Local Businesses Search Engine Optimization
Want your local business to thrive online? There is an abundance of information about how to target local search terms and become an online leader in your local area and niche but it’s easy to experience information overload with all the advice that’s available out there. Here are the 5 essential components of local search that will help you rank and dominate in your local market.
1. Add Geographical Information to Your Page Titles
Make sure to use both your target keyword term and location name in your page titles. This allows search engines to determine easily what your site is about and search engine users are more likely to click on your site if it contains relevant geographical information and keywords.
2. Get Your Business Listed on Prominent Websites Directories
Google Maps, Yahoo Local, and MSN Live Local are all websites where you can have your business listed in order to make it easier for potential customers to find you. By claiming ownership of your business listings on these prominent sites, you allow both search engines and potential customers to get correct information about your business. Sometimes unscrupulous competitors may claim your listing on these sites to undermine you. Make sure you’re the first one to claim your listings in order to build trust between you, the search engines, and potential customers. There are also several local search directories that get significant traffic where you can claim your listings. Click2connect.com and Citysquares.com are examples of local search directories with good traffic.
3. Provide Plenty of Information about Your Business in Your Listings
When search engine users stumble upon your website through clicking on your business listing, you want to be sure that you give them as much information as possible about your service. In addition to including the basics such as your address, contact information, and operation hours give potential customers plenty of reasons why they ought to choose you over your competitors. For example, mention exactly which towns and neighborhoods you service, what credit cards you accept, what your guarantees are, and anything else that is pertinent.
4. Use Your Target Keyword Phrases as Anchor Text in Your Hyperlinks
Link reputation is an integral component of search engine algorithms. When possible, make sure that the links pointing back to your site use your best target keyword phrase and variations of your location as anchor text. Your internal links also contribute to link reputation so be sure to link to pages within your site using good link text. This link text can be used in your site navigation, HTML sitemap, and links within your content.
5. Monitor Reviews about Your Business Online
Thanks to the internet, consumers can submit online reviews of businesses to customer-controlled review sites like Yelp and share their experiences, whether good or bad. This could be highly beneficial to your business if it gets great reviews but it could also hurt you if you get some bad reviews. Monitor the reviews your business receives on a regular basis so you can spot bad reviews when they arise and dispute them if necessary. Sometimes customers don’t always give fair reviews so make that if you do get bad reviews that are unjustified, the potential customers who see them can get both sides of the story at the very least. Using Google Alerts is a convenient way to keep track of what is being said about your business online.
Focus on these 5 strategies in local search to boost your business’ online presence. There are several tactics you can use to increase targeted traffic to your business’ website and improve its ranking but these are some of the most effective ways to give your business a solid footing in local search.
Author Bio: I’m the head article writer for SEOSapien.com. We are an SEO Company offering SEO Services and SEO Consulting. You can find all our information, prices and more original articles at http://www.seosapien.com
Category: Marketing
Keywords: seo, search engine optimization, local business, small business
- June 1st
And at a much higher level make sure that you have the TLD for the country you are based in and also (although less important) make sure the site is host locally.
Have you seen the new tools laid out by google local? They are so neat and give you more statistics to see exactly how people are finding your business!
For you business to get a fly you need to in the top ten rankings. Your targeted keywords should be given much preference. Good content and proper link building will do the trick.
google have some great tools for this
And of course some quality relevant backlinks from the websites in your region.
Hi,i agree with u
SEO a key to success, but the correct direction is important.
As you have mentioned that you are running a small business, I’d suggest you the company which is best for me (magicsolv.com), this company help me a lot to develop my business. Their fee plans are very low so that you can afford their services. You can give a try, hire them if you satisfied.
Best of luck for your business.
I’m not an SEO expert, but all of these looks so logical to me. I’ve been managing a website myself and I have realized that SEO is almost the same as accessibility, usability and user experience. Do your best to make pages easy to use and both users and search engines will benefit from it. That’s it.