allow to find businesses nearby, listed by categories. The new look is now very clean and allows more interaction: Google makes it easier for people to run local search. The business pages include recommendations from users, making prominent recommendations from user in your network. If someone you are connected with gave a recommendation about a business (written review or +1 click), the business will even appear in a higher ranking on Google results.

As we stated in a previous post, recommendation is a powerful opportunity for local businesses.

What to do to seize this opportunity?

First of all, we highly encourage local businesses to get a Google+ Local presence with updated information and anything to make the page dynamic (pictures for example). Generating online word of mouth with reviews and monitoring what customers say is also becoming more important. Check our advice about online reviews in this post!

If you want to improve your online presence, we can help you with Google+ and other great online tools and SEO, contact us!