Outspoken Media gave a nice rundown on the Local Search Ranking Tactics from Mike Blumenthal, Mary Bowling, David Mihm, Will Scott, and Andrew Shotland.

Here is a quick summary of what each individual discussed:

David Mihm - local search ranking is a different mindset then SEO; three major local search engines – Bing, Google Maps, and Yahoo Local – who collect their data from businesses and other sources such as Localeze; a verified local business listing, off page criteria, reviews, and traditional page SEO are absolutely crucial, as well as consistency with your name, address and phone number.

Mike Blumenthal – ranking factors for google local include web page titles in maps, business title, reviews, and categories; google scores your website based on inbound links from documents containing your business name / address, inbound links with business name in the anchor text, business name in title tag, and all / part of your business name in your domain name; make sure you chose your business name properly.

Mary Bowling – you can’t be in top 10 without google local business listing; optimize map listings by using main keyword phrase, getting long-tail keywords, choose or create the perfect category, create citations and get reviews; use your website to build trust; check for location trust.

Will Scott – local listing / review sites – Yahoo Local, CitySearch, SuperPages, InsiderPages, Yelp, YellowPages, BrownBook, Merchanct Circle; maximize local listings,

Andrew Shotland – top seo’d internet yellow pages – 1. SuperPages, 2. CitySearch, 3. Yelp, 4. Yahoo Local, 5. Insider Pages, 6. YellowPages, 7. BizJournals, 8. AreaConnect, 9. Magic Yellow, 10. Switchboard.

In the end, it sounded like a really innovative and great presentation and I am legitimately upset that I missed it.

You can check out the entire article at Outspoken Media.